Bishop’s Castle

Conserving Geometrically ~ Sunshine In A Jar

On Saturday we were in A.J. Pugh’s, our excellent Bishop’s Castle butchers. It was their first day of opening since Christmas, and so I was surprised to find the Seville oranges had already arrived. Sixteen crates of them, I think we were told. To myself I marvelled at the crowds of marmalade makers that this prodigious quantity implied. Were there really so many in our small rural town? Clearly there must be. Andrew Pugh knows his stuff. He’s been serving the Castle since 1980.

This thought then induced an impulse purchase. Must get ahead of the marmalade makers’ stampede.

And so on Sunday afternoon, a day of gloom and wet snow (and after a quick consultation with Delia Smith HERE) I extracted pips and pithy innards, squeezed juice, and simmered the shredded peel till it filled the house with a heady orange fragrance. That alone lifted the spirits. And then, after a couple of hours, there was the pleasure of domestic produce: eight oranges, roughly a kilo, yielded eight assorted jars and a part jar, which should keep us going for at least a year, as well as providing a gift or two; this so long as Paddington Bear impulses don’t take over.

#GeometricJanuary Day 7

Elephantine Geometry: The Things One Sees In Bishop’s Castle

Well, at first sight, glimpsed through a December hedgerow, it truly did look like an actual elephant. Good heavens! What was it doing here in the Shropshire Hills?

We discovered it last week, by chance, as we explored the hillside paths above the town. There it was, beside the Shropshire Way, at Foxholes campsite, and with company too. The Buddha no less.

Closer inspection of course revealed that it was cunningly constructed of metal plates, now richly rusted.

We then realised that it was doubtless one of the exhibits in the Bishop’s Castle town trail, The March of Elephants. You can see the other artworks at that link. This particular work was created by local artist Ben Ashton, but I couldn’t find anything further about him.

By now you could well be wondering why there is an elephant art trail in a Shropshire market town wherein the trade in sheep and cattle has for centuries been the major enterprise.

There are two connections.

First there is Robert Clive aka Clive of India (1725-1774). After he had finished plundering Bengal (he had started out as a clerk of the East India Company), he returned to his native Shropshire with an eye-wateringly colossal fortune and lived at Walcot Hall just outside Bishop’s Castle. He was further rewarded for his India efforts with a seat in Parliament (MP for Shrewsbury) and an Irish peerage. His newly wrought family crest featured an Indian elephant, of which a carved stone version still survives in the town’s Market Square. It had once been prominently sited on the main window of the Market Hall (since demolished) built by Clive’s son Edward.

A rather more pleasing elephant association is the fact that during World War 2, one or more circus elephants were kept in Bishop’s Castle for safety’s sake. They lived in the stables of The Castle Hotel at the top of the town. At least one was to be seen exercising along the lanes. There’s a brief film clip of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnMu3l3Q0rE

So there you are. Seeing elephants in Bishop’s Castle is not so outlandish after all.

P.S. The war-time elephants’ quarters have been given a plush makeover and you can now stay in The Elephant Gate House.

#GeometricJanuary Day 4 This month Becky is hosting square photos with a geometrical theme.

In An Autumn Light: The New Kitchen

Henry, who produced the structural design brief and plans for our kitchen extension came round on Wednesday to take photos of the finished ‘product’. This reminded me that I had not posted any photos so far, mainly because there are a few bits and pieces to finish off. But then this week we’ve had some glorious light through our roof lantern and this morning it spurred me into action.

But first, this is how it was just after we moved in:

The sitting room then had a galley kitchen (around the right hand corner) and the back door opened onto an oldish, large uPVC conservatory. The conservatory was pleasant enough in summer being shaded by the house and the hedge on the south-west, but its doors also faced north so it was pretty chilly in the winter.

Our plans for replacing it with a properly insulated room were constrained by the hedge and the position of the upstairs windows. We are also in the town’s Conservation Area. We thus had to stick to the original footprint although we could add a metre or so along the rear wall, taking in the exterior downstairs former kitchen window. When it came to the roof, we could have had a shallow lean-to option with roof lights, but decided the parapeted flat roof with lantern would give us the best light.

So: there were all sorts of compromises, including cost, and constraints over access at the rear of the house and to the front of the house for debris removal and deliveries. We also didn’t want to do anything that would be at total odds with this modest little 1920s town house.

It finally came to fruition thanks to weeks of conscientious in-put from builder-hero, Alan Morris, who project managed the whole thing. He was also responsible for some nifty brickwork, as well as taking pains to match, as far as was possible, the original brickwork.

Alan Morris conducting a spot of problem solving with Graham.

And the final result suits us very well.

Here are some reminders of what happened in between, starting with the conservatory as moving-in dumping ground:

And inside, it all went on around us:

The old kitchen:

Range cooker gone and original access to cloakroom restored. This is now the utility room, stud-walled and doored. The downstairs loo has been much smartened up and its parma violet and bottle green walls banished. Also discovered but covered up again was an old flue that probably served a laundry copper. Still some finishing off to do in this quarter.

New wall and door to the utility room on the right.

And the new kitchen – yes, I know, It is more than a touch quirky. For one thing, we didn’t domesticate the original outside wall, just washed the spiders off, and kept the window spaces too. Anyone who moves in after us can plaster board over them if they want to.

We left the window space by the back door open. A kitchen ‘hatch’ no less. It gives us instant access to the utility room sink. Ideal for chucking freshly dug spuds into it:

And of course there’s the aardvark:

Handmade units made by Shepherd Hills cabinet makers. The angles either side the cooker were tricky to deal with:

The ‘horrid hedge’, which I’m still tackling, has turned out to be just the place to hang some bird feeders. The sparrows and robin have found them, but the jackdaws haven’t (not yet anyway), and we have good mealtime views of passing birds.

And now, after all that, a good sit down beside the wood burner is called for:

There’s still a lot to do. Top of my list is that Graham needs to get rid of all his trailing cables. We don’t have TV but stream and screen things we want to watch via a laptop and projector. At present the system is mobile and makeshift, waiting for the moment when all the wiring will be hidden under the bedroom floor. There are signs that this might happen soon. Apart from this, much decorating is still required, and we still haven’t quite moved in. One day…

In the meantime, the Castle is a good place to be.

The Grateful Gardener

We have snow here in the Castle. We woke up to it early yesterday. What a shock. Snow in November. It’s much too soon. I’d seen the weather forecast of course, but was expecting only a spot of sleet that would soon melt away with the global boiling, not several inches of real snow, the sort perfect for snowballs.

Anyway, it’s not the snow I’m grateful for, but I do love the brilliant blue sky it’s brought with it. And also this golden Rowan tree in its white cocoon. It stands just outside our garden, and provides us with some borrowed treescape. And it, in turn, has recently been much loved by the birds, especially the blackbirds. Before the snow came they were busily stripping the stems.

I’ll miss the berries when they’ve gone. On bright autumn days they light up like jewels. This is how they looked in early October. A tree full of joy. Thank you, Rowan.

The snow fall also focused my eye on the latest garden addition: a Jelly King crab apple tree. Yesterday morning while sitting at the kitchen table eating my porridge, I could see its clutch of red apples glowing like little beacons at the bottom of the garden. Time for a photo then, and to say how very pleased I am with this Halloween birthday gift from my other half. Thank you, Graham.

It came a few days before my birthday, delivered in a tall box to the front doorstep, whither I was directed to investigate the new arrival. Once I’d broken through the cardboard, I was surprised to find the little tree had come with eight tiny apples still firmly attached. There were also a dozen loose ones in the bottom of the box, sadly not quite enough to make crab apple jelly, but filling me with high hopes. I decided to keep them as a spur to locating a wild tree. I thought I knew where there was one. And so it proved. Last week I found a fine crop of fallen apples in a patch of woodland on the way to the builders’ merchants. We now have crab apple jelly. No need to wait for the little tree to do its stuff then.

And speaking of stuff – we still have some of the salad variety growing outdoors and in the greenhouse.

This year I’ve grown Red Radicchio endive. For the past few weeks it’s been growing fatter by the day, and as temperatures lower, the more red it becomes. I’ve been plucking the outer leaves with hopefully plenty more to come. In the greenhouse I have tubs of red Chinese mustard, Moroccan Cress which grows like a cut and come again lettuce and a few oakleaf lettuces. Also some lettuces out in the garden, though they may have succumbed to the snow. Likewise the marigolds. But it makes me very happy to find a bowl full of fresh salad leaves in late November. Thank you, garden.

And one little plant that is standing up to the snow, once I’d dug it out it earlier today:

These sweet little hearts ease type pansies have been flowering for weeks and weeks in a pot on the garden steps. And they’re still going strong. They were a gift from my sister. Thank you, Jo.

Lens-Artists: Gratitude This week Tina sets the theme, both timely and thoughtful. Please visit her ever lovely blog.

Six On Saturday: Of Flying Saucers, Scorpionweed And An End To The Great Gobbling

And no, we have no extra-terrestrial sightings here in Bishop’s Castle, at least not over The Gables, but I do have a few Flying Saucer Morning Glories. They are late on parade, growing up my obelisk of butter beans in the front garden. I wasn’t really expecting them: the seed was several years old. Yet here they are, busy luring insectkind.

Also in the front garden, in the opposite bed, the phacelia has been flourishing for the past few weeks, every day alive with bee hum.

This borage family member hails from North and Central America where it also goes by the name of Scorpionweed, which sounds hair-raising. So far there has been no sign of cohabiting scorpions (no doubt a huge comfort to other half who was bitten on the foot by one while overlanding in the Sahara.)

I sowed the seeds quite late, probably around the beginning of July. As with the Flying Saucers, I was prepared for them not to germinate. The packet was left over from Wenlock allotment days. I grew it back then either as green manure or a cover crop. But then on a trip out in late June I’d spotted fields of it around Ludlow. I’d never seen it growing on an agricultural scale before. It was in full bloom and the fields seem to float in a mauve haze. More than a good enough reason to try it.

These days there is much farmer emphasis on improving soils and attracting insects on land taken out of food production (food security no longer seems to be a priority in government policy for British agriculture). Hairy crops like phacelia, vetch, linseed have been found to improve worm populations, this even in light and sandy soils.

I decided to try it on the ground where we had lifted paving slabs and left behind a layer of old mortar which had mostly been broken up into the soil. It looked very unpromising territory, and I wanted to see if anything would grow there. And it did. The seeds sprouted in a few days.

Usually if you’re growing phacelia to provide green manure, it should be dug in before it flowers to stop self seeding. But I thought never mind about that. The flowers are so pretty, their scent so subtle and, while they last, their kindness to insects immeasurable. The first frost will doubtless fell the plants, and I’ll probably leave them to dig in before spring.

And here’s another insect friendly plant, doing its end of season feeding duty while looking lovely too: Caryopteris ‘Heavenly Blue’, a fairly compact hardy shrub bought back in the spring. It clearly loves our garden and has opened its branches so generously. The flowers are scented too, and it’s taken over catering duties from the neighbouring purple agastache, which is now a mass of dusky seed heads and no longer of interest to the bees.

Much of the rest of garden has a look of late-summer weariness. We had a couple of real summer days earlier this week, but there’s a real sense of autumn in the offing. My runner beans simply stopped producing at the end of August, for no reason that I can fathom. Although I did notice yesterday that a single plant has decided to grow a couple of strands worth. Perhaps one last small meal then.

Meanwhile, the Flying Saucers’ hosts, the butter beans are still flowering like mad up the front garden obelisk. There are many pods but they are being very slow to fatten, doubtless down to the lacklustre summer and cold-spring start. I’m now hoping for an amiable October that might give the beans the chance to finish off. And for now, the blossom is still performing essential services.

The good news, though, is that the horrendous brassica gobbling has ceased, this after the cabbage white caterpillars ate every kale plant down to the stalks. It did not matter that I’d covered crops with so-called butterfly netting and fine grade enviromesh. Somehow the butterflies sneaked in to lay their eggs. Patrolling the plants even twice a day proved a losing battle. They made inroads in the pointy cabbages too, but I’ve managed to save some of those.

Ever hopeful, I’ve replanted Russian and Tuscan kale plantlets under extra-fine mesh. The butterflies are still about, but not in the flocks we experienced earlier in the summer. Fingers crossed.

There are other bright corners in the garden, and especially this towering clump of helianthus, a perennial sunflower. Back in the spring when I planted it out, it was three single small stems with only a few roots between them. The cuttings came from my sister’s Little Stretton garden, descendants from plants that grew in our Aunt Miriam’s Devon garden. I’m so pleased to have it. I did not have a chance to grab a segment or two of my Wenlock helianthus before we moved. It used to be the star of the late summer guerrilla garden there. It’s growing even more vigorously in Bishop’s Castle.

And last but not least, but definitely with an eye to autumn in its new russet foliage, this is a newcomer to the Farrell garden, Japanese cherry kojo-no-mai. (Posing here with some very sweet violas).

It will eventually grow into a small tree, but for now seems happy in this pot.

Six on Saturday Please visit Jim at Garden Ruminations. He needs some get-well wishes.

Oh, What A Perfect Day…

Yesterday felt as if all our missed summer days had been rolled into one. It was warm, the light golden, the sky a flawless blue in every quarter. In the afternoon I took myself off for a walk – up Laburnum Alley and into Welsh Street, and thence up a green lane out of the Castle and onto the uplands.

There’s little to hear but the bleating of sheep, the thrum of a combine harvester just over the hill and rook call. The town lies quietly below.

As I climb, I stop to scan the changing vistas. From the highest point there is a near 360 degree ring of hills surrounding Bishop’s Castle, the most obvious for its length being the Long Mynd. Whenever I see the Mynd I always give a mental wave to sister Jo, who lives on the other side. I sometimes thinks it’s odd to have this very big and ancient hill between us; some of the oldest rock in the world in fact.

Looking east-ish towards the Long Mynd

And towards the opposing quarter…

I need a Castle local to teach me the hills, particularly those to the north and west and into Wales. I know the names – Corndon, Lan Fawr, Roundton, Todleth …and I’m guessing they are in the next photo moving from right to left (?) and that the big wood below is Saddler’s Big Wood.

For now, some other scenic spots…

Six on Saturday ~ More From The Random Garden

As I said in my last Six on Saturday post we have a new garden. I also said that for various reasons – rampant weeds to clear and too much wet weather from winter to spring – I was all behind come growing time; things got sown or planted out wherever there was space at that particular moment.

This has since made protecting cabbages, purple sprouting, kale and cauliflowers, first from pigeons, and more recently from hoards of cabbage white butterflies intent on laying their eggs, somewhat problematical, not to say given rise to a mishmash of netting and other protective devices rather too reminiscent of my former allotment contrivances.

So number 1, since it is preying on both my mind and on my brassicas: CABBAGE WHITE BUTTERFLIES…

Caterpillar damage on Tuscan kale

I actually quite like this photo. The more so as the target of interest is my SoS 2: agastache or Vietnamese Mint. The butterfly is calling in for an energy fix, which I suppose I should mind. (Enough procreation, thank you!)

I love the agastache. It smells of aniseed and its leaves are edible. It’s a perennial (I grew lots of it from seed this spring), though I’m not sure how hardy it will prove in a Bishop’s Castle winter. Anyway, it is a very tidy plant, growing beautifully upwards with lots of purple-mauve spires – not easy to photograph well.

SoS 3 is one of this week’s very pleasing finds: a nice young toad lurking by the outside tap.

We’d already found a much bigger toad hiding under an old tile by Graham’s new garden shed creation. I’m wondering if there may be more, because so far there has been very little slug damage along the vegetable rows – so little in fact, I can’t quite believe it. (Lull before storm?) We were besieged with molluscs in Much Wenlock. We do have the odd big snail however.

Talking of the new garden shed, this is number 4. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that it’s being built from scratch, incorporating recycled parts from our April roof makeover and other assorted materials, the whole inspired by a Great Western Railway goods wagon. I’ve had to sacrifice what might otherwise have been a large and useful garden border, but never mind. I’m liking the shed. It’s presently having its rubber roof applied.

SoS 5 is the front garden sweet corn. It’s growing tall and starting to tassel. Possibly planted rather tightly, but so far the plants don’t seem to mind.

As seen a couple of weeks ago:

I also have a neighbouring raised bed with cabbages and spring onions. On the farther side of the front garden there is now a row of purple sprouting growing where the potatoes were, netted of course.

The two raised beds seen here were made from building work off-cuts, and I’m hoping for more to be made when the shed is done, and eventually I’ll move these to the back garden.

Or maybe not. The front garden does seem a good growing spot.

There’s also some good growing going on at the bottom of garden. I’m pleased that back in the winter I managed to make a good compost filled trench for the runner beans. It brings me to no. 6 – last night’s first meal of the season. Always a gardening landmark in Farrell household.

The trench of garden waste and hot bin compost certainly seems to be working well for runner beans Emergo and Painted Lady

Up, up and away…

Six on Saturday

Please visit Jim’s lovely garden at Garden Ruminations

The Changing Seasons ~ This Was July ‘24

Here in Bishop’s Castle, as in many parts of Great Britain, much of July was cool and overcast – more autumn than summer. The garden, however, carried on oblivious, although there was an obvious shortage of bees, hover flies, butterflies and other insects.

But then just on the last lap, summer happened. And not heat waves either; simply days of pleasing warmth which certainly brought out the bees. And then whole flocks of cabbage white butterflies flew in, wafting round the garden, dozens at a time, homing in on cabbages and nasturtiums to lay their eggs. I’ve given up chasing them away.

They also like to feed on the agastache (Vietnamese Mint), a perennial I’ve grown from seed this spring. The bees love it too. So I’m glad I planted out all the many seedlings that germinated, as well as giving some away. It’s a stately plant with purple-mauve plumes and leaves that smell of aniseed.

The switch to warm days has made all the lettuce bolt, but we’re still eating some of them. As ever, I have failed to organise a seasonal flow, so there will be a gap in salad content for a time. Instead, I’m picking the young leaves of Swiss Chard, a second crop which I’ve managed this time to protect from nibbling pigeons. There are also herbs – dill, basil, and lots of coriander and chives, and wild rocket (about to bolt) and masses of developing leeks which are good in salads.

But best of all, the runner beans are beginning to set, so I must keep an eye on them. They often fool me by producing the first crop near the ground inside the canes, where they can’t be seen.

And then this lovely mallow has started to flower…

And there’s been a second flush of foxgloves…

And then I noticed a happy partnership (growing out of the concrete on the front path) campanula and lavender perfectly arranged…

And finally, in amongst the ongoing building work and general domestic confusion…

…we take note that it is was a year last July when we exchanged contracts on The Gables and began planning our move to Bishop’s Castle…

And in case you’re wondering about the big beer barrel, the town is famous for its historic pub and brewery The Three Tuns Inn, serving folk since 1642. Just one of many good reasons to settle here. The beer is delicious. Cheers!

The Changing Seasons: July 2024 Hosted by Ju Lyn and by Brian at Bushboys World

Six On Saturday: On Random Gardening

Starting a new garden is always exciting; daunting too. And our particular garden, being a hundred years old, had traces of many a planting disaster venture. More recently, though, all had been overgrown, and invaded by rampant phygelius (Cape fuchsia), ground elder, vagrant raspberries, bindweed and Spanish bluebells. The two front garden beds (south-east facing) were covered with concrete slabs and Spanish bluebells.

Most of it had to go.

1: Because we’d had to rent between selling one house and buying another, I’d brought only a handful of plants from our Much Wenlock garden. Among them was yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), a favourite flower since childhood when I’d first seen it lighting up the verges of the Shropshire Hills. I’d grown it from seed, bought on-line from Jekka’s Herbs. Now, by some pleasing accident, it seems to have grown up with some purple toadflax.

When we moved into The Gables, just under a year ago, my most pressing concern was vegetable growing. I knew we would miss the produce from my allotment plots of 16 years (if not the heavy labour), so tackling the most weed-infested areas to make beds for food crops was my first priority. My thinking here was that these beds would be cleared every year, so repeat ground elder and bluebells wouldn’t be quite the same bother they would be in shrub or herbaceous borders.

I made a start last summer, but then the following months were mostly too wet and cold for gardening. And then in spring the house roof had to be taken off and rebuilt. And then the building work on the rear extension began, all of which saw parts of my territory invaded, first by a mountain of broken roof tiles and battens and then by piles of construction materials. There were times, too, when I couldn’t reach the projected vegetable plots in the back garden, it being uphill from the house, other than by climbing a ladder. All of which means that bed making efforts were piecemeal and, in the end, things (vegetables, herbaceous perennials, herbs, developing shrubs) were planted out wherever there was a space at the time.

2: But it’s all alright. Everything is growing all over the place. I have yellow courgettes at the front door, which is actually quite handy…

3: The front garden bed is also yielding some very nice Charlotte potatoes (despite going in very late). The building debris and old mortar from the lifted slabs seem to have provided some good drainage in our heavy-ish soil:

4: In the spring I’d sown some marigold (calendula) seeds, obtained from the Bishop’s Castle seed bank (local growers’ donations) and they’d germinated prolifically. So I planted them out all over the garden, front and back, because you can’t beat marigolds for their spirit-lifting qualities. And now we have masses of golden heads, which of course are edible too:

5: And on the eating front, since spring we’ve done rather well with all manner of greens, but most particularly the Romanesco cauliflowers, which I haven’t grown before. They are much sweeter than white caulis, and if you cut them and leave the stalk, they sometimes produce more sprouts. They don’t need much cooking either.

6: But best of all, are signs that the runner beans are thriving. I have three varieties growing together: Emergo (white flowers), Painted Lady (red and white as in featured photo), and St. George (red):

I mean to say, what could be lovelier than this Painted Lady bean flower. And then to think: there will be beans!

Six on Saturday Jim at Garden Ruminations is the host. Please pay him and his splendid garden a visit.

A Spot Of Garden Flamenco?

We have visitors, blown in from who knows where. All over the garden too. And what a show they’re giving us with their fiery frills and flounces. Papaver somniferum, the sleep-inducing opium poppy.

The bumble bees have been mightily excited by the poppies’ presence; their behaviour far from somnolent. In fact I witnessed much unseemly rummaging through floral petticoats as they hoovered round the creamy anthers.

Elsewhere in the garden there are more hot colours, this time courtesy of the Bishop’s Castle seed bank. This is a wonderful community venture whereby local gardeners donate flower and vegetable seeds. You can help yourself to the contents of the tray which lives upstairs in the Town Hall council chamber, and leave a donation to the seed bank.

These French Marigolds were grown to protect the carrots. Their minty-lemony scent camouflages the carroty smell so fooling carrot flies that like to lay their eggs in the developing roots. But by some failure of organisation they ended up by the cabbages where they do nothing to dissuade the egg-laying proclivities of cabbage white butterflies.

And then there are the seed bank pot marigolds. I’ve planted them out everywhere because I use the petals in salads. They have many beneficial medicinal qualities including a high lutein content which is good for protecting eyesight. Simply to gaze on them might suggest this particular property.

Marigold with purple toadflax petals

But back to the flamenco. I don’t know about you, but this wild display makes me want to lift up my skirts and dance…

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge