Month: May 2016

“When I came last to Ludlow…”

This week in her Black & White series, Cee gives us a free hand, and says we can post our favourite B & W images. Here is one of mine: Dinham Bridge over the River Teme, with Ludlow Castle above. For those of you who do not know England, Ludlow is a scenic market town in South Shropshire. All looks so tranquil here, and the town itself ever has a sleepy air.

Historically, though, Ludlow was an important border stronghold commanding the Welsh Marches to the west, and repeatedly the scene of bloody battles and political intrigue down the ages.

The castle is almost a thousand years old, having its beginnings on the crest of the hill in around 1075. The outer fortifications were added a hundred years later, and the castle continued to expand and become ever more grand over succeeding centuries.

I’ve mentioned before that one of the castle’s claims to fame is that it was here in 1501 that fifteen-year old Prince Arthur Tudor, son of Henry VII and thus Henry VIII-to-be’s older brother, spent his honeymoon with sixteen-year old Catherine of Aragon, and that Arthur caught a fever and was dead within the year, thus leaving Catherine to be betrothed to Henry.

Nearly thirty years later when Catherine was embroiled in Henry’s ugly attempts to be rid of her so he could marry Anne Boleyn (he demanded an annulment on the grounds that it went against biblical teaching for a man to marry his brother’s wife) she claimed that nothing had happened between her and Arthur at Ludlow; that their marriage was never consummated.

So much for Ludlow-past as a honeymoon destination.

But the castle has older more grizzly mysteries associated with it. They relate to the Wars of the Roses mentioned in the previous post. Ludlow Castle was one of Richard Third Duke of York’s key strongholds until it was lost to Lancastrian forces in 1459 at the Battle of Ludstone Bridge – the next bridge downriver from the one in the photo. Three years later in 1461, when his son defeated the Lancastrians and became Edward IV, the castle was restored to the Crown, and it was during Edward IV’s reign that both castle and town grew in political prominence.

And it was in Ludlow Castle where Edward IV’s sons, Edward and Richard, spent much of their childhood, and whence they were taken in 1483 to the Tower of London. Their father had died, and Edward aged twelve had been pronounced Edward V, but was not yet crowned. His father’s brother, Uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester, aka Richard Crookback and soon to be Richard III, was Lord Protector.

Then came news that Edward IV’s marriage had been proved invalid. His young sons were declared illegitimate, and Richard quickly had himself crowned. The boys, thereafter referred to as the Princes in the Tower, were never seen again. Behind them only argument remained – did Richard III have his nephews murdered? Did the two small skeletons, later unearthed in the Tower, belong to young Edward and Richard? When I think of them in the brooding Tower of London, which incidentally was then a royal palace and not a prison, it still gives me a pang. I sense their feelings of loss and displacement, a pining for Ludlow, ‘the hill beside loud waters’**, the forests and wide Shropshire vistas below the battlements; just the place for growing lads.

If Richard did kill the boys in a bid to secure his claim to rule, it didn’t do him much good. He was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 after only two years as king. His remains were buried in the church of a Franciscan Friary in Leicester, and in 2012 were re-discovered with much fanfare during an excavation of the site, which by this time lay buried under a city car park. Leicester University scientists then set out to prove the identity of the skeleton, an exciting piece of forensic archaeology and genealogy which is detailed at this link.

After Richard came Henry Tudor who won the day at Bosworth Field, the last significant conflict in the Wars of the Roses. So ended the Plantagenet Dynasty, and so began the Tudor Dynasty with the coronation of Henry VII – which is pretty much where this post began.

These days Ludlow Castle is a prime tourist attraction. It is privately owned by the Earls of Powys, and has recently been subject to much restoration work. If you can’t visit in person, then follow this link to do a virtual tour. But if you do get a chance to go there, the town itself is also a treasure. You will not be disappointed.

* “ When I came last to Ludlow…” from A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad LVIII

** The name Ludlow is said to derive from the Old English meaning ‘the hill beside loud waters’

Related:

My Treat Today In Ludlow

A Five-Hundred-Year Old C.V.

A Five Hundred-Year-Old C.V. ~ And All Kinds Of Timeless Connections…

THIS TOMB

IS TO THE MEMORY OF

SIR RICHARD CROFT . KNT .

SHERIFF OF HEREFORDSHIRE

1471-72-77-86

FOUGHT AT MORTIMER’S CROSS 1461

TEWKSBURY 1471

M.P. FOR HEREFORDSHIRE 1477

GOVERNOR OF LUDLOW CASTLE

CREATED KNIGHT-BANNERET

AFTER THE BATTLE OF STOKE 1487

DIED JULY 29 1509

ALSO OF ELEANOR HIS WIFE

DAUGHTER OF SIR EDMUND CORNWALL BARON

OF BURFORD SALOP

WIDOW OF SIR HUGH MORTIMER OF KYRE

Sir Richard Croft (born 1429) lord of the manor of Croft Castle in Hereforshire was advisor to Edward Duke of York during the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461. The Duke was eighteen years old and had recently succeeded his father, Richard third Duke of York, to the title. Richard had been killed in the previous year at the Battle of Wakefield. Lady Eleanor Croft’s first husband had also also killed in that battle. These were Wars of the Roses times wherein the Houses of York and Lancaster vied bloodily for the British crown. The Battle of Mortimer’s Cross was fought on Croft land not far from the castle (and in the English Midlands nowhere near either York or Lancaster) and was a turning point in the conflict for reasons I’ll get to in a moment.

First I should say that this week’s theme at Paula’s Black & White Sunday is TIMELESS. And the reason I’ve chosen these photos is because there is quite another timeless connection – i.e. the words of William Shakespeare whose 400th memorial anniversary is being celebrated this year. In Henry VI pt 3 Act II scene i, he makes reference to a strange meteorological event that occurred before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, although the actual battle does not feature in the play.

This is Shakespeare’s version of what was seen, expressed in an exchange between brothers, Edward 4th Duke of York the soon-to-be Edward IV, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III:

Edward: Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?

Richard: Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun; Not separated with the racking clouds/But severed in a pale clear-shining sky. /See, see: they join, embrace, and seem to kiss, /As if they vowed some league inviolable./Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun. /In this the heaven figures some event.

The phenomenon described here was a parhelion or sun dog, a refraction of the sun’s rays through ice that created the impression of three separate suns rising simultaneously. According to historical accounts Edward decided that this extraordinary vision was a great portent promising victory, while his opponents were filled with terror. Thus inspired with holy certainty, Edward’s army won the day. A few weeks later Edward was crowned king. The sun thereafter featured as part of his personal emblem.

I’m afraid I have only one sun in my photo of Croft Castle and the chapel where Sir Richard and Lady Eleanor have their magnificent tomb, but then there are other interesting signs in the sky. Incidentally, Sir Richard served in his various official capacities (quoted in the memorial plaque above) under four successive monarchs, including Richard III.

Also to coincide with this year’s Shakespeare celebrations, the BBC is currently airing its own ‘Game of Thrones’ version of Shakespeare’s War of the Roses history plays, The Hollow Crown; proof of the timeless quality of good yarns, even if a few liberties have been taken with the playwright’s text. But then ‘the bard’ was nothing if not a past master at recycling other people’s tales and historical accounts, and giving them his own particular gloss; even during his own time players of his works apparently changed the words. It was ever thus with the art of good storytelling…

See How Her Garden Glows ~ Thursday’s Special

Here at our house on Sheinton Street – also spelled Shineton at the other end of the road, we try to live up to our location with as much shining and glowing as we can muster. This year the yellow tulips have certainly done their stuff, but now they are gone, and we’re waiting on the oriental poppies to keep the glow going.

Thursday’s Special: Glow

Please visit Paula to vote on last week’s park entries, and to add to this week’s glow

The Power Of Green And Dappled Sunlight This Morning On The Linden Walk

You can almost see the sap rising – gushing forth in fact to catch up after a slow-start spring. Anyway, walking amongst it this morning made the pursuit of allotment chores a complete and utter pleasure.

The chore in question is part of my on-going experiments with no-dig cultivation. So armed with my big green polypropylene bag I was out gathering up some of the piles of tree shreddings left around the Linden Field by the chap who comes to trim the lime trees’ overgrowth. I then haul them up to the allotment where I am covering a 6 feet wide x 20 feet section of uncleared plot with cardboard plus several inches of chippings on top. It’s rather a slow process, but I’m over half way there.

I’m hoping that by the time I get round to cultivating this section next year, most of the worst weeds will have turned up their roots, and the mulch rotted down enough to produce a reasonable planting medium. Oh yes, and that in order to achieve all this both the cardboard and the mulch will have attracted a lot of very happy worms.

The thing is, though, once I’m out on the Linden Walk it is so easy to forget about heavy labouring, and slip into a complete green daze. And as you can see, I also had my camera with me. I was particularly taken by this fence post:

And then at the end of the avenue near one of my target chippings piles, I noticed a nice flat area between the limes and the old railway line. I had not spotted it before, but it looked just the place for some qi gong. Secluded enough, I thought, not to frighten any of the Wenlock dog walkers who might otherwise come upon me in the midst of repulsing the monkey or being a wild goose flying. So this is where I stood – beneath a canopy of limes and sycamores, accompanied by bird call and the soft flutter of pigeon wings. Aaaaah. Wishing you a similarly blissful, green-filled, sap-rising, sun-dappled day.

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Now please pop over to Jo’s Monday Walk for a truly inspiring excursion in beautiful rural Poland. And to add your own walks to Jo’s go HERE.

Textures Of My Ancestral Landscape

These are some of the landscape textures that my maternal ancestors, the Fox family of Derbyshire’s High Peak would have known well – windswept moors and weathered scarps of millstone grit. They were yeoman farmers and lead miners, and they made a living from this bleak and beautiful country for hundreds of years.

Family legend has it that the Foxes arrived in England with William the Conqueror, but Fox is a name with Germanic origins so they may well have been Saxons, belonging to the conquered rather than to the conquering forces. The earliest records for Foxes in the Hope Valley, and Offerton in particular – where my Foxes farmed until the end of the nineteenth century, are around the thirteenth century, although I and my fellow Fox researchers are yet to establish direct lineage from these times.

There were centuries of prosperity when various family members lived in large stone farmhouses, made ‘good’ marriages, and owned land and lead mining concessions, but by the early twentieth century there was only one member of my Fox line left in the area, and he was living modestly in Eyam. The family farm of Callow where he was born, and by then owned by the Duke of Devonshire had been relinquished with a farm sale in 1892. High rents were besetting many Derbyshire farmers at this time. The Mr Fox mentioned in the sale advertisement is my great great grandfather, George Brayley Fox:

The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent

Saturday 29 October 1892

Callow Farm Sale

Important Sale of 23 cows, heifers, steers and calves, two horses and foal, 30 sheep, hays stack, three wheat stacks, seven oat stacks, farm implements etc.

Mr Hattersley has been honoured with instructions from Mr Fox who is give up the Farm, to sell by Auction on Wednesday, Nov 3, 1892, the very superior LIVE and DEAD FARM STOCK, as briefly enumerated below:

Black Mare, believed to be in foal, excellent worker;

Valuable Brown Horse, six years old, with splendid action, believed to be sound, and quiet in all work;

Roan foal by Bedford;

One Cow in calf for December 25^th,four in-calf cows for April, two barren cows in milk, four very choice heifers in calf for April, two barren heifer stirks, five strong bullock stirks, five spring-reared calves, 11 superior stock ewes, six fat sheep, one two-shear ram, 12 strong lambs, two very fine ducks, one fine drake.

Samuelson’s 2-horse combined mower and reaper, nearly new with additional shafts; wood tippler, horse rake, Cooke’s wood plough, set of wood harrows, nearly new; set of three harrows, swingtrees, fallow drag on wheels, stone roller, with shafts, horse turnip hoe, sheep troughs, joiner’s bench and tools, quarry tools, hay rakes and forks, 2 1-horse carts, winnowing machine, wheel chopper, with rising mouth, in excellent condition; corn chest, cart gears, stone cheese press, lever ditto, cheese rack and boards, nearly new; vats, garths etc, cheese pan, two brewing tubs, two oak chests, and a portion of furniture.

One stack of very prime new hay, three stacks of wheat, five stacks of white oats, two ditto of black oats and a quantity of table and other turnips.

Sale to commence 12 noon.

Every item here tells of great intimacy with the land. Just to read this notice gives me a painful sense of roots yanked up. I feel the touch and then the loss of the fine ducks, the strong lambs, the black mare in foal, the oats and the stone cheese press; even the turnips and the quarrying tools. But I would like to think, too, that somewhere in my bones are still traces of that High Peak millstone grit, the hardiness and courage that it took to carve a living from these uplands, and in my lungs the sharp, clean air of the moors of Longshaw where earlier generations of my family, so it is said, grazed four hundred sheep on their own run, and also owned the shepherd’s byre, that dating from 1399 was later sold and expanded into a handsome house for the Duke of Rutland’s agent, and is now the well known inn, Fox House, just outside Sheffield. Somewhere within this sturdy stone carapace is the earlier shepherd’s dwelling of quite another texture.

This week at Black & White Sunday, Paula has given us the theme of ‘texture’. She also included a quotation by novelist British Paul Scott, which is very much responsible for my take on the challenge:

“The past becomes a texture, an ambience to our present”

P.S. Paul Scott served in the Intelligence Corps of the British Army in India during the World War Two. He wrote the phenomenal Raj Quartet, set in India during these years, and which was made into a very excellent TV serial back in the 1980s. The TV version is available on DVD, and with its all star actors is well worth watching. But read the books too.

The Changing Seasons ~ May With Zest Of Lime And Cricket

Only last week did the lime trees on Wenlock’s Linden Walk show any real signs of coming into leaf. The avenue itself was a faint haze of juicy green. The leaves may be late, but they sum up the sap-filled exuberance of spring.

Another sign of spring around English villages and towns, is the weekend sight of chaps in their whites lingeringly engaged in the friendly cricket match. It’s one of those things, cricket. I scarcely understand the game, but I’m glad someone does. Or to quote the chorus from 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday “I don’t like cricket, oh no, I love it”. At least I love the idea of it: a quintessential cultural marker layered with notions of perfect summers that never were.

It conjures ghosts too. The thwack of ball on willow. Resounding cheers at a good catch. An inexplicable sense of something lost. This doubtless explains why many cricketing poems are interwoven with strands of war. Here’s one such from A E Houseman’s A Shropshire Lad cycle, poem XVII. It alludes to young men lost in the Boer War:

Twice a week the winter thorough

Here stood I to keep the goal:

Football then was fighting sorrow

For the young man’s soul.

Now in Maytime to the wicket

Out I march with bat and pad:

See the son of grief at cricket

Trying to be glad.

Try I will; no harm in trying:

Wonder ’tis how little mirth

Keeps the bones of man from lying

On the bed of earth.

And now to relieve that sombre note, my May gallery in and around the Linden Field:

To join in Cardinal Guzman’s The Changing Seasons challenges go HERE

Strawberry Fields Forever In Central Park

It was so hot when we visited New York a few years ago we spent most of our time in Central Park, drinking ice coffee at every available opportunity. There’s anyway so much to explore. On one of our forays we set out to find the Imagine mosaic, laid in tribute to John Lennon who created the song, and was so sadly murdered outside the nearby Dakota Apartments.

It took some finding too, even though we thought we knew exactly where it was. Part of the problem, we discovered, was that it was surrounded with barriers to shelter the two artists who were painstakingly working on its restoration. I didn’t mind not seeing the mosaic in its pristine form. The fact that it was being so actively cared for, given the song’s message, was heartening.

This elegant artwork lies in the middle of Strawberry Fields, a two and a half acre oasis of quiet also dedicated to the memory of John Lennon and his work. It is a designated Garden of Peace, and 120 countries contribute to its upkeep.

It is a very beautiful place to visit, so not to be missed on any New York trip. You can find out more details HERE.

Paula’s theme this week at Thursday’s Special is ‘Park’

Black & White Sunday: Abstract

Unseasonal Weather

This week at Lost in Translation, Paula is prompting us think ‘abstract’.

Stinking Nanny Anyone?

The shadowy margins of the Linden Walk near my house and the old railway line that runs alongside are presently lit by white-star carpets. Ramsons. Stink Bombs. Stinking Nanny. Londoner’s Lilies. Thank you, Richard Mabey and your Flora Britannica for all these country names for wild garlic.

I know many people loathe the smell of this plant, and it can indeed be overpowering on warm days, but whenever I catch a whiff, it simply inspires me to cook. You can eat the leaves and flowers. On Friday I used them to make a pesto sauce to go with steamed carrots, assorted allotment greens and braised salmon.

This is what I did to make it:

Took a good handful of broken walnuts and lightly toasted them in a little olive oil
Roughly chopped a dozen flower heads and a small bunch of garlic leaves
Tipped all with the walnuts into a food processer
Added more olive oil to cover, salt, black pepper and squeeze of fresh lemon juice and blitzed. More oil can be added according to taste and requirements.

This is good with pasta, or spooned on the top of fresh-made soup, especially broad bean, or the classic pistou. In his Food for Free book Richard Mabey also quotes the sixteenth century writer, John Gerard, who writing in The Herbal (1597) says that in Europe the leaves are used to make a sauce to go with fish, and adds that these may:

very well be eaten in April and May with butter, of such as are of strong constitution, and labouring men.

And what about labouring women, good sir? This particular one has great liking for ramsons. In fact I’m thinking now of using them to lace a homemade tomato sauce. Bon Appétit , and happy foraging.

And please pop over to Jude’s Garden Challenge. This month she wants to see our wild flower photos.

The Tale Of A Hidden House That Once Hid A King

It’s something of a puzzle. When you first encounter Moseley Old Hall with its Staffordshire brickwork you feel sure you are looking at a Victorian building. And what’s more, rather than saying historic country manor, its looks suggest something urban and industrial, as if this might have been the home of some nineteenth century mill or mine owner.

Take another look from a different angle:

Now consider the side elevation coming up next. There’s an important clue here that all is not what it seems (a bit like Peter Greenaway’s film The Draughtsman’s Contract):

Yes, here beside the house we have a restored knot garden of the 1600s. So what’s going on?

Time to put on the reading specs, and study the next three images:

http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/oldhouses/oldhouses2.htm

Fig. 1

Source: Allan Fea Secret Chambers and Hiding Places

Now look at the photos again, and you have it. Moseley Old Hall, a timbered building of 1600 has been encased in a brick skin. This apparently happened in the 1860s, presumably as the easiest means of preserving the building. These drawings date from around 1850 before the cladding operation. Even though I have stared at the evidence, I still find it hard to accept that these are the same building. It’s like a variation on a ‘spot the differences’ puzzle. But just look at the placement of windows, eaves and bays. They are all pretty much the same whether in brick or half-timbering.

And now for the hiding of a king – and the year of 1651 when the house in timbered form played its part in British history, and sheltered Charles II after his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Worcester on September 3rd.

You can download the whole story in a free book at the following link: Allan Fea The Flight of the King 1908 But the gist of the tale is this.

Moseley Old Hall is on the outskirts of Wolverhampton in the English West Midlands, and around 30 miles north of Worcester. After his army was crushed, Charles fled with a group of officers, and was guided to the Boscobel estate, not far from Moseley, by Colonel Charles Gifford who owned Boscobel. His properties there were in the care of servants, the five Penderel brothers. This area on the Shropshire-Staffordshire border was a Catholic stronghold, and therefore most families were supporters of the king, although not necessarily brave enough to help a fugitive monarch. The stakes were far too high. Death being the likeliest outcome.

The cavalier officers who had been accompanying Charles left him in hiding at White Ladies Priory on the Boscobel estate, and carried on to Newport in Shropshire. It was thought the king would be safer travelling alone, and it was left to the Penderel brothers to effect the monarch’s disguise and scout out an escape route. The king wanted to get to London, but the roads east out of Boscobel were blocked and Cromwell’s militias were everywhere. He decided instead to head west into Wales where he had strong support.

Being over six feet tall, way above average height at the time, Charles was something of a challenge when it came to disguises. The Penderels cut his hair short, gave him coarse labourer’s gear, patched stockings, and a ‘greasy’ tall hat to wear. The shoes had to be cut to fit the king’s feet. These last were to cause the monarch much agony and multiple lacerations. Finally, after some lessons in local dialect and labourer gait, he was mounted on a farm horse. This beast was also to cause him much grief, and almost did for him when it stumbled. After that Charles had to walk cross-country tortured by the ill-fitting shoes.

The attempt to cross the River Severn into Wales failed. The crossings were all guarded, and Charles was forced to return to White Ladies. This was extremely dangerous. There were soldiers searching the woods all round, and Charles had to spend one whole day hiding inside an oak tree (the now famous Boscobel Oak). Meanwhile the Penderels were out searching the district for safer quarters.

So it was that Moseley Old Hall came to provide a safe haven. At the time it was lived in by Thomas Whitgreave and his widowed mother. Thomas was a Royalist but had not fought at Worcester due to ill health. Other occupants of the house were Father John Huddleston, a Benedictine priest, and his three pupils, who included two of Whitgreave’s nephews. The hall also had a priest hole, a relic of the earlier Catholic persecutions.

Charles was brought exhausted, and with bleeding feet to the hall where Father Huddleston set about tending to the king, and giving him fresh clothing and sustenance before showing him to a comfortable bed. Meanwhile everyone else in the house was charged to keep a look out for the militias. (Can’t you see glimpses of those fearful faces peeping from every window around the hall?)

Thomas Whitgreave describes what happened next:

“In the afternoon [the King] reposing himself on his bed in the parlour chamber and inclineing to sleep, as I was watching at the window, one of the neighbours I saw come running in, who told the maid soldiers were comeing to search, who thereupon presentlie came running to the staires head, and cried, ‘Soldiers, soldiers are coming,’ which his majestie hearing presentlie started out of his bedd and run to his privacie, where I secured him the best I could, and then leaving him, went forth into the street to meet the soldiers who were comeing to search, who as soon as they saw and knew who I was were readie to pull mee to pieces, and take me away with them, saying I was come from the Worcester fight; but after much dispute with them, and by the neighbours being informed of their false information that I was not there, being very ill a great while, they let mee goe; but till I saw them clearly all gone forth of the town I returned not; but as soon as they were, I returned to release him (the King) and did acquaint him with my stay, which hee thought long, and then hee began to bee very chearful again.

“In the interim, whilst I was disputing with the soldiers, one of them called Southall came in the ffould and asked a smith, as hee was shooing horses there, if he could tell where the King was, and he should have a thousand pounds for his payns… This Southall is a great priest-catcher.”

After this episode the king no longer felt safe at Moseley. Another refuge had to be found and the means to get him there safely. It was at midnight, one week after the defeat at Worcester, that Thomas Whitgreave led Charles into the orchard of Moseley Old Hall where it had been arranged that Colonel John Lane would meet him with horses, and thence escort him to his home of Bentley Hall near Walsall.

This next stage of the escape was safely accomplished. Over the following weeks, and using various stratagems and much subterfuge, Charles dodged his enemies. Many attempts to find a boat and passage to France proved fruitless as he moved through Devon and along the south coast. There were even days when he hid at Stonehenge. Finally, on the 15th October, after six weeks on the run, he set sail from Brighton for France. It would be another nine years before he returned to claim his throne.

Now for more views of Moseley Old Hall. Another visit will be required before I can show you the interior. When we went on Sunday the weather was far too glorious to go indoors. So please enjoy a stroll around the gardens while imagining a battle-weary king with very sore feet arriving here secretly one September night. Look out, too, for Cromwell’s militia!