Stepping Over The Past On Dover’s Hill

Of course in Britain we’re always doing it – traversing the surface of a many-layered past; below our feet decades, centuries, even millennia of stratified remains of human endeavour. A city like London, for instance, rears magnificently from Roman foundations that lie metres below the present living surface.

Mostly, though, we don’t consider what we may be walking over; not unless it’s very obvious. And the very obvious here is the rig and furrow of an ancient field system, discovered on a December walk on Dover’s Hill, near Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds.

The tell-tale ridges and furrows of this form of cultivation could date from as early as the post-Roman period, but were particularly a feature of early medieval open field systems – the feudal days of incomer Norman landlords, their serfs and villeins working long, unbounded strips of land using teams of oxen to pull a plough.

And it was the manner of ploughing that created the corrugated mounds and ditches. The plough-share was right-sided. It only went one way, and the ox team stretched way ahead of the plough. At the end of the field-strip was a headland on which the team was turned so it could plough down the further side of the ridge.

It probably worked very well for growing. The mounded strip was well turned; the ever increasing depth of soil drained well too, ideal for cereal crops, while the furrows could be used to grow moisture-loving plants such as peas. And of course this was in times before there were field fences or hedges, the land open to the entire community with access to communal pasture. But by Tudor times, this began to change in earnest, as land owners sought better returns by rearing wool sheep, thus enclosing former fields, and increasingly denying their tenant villagers age-old rights of access to commons and wastes on which the family economy depended.

It makes me ponder. The stories the landscape can tell us, if we stop and look.

There’s more about Cotswold rig and furrow HERE.

December In The Cotswolds

Dull day in the Cotswolds. The sort of day you will the sky gods to switch on the lights. But then I spotted this wonderful tree. It lit up the street and the ochre tones of old Cotswold stone. I’ve no idea what it is. (I should have done a close-up of the berries). Notions anyone? Jude? Laura?

For logistical reasons that ever confound family gatherings at Christmas, we celebrated ours a week earlier than most people, staying in a cottage near Broadway. The weather was mostly dank and dismal, but there was the odd bright interval, and the splashes of red, festive and otherwise, brightened up the street scenes.

Happy New Year Everyone

CFFC: Red

“Clunton and Clunbury,Clungunford and Clun…

…are the quietest places under the sun.” A E Housman A Shropshire Lad

Except there was no sun on Tuesday when we went to Clun, only rain clouds, bloated, iron grey, hanging in shrouds across the hills and pine woods; the lanes streaming with run-off from two days’ deluge; field hedges newly farmer-sheared to thorny starkness, the herbaceous version of a convict cut.

It did not matter. We were on an outing after several days indoors.

Clun is the next large village along the A488 between Bishop’s Castle and Knighton on the Welsh border. These days it is home to around 700 souls, and with or without sun, it is always quiet there, except perhaps during the Green Man Festival in May when I gather things may become a touch excitable. Once, though, it was a nexus, standing on the ancient drovers’ route out of Wales. You can picture it now, can’t you, the herds of cattle and sheep being driven on well worn paths to faraway markets in the Midlands and London; passing through many a town, the taverns en route places where news and other goods were exchanged. This then is essentially a Saxon landscape, later knocked somewhat into shape by the invading Normans, but all rooted in five millennia of farming life going back to the Neolithic period.

The packhorse bridge in the header photo is not that old however. It dates from the 1300s, leaving us with only 8 centuries of passing traffic to contemplate. But you do have to keep your wits about you when you cross, dodging the occasional speedy van-man, making sure you’re tucked into a niche before standing and gazing at the River Clun. In fact there is a local saying that could be said to confirm the necessity for alertness: “whoever crosses Clun Bridge comes back sharper than he went”. On the other hand, it may refer to long ago times when the crossing formed the link between Saxon Clun on one side of the valley, and the newfangled Clun of Norman interlopers on the other.

There was a purpose to our visit on such a gloomy day. I recalled there was an ironmongers there – an all but disappeared facility on Britain’s high streets. Brasso was needed – a good old fashioned metal polish, and also dubbin for keeping the rain out of our boots.

And we found them both immediately when we opened the door and stepped back in time in Mr. Britten’s magic emporium. It proved to be the hardware enthusiast’s equivalent of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, including the glimpse of snug ‘Dickensian’ office beside the counter.

There might be no sun outside, but there was everything under it inside. On top of that, Mr. Britten proved the most engaging proprietor, a true gentleman. He told us he was happy to sell us two screws if that’s all we needed. We didn’t, but we appreciated the gesture, and said we’d be back when we did.

After that we mooched about on the High Street, were greeted as we went by passing locals, and also some nice dogs, found a good bottle of wine and sticky pastries in the Spar supermarket plus more welcoming encounters. And then headed for home. By midday it was almost twilight.

So no, it really did not matter that it was such a dank and gloomy day. Human and canine warmth sufficed; another grand trip out and only a few miles from home.

The ruined keep of the Norman castle looking especially lugubrious. We will return for a sunnier exploration.

Ancestral spaces

Offerton Moor viewed from Callow Farm, Highlow, Derbyshire

I’ve been posting views of South Shropshire lately, the green and wooded hill country of my home county. It is a terrain that, on the whole, seems more amiable than rugged, although in bad winter weather the tops of Stiperstones and Long Mynd will ever prove challenging.

But today, on another hoar-frosted day in Bishops Castle, I’m thinking of the Derbyshire Peak District where my maternal Fox family ancestors farmed over many generations. What a tough life they must have led, running sheep on the high moors, struggling to raise essential oat crops in more sheltered enclaves, raising a few cattle to provide milk to make cheese and butter: the cheese a staple with ale and oatcakes, the butter to sell at market.

The header photo is the view from the former farmyard of Callow Farm, last occupied by 3x great grandfather George Brayley Fox in 1892.

Most of the High Peak farmers (even if they were yeomen owning some land and property) were also tenants of large estate owners – the Dukes of Rutland and Devonshire as well as lesser lords of manors. The farms provided food and shelter, but Derbyshire farmers were opportunists too. For centuries they mixed farming with other trades, butchery, hat making, grindstone making for milling and the Sheffield cutlery trade, weaving, haulage, and most dangerously of all, but potentially lucrative, lead mining; this last usually carried out in winter months when there was little farm work.

These next views are of Stanage Edge. This gritstone escarpment lies across the valley from Callow Farm. This is where millstones were once cut and hauled to nearby Sheffield. I know there were farmer Foxes who went in for this arduous trade, but none, as far as I know, in my immediate family tree.

This next photo is of Scraper Low Farm also known as Scraper Low Hall. It stands above Hathersage, and for a short time was the home of my 2x great aunt, Sophia Lister nee Fox who married Mr. Lister the silversmith while still attached to hill farmer, John Brocklehurst who himself had bigamously married a young next-door widow. You can read the story at the link.

When we first came upon Scraper Low, I was astonished that the Listers would choose to move to such a lonely place after living in a Sheffield city centre flat, to say nothing of taking on a farm in their sixties. But then when I walked up the long approach lane, I realised that whenever Sophia walked this way from her extraordinary castellated porch house, she would have been able to scan across the Derwent Valley and spot Callow Farm where she was born in 1814, the place where her brothers George and William still lived.

But then was she engaging in family feeling, or cocking a snook at the relatives now that she could pretend she’d finally made something of herself?

This is the view from Scraper Low: Hathersage Moor – Higger Tor, Carl Wark hillfort and Burbage Rocks. It’s a landscape that already looks bleak in September. Imagine it in winter:

And finally back to Callow Farm, a more benign scene of the fields below the house, once worked by four generations of Foxes: George, Robert, George and William.

And an early morning flight trail across the valley. Not the sort of phenomenon the ancestors would have spotted, nor dreamed of seeing.

Lens-Artists: Empty Spaces Over this past week Patti has asked to show her empty spaces, however we chose to interpret the theme.

November Gold At Our Iron Age Hillfort

Yesterday we woke to the first hard frost of the year. When I looked out of the bathroom window to the top of the town, there was a cascade of white cottage roofs instead of the usual grey slate. And all glistening too…

Because best of all, there was also sun. SUN by god – and the weather people’s promise it would stay all day. What a gift. After weeks of rain between gloom and deluge, plus a stint of accompanying coughs and sneezes, I knew we should go out and make the most of it in one of Shropshire’s most majestic spots.

To Bury Ditches, says I. We can take a packed lunch. And so we did.

It’s only a five minute drive from our house, but up a very steep hill. For us unseasoned walkers, it’s too far to go on foot. The hillfort lies in Forestry Commission land, which means there is a car park, but the path to it rises further still above ‘monolithic’ stands of conifer, lit up here and there by the odd bright oak, or the orange haze of wintering larch.

The morning sun had melted much of the frost, though it lingered in the verge shadows and in the valley bottoms. The air was absolutely still. So still, and so utterly silent, it seemed the world had stopped. It was a fine moment to come upon an ancestor, albeit one, turned to wood. What kind of magic was this?

When we reached the hillfort, I tried to capture some idea of how it looks on the landscape, the scale of the ramparts – huge but nonetheless much diminished after 2,000 years of weathering. But it’s always impossible – the light not right, the site too overgrown, the earthworks ill-defined. And then there is the problem of the enclosed ground: all quite featureless; a great expanse of rough pasture, with nothing to fix on, or frame.

Here’s an artist’s reconstruction of the site, then a couple of my rampart shots.

For some better hillfort views than I could manage, please have a look at Virtual Shropshire’s page on Bury Ditches.

And so what are we left with? A sense of place, of space, the commanding views, the resonating mystery of who exactly built these monumental structures over 2 millennia ago. They are found across the uplands of Great Britain and yet we know so little about them. Some of course have been excavated and yield signs of village settlement inside (Castell Henllys). Some also revealed evidence of siege (e.g. Maiden Castle). Others seemed to have been simply places of refuge in times of war. Or perhaps also gathering places for festivals and markets. But the big disadvantage of hilltop refuges is they usually lack easy access to fresh water.

One thing we can say: these places were hugely important to the ruling hierarchies of the Iron Age people who built them. Imagine the man and woman hours involved, digging into bedrock with bone and antler picks and mattocks (for at this time iron, a scarce and valuable commodity, was reserved for the making of prestige weaponry not tools), heaving loads of earth in precipitous locations where horses and carts could scarcely serve the purpose. Yet…And yet…when freshly excavated in limestone country, or better still on chalk, the ramparts of these forts would have looked marvellous, glistening white on the skyline; visible for miles.

So if I couldn’t quite bring you a hillfort, here are the vistas we enjoyed, looking out, this after perching in a heather clump to eat our packed lunch. Herewith Shropshire and the Welsh borderland:

By 2 o’clock the sun’s warmth was gone, the remnant frost creeping back, fingering parts not properly wrapped up. We were glad to stride back to the car. A five minute drive home and we were by the log fire with a cup of tea. Such a little journey and yet we had been transported to another world and time. Passports not needed. Only willing hearts and minds and a small car.

Fully Framed

This week Anne at Slow Shutter Speed sets the Lens-Artists’ theme ‘filling the frame’. Please visit her blog for her thoughts (and excellent examples) of this approach to composition.

Lens-Artists: Filling the frame This week Anne at Slow Shutter Speed sets the challenge.

Off-Centre In Lamu

Once, a long time ago when we were living in Kenya, we spent Christmas on Lamu Island. I wrote about our brief stay HERE. It seemed like a dream when we were there. And here in this photo (posted a few times before) Mzee Lali, dhow captain, also dreams, the late-day breeze bearing us along the Manda Strait back to Shela village.

Stone Town: a World Heritage site

Shela Beach above, and Shela Village below. Donkeys were ‘parked’ under the thorn tree until needed for transport.

Crossing Manda Strait to the air field in a sudden squall

Lens-Artists: Asymmetry This week Donna sets the theme and shows us how asymmetrical framing can give compositions a different kind of balance.

Nice Symmetry ~ Symmetrically Nice

A flight of fancy was needed on this drizzly Shropshire day. So why not skip off to Nice for some dreaming Cote d’Azur light. And (somewhat loosely interpreted) take up Sofia’s this week’s challenge at Lens-Artists to look for all manner of things symmetrical.

The Promenade des Anges beside the glimmering Mediterranean seems a good place to start – glorious under the sun even in late October. And what could be more cheering than an azure avenue of beach brollies…

…glamorous by night:

…vibrant in its old town streetscapes, markets, palaces, churches, museums….even a sudden cloudburst doesn’t dampen its spirits…

and when the sun comes out again…oh, that light, shades of Matisse, Chagall, Dufy…

…and then it’s back to the beach for some symmetrical sunbathing:

Lens-Artists: Symmetry This week Sofia shows us many exquisite examples of symmetry. Please visit her blog and be inspired!

So Where Is The Castle In Bishop’s Castle?

This is a very good question. Where indeed is Bishop’s Castle’s castle? In its last years (during the early 1600s) the stone towers of keep and bailey would have loomed high above the town. Given the steepness of the hillside approach, it could not be a more dramatic setting. It must have looked very much like our vision of a fairy tale castle from a children’s picture book.

The outer bailey walls extended to the top of today’sHigh Street. See the next photo. If you home in on the on-coming red car below the brown building facing downhill, you’ll be in roughly the right spot.

Of the actual castle, there is little left to see. The Old Castle Land Trust has secured a portion ground that lay outside the inner bailey, and here you can see a surviving portion of bailey wall. It’s also a pleasing place to sit and stare at the top of the town.

The original castle keep would have been much further back and up, on the hill’s summit in fact. The site is now occupied by the town’s bowling green which was created over the keep’s footprint some time in the 18th century. A pleasing feature here is the octagonal pavilion, presumably built when the green was constructed. It is oak framed and, during restoration, the centre post was found to be octagonal in section. No expense spared then.

So why was there a castle here at all?

The answer is law enforcement and taxes.

The earliest version was constructed not long after the Norman Conquest, put up between 1085 and 1154, at the behest of the Bishops of Hereford, they who ruled the local roost – spiritual and temporal. As with most early Norman castles, it would have comprised an earth mound or motte, topped by a wood framed keep, and the surrounding inner and outer baileys defended by timber palisades. The lower flanks were then surrounded by a defensive ditch or moat, complete with drawbridge.

The stone-built phase began around 1167 – including stone keep, curtain walls with towers and gatehouses to both bailey perimeters. Further fortifications and likely refurbishment of living quarters took place around a century later, following on the brutal attack by a bellicose neighbour, the Earl of Arundel, Lord of Clun in 1281.

The castle premises at this time were equipped to provide accommodation for the visiting Bishops of Hereford plus their retinues of some 30 horses and men. The outer bailey would have included stables, stores, smithy and brewhouse.

The bishop came at regular intervals to hold court, impose fines on wrong doers and infringers of local laws and regulations, and to exact taxes from the local populace. By this time, there was a well-established town on the hillside between castle at the top and parish church at the bottom.

The bishops’ authority was finally overruled by Elizabeth 1, who simply took Bishop’s Castle for the Crown and then in 1573 issued a royal charter (see earlier post HERE) that handed executive control of the town’s affairs to an elected bailiff and 15 burgesses.

From this time on it seems the castle was left to its own devices, apparently ruinous by the 1600s. And so it is obvious what happened next: there was a general repurposing of the castle fabric as the market town grew in scale and prosperity.

One beneficiary was the Castle Hotel, built in the 18th century inside the former outer bailey:

If you stand in the hotel gardens, as I did in sunny interval this week, you are treated to the kind of sweeping vista that castle-dwellers-past might have enjoyed from their bastions, though I’m guessing there would have been rather more forest than the wide-open fields of this next photo.

If you then turn through 180 degrees and look up the garden, you are now facing the spot where the inner bailey gatehouse would have stood. I’m thinking the huge ash tree makes a handy simulacrum for a castle tower:

The bowling green is just beyond the tree. It used to belong to the hotel, and there’s a path through the garden to reach it. (Closed now for the winter season).

The late 17th and 18th centuries were a time when many townscapes had their ancient timber-framed houses clad and/or replaced in stone or brick. This certainly happened in Bishop’s Castle. Many of the 1700s and 1800s stone and rendered frontages will contain remnants of earlier wattle and daub dwellings. It was all part of growing urban show and gentrification.

And so the castle fabric has doubtless found its way into many a house and garden wall. The Moat House on Welsh Street seems a particularly obvious candidate, both by name and siting on the original castle defences.

A plaque on the wall also names it as no.41 of Bishop’s Castle’s town trail of lost inns, having been known variously as The George or The White Swan from around 1700. (Surprising to note that the town has hosted some 46 public houses over the last 400 years, but that’s a story for another day.)

I do know for certain that our house wasn’t built from castle remains. It’s all red brick, locally made, I think, and put up around 1922 by local builder George Nicholas. It stands in a corner of land formerly owned by the smithy and then by the Hit or Miss public house, which is three doors up from us. What a great name for a tavern. Now a private house, its plaque lists it as no. 38 in the lost pub trail, 1832-1915. These days it’s rather nicely ‘draped’ in laburnum fronds since it stands next to Laburnum Alley, one of the town’s intriguing shuts and pathways. Again, more of these in a future post.

For now, a view of our street and the former Hit or Miss public house. (You can just glimpse our red brick side elevation and chimneys furthest left).

And another view from the Castle Hotel garden, this time looking up motte, across the inner bailey, to where the castle keep would have once dominated the entire background. Interesting how things change:

In A Winter Light

This week Amy at Lens-Artists wants us to show her contrasts. Here are some of mine from winter sojourns on the island of Anglesey in North Wales – a favourite destination for family Christmas gatherings.

And a favourite place for photo-taking too. The combination of solstice sun, cold air, mountain weather and light off the sea creates some striking effects, especially along the Menai Strait between island and mainland.