Month: July 2016

Traces Of The Past ~ The 330-Year-Old Hedge

It’s hard to imagine that this gigantic bastion of ancient yew trees began three centuries ago as a formal terrace row, each tree cut into a neat, small cone or obelisk. Back then in the 1680s, when these trees were first planted, the taste in grand garden design was for the linear and geometric, following the French notion of strict plant control.

A hundred years later it was all change. In keeping with the new romantic landscape style of English gardening, the yews were allowed to grow as they pleased. The aim was to create vistas of idealized nature.

But this more liberal attitude did not last either. Around the time of the yews’ two-hundredth birthdays, Victorian garden men armed with sickles and step ladders intervened, and began creating this arboreal rampart of free-form topiary. Both fascinating and overbearing, I feel. The gardeners apparently hung onto to their ladders with one hand, while pruning and shaping with the other.

Today, the effect is still maintained by National Trust gardeners, now using electric hedge trimmers. Every year four of them start work in late August, and keep on trimming until mid-November – three months’ toil.

The yews are to be seen at one of the National Trust’s outstanding properties – Powis Castle, near Welshpool in Powys, just over the border from Shropshire. We called in there on our way home from our recent stay on the Mawddach Estuary in mid Wales. I’m afraid that on this occasion it was more for a good cup of coffee than for culture.

The castle dates from around 1200 when it was the stronghold of the last Welsh princes of Powys. In the sixteenth century ownership passed to the English Herbert family who acquired the title Earl of Powis. Indeed, they appeared to have acquired it on three separate occasions through history until the title eventually stuck fast to the family.

One of the Herbert daughters married the son of Clive of India (Robert Clive 1725-1774) – he who plundered the subcontinent under the auspices of the British East India Company. The Clive fortune paid for repair and development of the castle, and Robert Clive’s collection of valuable arts works gathered during his India days are on display there. You can tell I have very mixed feelings about this. But scruples aside, the house is well worth seeing and it contains many treasures.

The garden, though, is the best part. The setting is magnificent, with stunning views of the Welsh borderland. A whole day (and indeed several days at different seasons) could be spent exploring the many layered terraces, the lawns and woodland walks. The planting is on an epic scale with many unusual herbaceous varieties deployed. Specialist garden history talks are also available, and when energy flags (and as intimated earlier) there’s a good restaurant-tea room for re-charging purposes. Although to be on the safe, take your own picnic as well. It’s a long way from the grand lawn to the courtyard refreshment station.

Please visit Paula at Lost in Translation for more traces of the past. This theme is going to be regular every-other-month challenge on her blog, which is good news. Thank you, Paula. I have lots more traces in my archive.

A Peculiar Pursuit? Listening In On Star Land

It was a frequent and rather sinister feature of my childhood: Sunday afternoon drives around the Cheshire lanes. Always winter. Flat fields empty of their dairy herds. Neat hedges and the metal railed fences typical of this county. Then the sudden glimpse of it – the great grey dish in the sky: the disturbing scaffold-like armature that held it aloft – sometimes the dish tilted one way; other times in quite another position. So that the first sight of it across the flatlands would always be a shock to the system. Science Fiction in action then. Scenes I remember only in black and white.

But if the sight of it aroused feelings of vague anxiety, as a five-year-old I was also quick to register the awe and excitement in my parents’ voices. It might be worrying to me but, I concluded, this monstrous machine was clearly ‘a good thing’.

This, the Jodrell Bank steerable radio telescope, had only just been completed. It was the largest in the world back in 1957 – the dish 250 feet (76 metres) in diameter. Sir Bernard Lovell – a radio astronomer at Manchester University – was its creator. He had worked on the development of radar during World War 2, and now wanted to study cosmic rays. The gun turret parts of two British warships were apparently re-purposed to drive the telescope.

It became operational in time for the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957. This was the world’s first artificial satellite launched by the Soviet Union. My parents were very excited about this too. While Jodrell Bank tracked the path of Sputnik’s booster rockets, my parents were staying up into the small hours, standing in the garden of Love Lane House, Sputnik spotting. They saw it too, and got their names in the local paper. Whizzy spinning sputniks on strings were, for some time to come, the toys to have. I received several. Cardboard ones came free in Cornflakes packets. In fact Sputnik was a frequently uttered word in our house. Perhaps it’s what predisposed me to want to learn Russian a decade later.

In 1966 the Soviet Union actually asked Jodrell Bank to track their Luna 9 moon lander spacecraft. Thus it would seem that the Cold War had its lukewarm moments, although relations were not so well fostered afterwards when the British Press got hold of, and published the Jodrell Bank photos ahead of the Russians giving their permission.

Later, in concert with US surveillance, the telescope was used to monitor Soviet spy satellites. And yes, in between spying activities, there was also some serious scientific research – time spent observing those esoteric out-of-space entities – pulsars, quasars and gravitational lenses. And please expect no further explanations of these matters. My studied viewings of the TV programmes by the very excellent theoretical physicist Professor Jim Al-Kalili have left no residue of knowledge in my brain cells, or at least none that I am aware of.

Today, the Lovell telescope has been joined by several others on the site – all part of Manchester University’s Jodrell Bank Centre of Astrophysics. It has a visitor centre, and all manner of exciting things going on there. This photo, by the way, was captured by chance last year when I happened to look out of the window of the Manchester to Crewe train. A veritable blast from the past then, but this time in full colour. I still find it worrying though – that great grey dish eavesdropping on space.

And before I go, there’s also a literary connection with Jodrell Bank. As a pre-teen I was a huge fan of Cheshire children’s writer Alan Garner, and in particular of his 1960s titles The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath. Garner didn’t think much of the first book, and it was only in 2012 that the third volume of the originally planned trilogy was published. But then Boneland is not for children. It is a fusion of science, prehistory, fantasy and psychotherapy whereby Colin of the first two books is now a professor at Jodrell Bank, trying to resolve the loss of his twin, Susan, and the loss of his memory. It’s a haunting work with many layers. Perhaps, like me, Alan Garner found Lovell’s Telescope a disturbing sight on the Cheshire Plain, raising more questions than the ones it was intended to answer.

For more Thursday’s Special posts please visit Paula at Lost in Translation. She asks us to pick a word from the following: Pursuit, Veneration, Effervescent, Personal, Peculiar. And then post a photo or photos. I think I’ve scored the 3 ‘p’s’ in this post plus a bit of veneration for Alan Garner.

Never Mind Van Gogh’s Sunflowers: How About A Courgette? Or Maybe Even a Blooming Potato?

During the recent heat wave I managed to get myself across the field and to the allotment by 7.30 a.m. It was wonderful up there – full of birdsong and humming bugs and bees. (Note to self: must do this more often). All the vegetables were flowering full blast, and so instead of watering and weeding, I started taking photos.

The courgette (zucchini) plants had broken out into multiple suns – each one big as a dinner plate.

And then I spotted the potato flowers – I think they’re the French salad variety called ratte. (I couldn’t locate my plant label for spud leaves). Anyway aren’t they rather lovely?

Then behind the potatoes the runner bean flowers were busy making the first beans of the season (thank you bees):

And behind my polytunnel the Lark sweet corn was tasseling:

So much excitement up at the allotment, and all before breakfast. Who’d’ve thought it.

P.S. This post was inspired not only by my vegetables, but also by Jithin at Mundane Monday #69, and Jude’s edible Garden Challenge. Please visit them for more inspiration and some very excellent photography.

Going Behind The Scenes In Wenlock Abbey

We followed in the footsteps of long-gone celebrities on our recent, and I have to say, nigglingly exclusive visit to Wenlock Abbey. It was the first chance we have had to visit there, and it was done under the auspices of our Civic Society.

Without doubt this building is the architectural jewel of Much Wenlock. It lies at the heart of the town, but is usually only visible if you scramble around at the back of the church yard, and peek over the wall. It housed the erstwhile domestic quarters of the priors of Wenlock Priory and, since the Dissolution in 1540, has remained in private ownership. The adjoining priory ruins, however, belong to English Heritage, and are the town’s main tourist attraction. Somewhat confusingly the house has long been called The Abbey, although the priory from Norman times was always a priory, not an abbey. The Saxon religious house that preceded it, however, was an abbey of both monks and nuns and ruled over by an abbess.

The range seen in the first photos is the most recent part of the house, built in the early 1400s. The limestone wing, just visible on the left, comprised both the monks’ infirmary and the original prior’s chambers, and are considerably older.

The present owners have spent the last three decades restoring the house, and creating interior settings that to many might seem outlandish and controversial. There will be more about this in a moment.

But first those celebrities of times past. I’ve written about his visits before, but one of the returning house guests in the days of the Milnes Gaskells’ ownership was Henry James. He came in 1877, 1878 and 1883 – and apparently drew much inspiration from the house and grounds when he was writing The Turn Of The Screw. The little roof-top tower certainly puts in an appearance in the text.

At the time of James’ first visit, his hosts, Charles and the young Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell, had not long been married and were expecting their first child. The invitation had been secured through ‘lobbying’ by a mutual friend, Henry Adams, the American historian. He and Charles Gaskell had met as undergraduates at Cambridge, and before Charles’ marriage he had also been a frequent guest at The Abbey. Adams thought Charles, by then a prominent barrister, and Henry James had many interests in common and would get on well; and so it proved.

Charles’ father, James Milnes Gaskell, had been the Conservative MP for the Borough of Wenlock and had bought The Abbey (priory ruins included) in a derelict state from his wife’s cousin. The Gaskells senior appear to have held rather rustic and unconventional house parties there. (They naturally had other smarter homes elsewhere). Adams describes a visit in the autumn of 1864:

God only knows how old the Abbot’s House is, in which they (the Gaskells) are as it were picnic-ing before going to their Yorkshire place for the winter. Such a curious edifice I never saw, and the winds of Heaven permeated freely the roof, not to speak of the leaden windows. We three, Mrs. Gaskell, Gask (Charles) and I, dined in a room where the Abbot or Prior used to feast his guests; a hall on whose timber roof, and great oak rafters, the wood fire threw a red shadow forty feet above our heads. (1.)

One of the more unusual pursuits on such visits included the archaeological excavation of the Priory ruins.

Adams describes his own contributions to the general exploration:

Whenever we stepped out of the house, we were at once among the ruins of the Abbey. We dug in the cloister and we hammered in the cellars. We excavated tiles bearing coats of arms five hundred years old, and we laid bare the passages and floors that had been three centuries under ground. (1.)

When Charles Gaskell took over The Abbey from his father, he and Lady Catherine set about restoring the property and making it a family home where they might energetically entertain notables from the world of arts and literature. Emphasis was on mind-improving activity, and an appreciation of the aesthetic in all its forms. Visitors would be treated to extensive walks, drives and railway journeys to view all the surrounding great houses, and visit Shropshire’s many ancient churches and castles. A trip to Wenlock Edge to take in the vistas was also obligatory.

Henry James documents his own many outings with Charles Gaskell in Portraits of Places.

The Prior’s Chapel during the time of Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell from her book Spring in a Shropshire Abbey 1904 (available to download on Gutenberg Press).

The Gaskells’ other guests included In Darkest Africa explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, architect, Philip Webb, Architect and Pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement, and Thomas Hardy and his wife. Hardy was apparently surprised to find himself lodged in the oldest part of the house, and declared that “he felt quite mouldy at sleeping within walls of such high antiquity” (2.)

The Hardys were also taken around the county, visiting Stokesay Castle and Shrewsbury. Florence Emily Hardy recounts how one Sunday Hardy and Lady C walked until they were tired, when

“they sat down on the edge of a lonely sandpit and talked of suicide, pessimism, whether life was worth living, and kindred dismal subjects, till we were quite miserable.”(2.)

The room wherein Hardy felt so mouldy was in the infirmary wing and is indeed very old, dating from the 1100s CE. The original prior’s chambers were built adjoining the infirmary around a hundred years later, the scale of them doubtless dictated by the need to accommodate a series of royal visits. The deeply devout King Henry III, along with his own prestigious guests, was a frequent guest between 1231 and 1241.

This photo shows the rear view of the infirmary and original prior’s lodgings, (the limestone range on the right) together with the side elevation of the upscaled prior’s lodgings that were added in the early 1400s (multi-coloured stonework to the left).

The king, as monarchs did, would arrive with a large retinue of servants, clerks, cooks, musicians and blacksmiths, all of whom had to be housed. There must have been some pretty good parties too, since a permanently appointed keeper of the king’s wine was required to manage the contents of the priory wine cellar in readiness for any royal visit. Supplies were brought in from Bristol ( a hundred miles away) by the Sherriff of Shropshire and a record relating to the delivery of four barrels in 1245 states that the wine was to be placed ‘safely in the cellars there against the king’s arrival as he proposes shortly to come to those parts, God willing.’ (4.)

The galleried facade of the more recent fifteenth century lodgings,originally unglazed, was constructed from stone from four different quarries.

The catslide roof is tiled with stone flags.

Inside, on the ground floor, is the prior’s private chapel, while upstairs is the Great Hall with its great stone fireplace and high beamed ceiling mentioned by Adams, and next to it, though scarcely less grand, the Lesser Hall. Timbers in the Great Hall roof have been dendro-dated to 1425.

The front door to the left of this range, though, is considerably older, with its characteristic Norman arch. James describes it in his travelogue Portraits of Places (3):

I returned to the habitation of my companion (Charles Milnes Gaskell)…through an old Norman portal, massively arched and quaintly sculptured, across whose hollowed threshold the eye of fancy might see the ghosts of monks and the shadows of abbots pass noiselessly to and fro…for every step you take in such a house confronts you in one way or another with the remote past. You feast upon the pictorial, you inhale the historic.

It was through this doorway we also went a few Saturdays ago. As I said, this was a private tour, and our first such visit. Since 1983 the house has been the home of Gabriella and Louis de Wet. De Wet is an artist of some renown and Gabriella is better known to the wider world as theatre and television actor Gabrielle Drake. For the last 33 years, driven by Louis de Wet’s extraordinary artistic vision, they have been restoring the house – carrying the building’s story on into the 21st century while revealing its ancient monastic roots in strikingly original ways. The project has been an epic labour of love, and involved the dedication of consummate craftsmen, working very much in the mediaeval guildsmen tradition.

I did not take photos. So if you want to see what lies behind this door, please follow this next link. It will take you to a 2 minute trailer of a very excellent film made by Gavin Bush in 2011: In The Gaze Of Medusa . I leave you to make up your own minds about the merit of the De Wets’ prodigious and unique enterprise. It is not straight forward by any means.

For now, here’s the one photo I did take – of the library, and still a work in progress. It gives a taste of the quality of the craftsmanship involved in the restoration-creation work, the newly made shelves that will house a life-time’s collection of books on art, philosophy and history. Also niggles apart, we did appreciate the gracious hospitality of Mrs. de Wet who showed us around with such enthusiasm, and then treated our party to tea and some very delicious cakes in the Venetian Room. So very English!

1. Ernest Samuels Henry Adams: Selected Letters 1992 p 69

2. Florence Emily Hardy The Later Years of Thomas Hardy 1930

3. Henry James Portrait of Places

4. Vivien Bellamy A History of Much Wenlock 2001

Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell Spring In A Shropshire Abbey 1904

Changing Seasons ~ July’s The Time For Lady’s Bedstraw Up On Windmill Hill

So far July in the UK has featured several seasons. We’ve had April showers, autumnal gloom, wintery downpours, mutterings about frost that just never happens around here in July, and now a heat wave of unprecedented temperatures outside the tropics. Yet three evenings ago when I took this photo, it felt like October. There was a wild windiness about the place, and lowering skies, and that pang of melancholy that tells you summer is done.

But then as I lay in the grass to frame the shot all I could smell was the mignonette fragrance of Lady’s Bedstraw. Delicate. Hypnotic; gathering in waves across the hilltop. I can well understand why these golden flower drifts were once harvested to dry and fill mattresses. Their scent says essence of high summer. And so it proved. The next morning Octoberal tendencies had evaporated and we woke to wall to wall blue, and the overwhelming hotness, beneath whose onslaught we are currently sweltering. All this climatic chopping and changing of course suits us English. We’ve never had so much weather to talk about all at once.

This photo, by the way, was taken in low evening light conditions using the ‘Impressive Art’ setting on my Lumix. I’d rather dismissed this setting, not liking the results of shots taken in broad daylight. But in low light the images acquire an other-worldly look – perhaps slightly sinister. I only added a touch of ‘contrast’ and ‘highlight’ editing.

Changing Seasons July2015

Please visit the Cardinal for more about this challenge. There are two versions: use one or both. The latest version 2 features a single image/creation that sums up the month for you in some way. Version 1 is a gallery of several photos – all to be freshly shot.

#ChangingSeasons

Operation Floral Sat Nav ~ Bee Makes Bee-Line For Foxglove

Yesterday at the Farrell establishment we had bees in poppies. Today it’s bees in the foxgloves, and thank you to Lynn at Word Shamble for mentioning bees and foxgloves in the comments. This reminded me I’d taken these snaps earlier in the month just before the foxgloves went over. I was trying out my new second-hand Canon Ixus 870 – and oh, the nippy little macro setting – I’m in love with it!

Also please drop in at Lynn’s blog to read a wicked piece of flash fiction: it definitely has a sting in the tale/tail.

Now for more shots of bees. Also just look at the foxglove’s come-hither devices – no ‘Sat Nav Map Error’ here; but an intricate systems of dots and splodges guiding in any would-be pollinator to get pollinating. It looks like every little ‘glove’ has its own touch-pad access code:

Cee’s Flower of the Day

Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Details

And It Was A Right Bees’ Breakfast This Morning Over My Garden Fence…

It was every bee for itself over in the poppy patch behind the garden sheds this morning: the apian equivalent of a supermarket trolley dash. Honey bees, little brown bumbles, dinky stripy bumbles, blooming big scary bumbles and white-tailed bumbles diving in for the poppy nectar while the air all round filled with happy bee hum. Some were feeding with such speed and voracity that their baggage compartments were definitely approaching the overloaded mark. Now and then they would take a feeding break on the poppy’s crown while they dusted themselves down and redistributed the pollen cargo.

The gathering technique is also fascinating. They dive into the base of the flower and speed round beneath the stamens, feeding on the nectar while every part of them hoovers up pollen from the anthers. Even with the biggest bumbles, once they get into their stride, all you can see are the stamens ruffling round like curtain pelmet tassels in a stiff breeze. Whoosh, and it’s on to the next feeding station.

I probably don’t need to say it again to those who follow this blog, but then no chance should be wasted. The wellbeing of our planet, and of humanity, and of the continued production of much of our food depends on protecting and nurturing bee populations any way we can. Masses are being killed off by pesticides and habitat loss. So loud applause for the opium poppies that came of their own accord to our boundary fence, and are doing their bit for bee world. Rah! Rah! Hurrah, poppies!

Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Details

Hang On To Your Hats, Girls! Windily Wordless Wednesday

Opium Poppies caught out on a blustery day.

In the Distance ~ Much Wenlock’s By-Ways In Black & White

For once I wasn’t using my Lumix Dramatic Monochrome setting when I took this photo on Wenlock’s Linden Walk back in early June. But I think the manual colour version-turned black & white has come out quite well despite the deep shadow and lots of zoom.

The next photo was taken on a winter’s day using the monochrome setting. It’s the path that runs from the field behind our house and up onto Wenlock Edge. The horizontal line of tree tops marks the top of the Edge. (I like the strange effect of false horizons). When you stand up there the land falls away from you rather hair-raisingly, dropping almost vertically through ancient hanging woodland. In winter, through the bare trees you can just make out the rooftops of Homer village way below.

This is the footpath to Bradley Farm. It lies on the far side of the town away from the Edge. Also a change in seasons here: this was taken in full sun last August just as the wheat was ripening.

Windmill Hill sunset. I think it’s early autumn because the little ponies that are brought in to graze the hill have not yet been moved to their winter quarters.

I take lots of photos of the hill on Down’s Farm. It’s an interesting shape and the spinney on top gives added character. But with distant views I always like some structure in the foreground too, in this case the Windmill Hill bench. I took the next photo with same idea in mind.

The subject here is the cricket club’s shed on the Linden Field. It stands between the lime tree avenue and a line of Wellingtonia or Giant Sequoias. From this angle I think it looks rather mysterious. A Tardis type portal of some kind. It simply pretends to be the place where Wenlock’s cricketers keep the lawn mower.

Cee’s Black & White Challenge: In the distance

Please visit Cee for more distant compositions.

Opposites: Sunshine & Shadow Over My Fence At 5 a.m. Or A Case of Elephants in The Corn And Other Unreal Realities

It makes you want to burst into song. You know, that cheesy Oklahoma number: There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow. There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow.*

When I was small, and we still lived in Love Lane House in the midst of the Cheshire countryside, my mother would always sing as she went around the house doing chores. This song was a favourite: Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day. She had a nice voice and always sang with great gusto. This in turn provided much needed reassurance on days when Miss Goodwin put in an appearance. Wednesdays. She was mother’s home help, and she came once a week to clean the acres of red quarry tile floors that ran throughout the house.

To a child she was an alarming gnome-like figure. Her straggle of black, limp hair had much in common with the wet floor mop that she wielded with dogged determination. As she twisted the mob head in the bucket, she would peer down at me through round, black-rimmed spectacles that made her eyes stand out on stalks. I thought she was probably a witch. I also associate her with green liquid soap – a cleaning product of times past. It had a repellent smell.

But mother went on singing, and all seemed well apart from the line about the corn being as high as an elephant’s eye.

This was a mystifying notion for a country child who, though surrounded by farm fields, had never seen elephants there, nor crops that grew so tall. My father worked for an agricultural merchants, and early on I learned the difference between the grain crops he dealt in. In those days we did not know much about American corn, which we anyway call maize, and corn was a word commonly used to refer to wheat.

A case of cereal confusion then.

Many decades later when I was out and about on Kenyan farms, and wondering at the height and vigour of some of the maize plots, I could well see how you might lose an elephant or two in there. In fact African elephants are very partial to scoffing poor farmers’ white maize crops just as they are ready to harvest. They can eat in a night produce that would have lasted a family half a year.

Anyway, there are clearly no elephants in the wheat/corn in the photo. It is only half a metre tall. But the light is truly extraordinary. A false dawn ripening since in reality the crop is still green with only the barest signs of turning. I kept my eyes open long enough to frame the shot and then went back to bed, inner sight still glowing from the vision: did I really see that strange light, and does this happen on other mornings when I’m not awake?

Mother’s voice comes winging back across the years: I’ve got a wonderful feeling/ Everything’s going my way. Did I ever believe this back then? Mother was someone who ever came with undercurrents, despite the nice singing. For some reason the cornfield elephant I now picture has eyes the colour of summer-blue skies, which is odd. All of which is to say, childhood impressions, layer on layer, randomly and silently absorbed in the presence of unaware adults, can run deep. Like elephants in cornfields, you just never know when they’re going to ambush you.

Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: opposites

Opposites
Layers

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge