A Fountain Fit For A Tsar…?

It might have been a protocol blunder of imperial proportions, but then it tells you much about the man almost responsible for it. And so it was that when the high-spending William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, thought Tsar Nicholas would visit his Chatsworth domain in 1844, he commissioned Joseph Paxton to build the world’s tallest fountain; this to outdo both Chatsworth’s existing Great Fountain (then the tallest in Britain) and the Tsar’s own grandest fountain at his Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg. So: a back-handed sort of honouring, and I wonder how the Tsar would have taken this spectacle of extravagant one-upmanship: smiling through gritted teeth perhaps?

He anyway did not come, although the fountain was named ‘the Emperor’ to mark the non-occasion. The jet has been known to reach nearly 300 feet, although it was ‘turned down’ on the day I took this photo due to high wind.

For more about Chatsworth and a small family connection see my earlier post To Chatsworth and how Mary Ann went to the ball

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: fountains and sprinklers

Backlit From The Wenlock Archive

This week Ann-Christine at Lens-Artists wants to see our backlit subjects – always an appealing approach as far as Mrs. Farrell’s concerned. This year, though, the sun has been so tricksy – more going than coming – there seem to have been few chances for new naturally backlit shots.

Which means dipping into the archive: a Much Wenlock retrospective in other words; I know some of you won’t mind revisiting Sheinton Street.

Underneath the Horse Chestnut tree, last summer on the old railway line

Wild Arum Lily/Cuckoo Pint/Lords and Ladies last spring on Windmill Hill

Evereste Crab Apple blossom over the garden fence

On the kitchen table: lilac and hawthorn blossom

Looking up into the ‘upstairs’ garden: lemon balm and montbretia leaves

Winter sunset in the Sytche Lane rookery

Late summer sunset on Townsend Meadow with nettles

Lens-Artists: Backlit

Still Life After The Allotment

I’m still pondering on how I feel about giving up my allotment. Hmm.

But then given the long, wet and laboured lead up to spring, I know the soil on my plots will be cold and claggy and in no way suitable for any kind of cultivation. Probably for weeks yet. I also know the wind will be whistling up there, and I can do without the added chill factor. Yet there’s no denying it (as I look at these photos), we’re going to miss the produce, freshly gathered as needed and all grown without the taint of pesticide.

We do have a small garden at our rented house, and I’ve already sown lettuce, rocket and spinach in big buckets. I have them covered in a large plastic covered cloche affair, and they’ve all germinated despite unpromising temperatures. I’m also going to get carrots going in large pots (they anyway often work better in containers) and peas in seed trays for sprouts. Yesterday I sowed cherry tomato seeds (in heated trays on the kitchen cupboard) and hope to plant them out along the sheltered walled border, though at this rate probably not till June! And then there might be room for some French climbing beans.

On the other hand, we might suddenly find we’ve bought a house. In which case, my (mostly) portable garden will be moving with us.

Lens-Artists #246: Still Life This week Patti sets the theme, a favourite with me when it comes to photographing garden produce. I’m sure I’m not the only one to see beauty in freshly dug new potatoes.

April In The Ironbridge Gorge

For the past weeks it’s been more ‘blow blow thou winter wind…’ than balmy spring breezes. Still, on Monday the gustiness subsided long enough to enjoy an afternoon stroll along the Wharfage to Dale End Park in Ironbridge.

As you can see, there wasn’t much sun, but it was good to see the River Severn safely back in its bed after its March uprising – the almost-deluge after rapid snow-melt upstream.

And it was good, too, to see tree-life greening, slowly-slowly – willow and ash, birch and hazel, larch, sycamore, hawthorn, horse chestnut:

And then the park cherry trees were at full flourish ~ tarrah!

And this horse chestnut tree (centre) was all set to light up its creamy ‘candles’:

Many of the trees were in full flower too. My computer issued a high pollen warning this morning.

These willow flowers were spotted the following day at Jackfield, a couple of miles downstream of Ironbridge, caught here in a brief sunny interlude.

And silver birch catkins caught on the breeze: catkin cascades. All we need now is a little warmth, and less bluster.

In An Equatorial Light

In another life-time I ran away to Africa and fell in love with light. I must have noticed light before, but I do not remember this kind of rapture. There’s the land too: the visceral, eviscerating redness of the earth. It strikes the eye, fires every neuron in the cerebral cortex, then jabs you in the solar plexus. The hue of life and death then; no wonder traditional peoples make so much use of this pigment. There were times when I felt I could eat it.

The place I ran from is very near the town of Broseley where we have recently come to live. There’s an odd sense of ‘full circle’ and a musing of: should I be worried about this unexpected retracing of steps; is there a reason I’m back here; some unfinished business to be dealt with now that I’m ‘older and wiser’? Etc. etc. I decide this line of thinking is a distraction, although it has me looking back through thirty years.

The place I ran (or rather flew) to was Nairobi, Kenya and so to a nine month stint of roaming up and down the Mombasa highway, accompanying a plant pathologist who worked both at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in the city and at the Kiboko field station, a KARI outpost, a hundred miles south in Ukambani, homeland of the Akamba people.

Mombasa highway, looking north from Kiboko

Said plant pathologist, aka Graham, was working on a British government funded project to eradicate a maize-gobbling beetle known as LGB, the larger grain borer. (Everything you need to know about the science is at this link).

The pest had no known predators in Africa, having been introduced from South/Central America in consignments of US food aid in 1980s. And so finding itself free to infest the granaries of people who subsisted on grains, and on maize in particular, it quickly established itself across the southern and eastern continent, then in West Africa, travelling along major railway routes.

The aim of the project was to breed up stocks of a (safely) introduced predator beetle as a biological control and then release it in LGB infected areas. Meanwhile, the habits and destructive capacity of LGB were being monitored in various store experiments at Kiboko and at the coast near Mombasa.

On days when Graham was working at Kiboko, we stayed at Hunter’s Lodge. In our time it was an eccentric hostelry that seemed to survive for the benefit of its staff; there were rarely other guests there. Once it had been the home of John Hunter, Great White Hunter and doyen of the colonial grand safari era, friend of Baron Bror Blixen and Denys Finch Hatton, guide to sultans and European princes.

He had chosen the spot to build the house near the Kiboko River, at a place where elephant once came to drink at sundown. He also made a pool by diverting the river, and so created a marvellous haven for birdlife (some 3-400 species recorded there). I spent hours watching night herons, grey herons, weavers, pied, giant, brown headed kingfishers, ibis, white eyes, and storks. I took few photos: it was beyond my Olympus Trip’s capacity.

There are no elephant photos here either. They no longer came, nor would be welcome. Anyway, Hunter did a thorough job of official game clearance in Ukambani, where the colonial authorities deemed elephants a nuisance to settler farmers’ plantations. The nearest herds these days are an hour’s drive south in the vast national parks, Tsavo East and Tsavo West.

The bridge led to the hotel’s fruit and vegetable shamba

Rain and sunshine together: ‘a monkey’s wedding’

And speaking of monkeys, the garden was home to a troop of vervets, who soon learned we had a stash of food in our room. They were quick to relieve us of anything they could grab:

While I was staying at Hunter’s Lodge I met Esther, a young Akamba woman who had a stall selling wood carvings out on the highway. She also dealt in second-hand clothes and, an astute business woman, soon had me exchanging some of mine for her carvings. I think she had the best of the deal. I was useless at bargaining. She also had a notion that I would like to take a photo of her with young son Thomas. She knew exactly where she would pose, and took me along to the nearby petrol station where there was a cafe with a zebra mural. So please meet Esther and Thomas:

And here’s lovely Joyce who, on our return to Kenya a year later, used to keep our room tidy:

There were times, usually in the early morning, when we were leaving Kiboko that we’d catch sight of Kilimanjaro. There it rose on the horizon like a mirage. In seconds it would be gone, like a snuffed flame but without the tell-tale drift of smoke. You’d be left wondering if you dreamed it.

I fell in love with fever trees too, the graceful acacias that, incidentally, have no disease-bearing capacity, although the watery places where they live may well do so. The bark and foliage has a warm spicy scent that is unforgettable, and as for their looks in sundowner light, well, what is there to say…

When, at the end of our nomadic nine months, we went to live in Zambia (a very fresh-airy state) I truly missed the scent of fever trees. I couldn’t believe our luck when Graham was posted back to Kenya. It was then he had the rather dismal job of winding up the LGB project at the Kiboko field station. He threw a long, loud party for the lab staff at Hunter’s Lodge, and the next day everyone lined up to have their photo taken.

Most had other jobs to go to and were heading back to Nairobi and beyond. Only Paddy, then a young researcher, remained to carry on monitoring LGB movements and checking the insect traps on the nearby Range Station. He lived on the station in a remote staff house, up a long, long dirt road. These days he is Doctor of Agricultural Entomology at a research institute in Nairobi:

The road to the Range Station. I think this land was once a colonial (failed) sisal plantation. We heard that the thorny wilderness it had later become was the haunt of buffalo, an animal you definitely do not want to meet at close quarters.

After our return to Kenya in late 1993, we stayed on a further six years. This time Graham was involved with on-farm crop protection experiments, engaging the smallholder farmers in the process. As for LGB eradication, it seems attempts to use a biological control have not been especially successful, although the predator has naturalized and does have some limited effect on LGB numbers. Scrupulous cleaning of granaries between harvests plus chemical applications, e.g. dusting the stored crop with a pyrethroid insecticide does work, but otherwise it can be a sorry tale for subsistence farmers, who may not be able to afford the stuff. In the worst infestations up to 40% of stored grain can be lost, and up to 80% of dried cassava, a staple crop in West Africa.

So: some dark clouds on these horizons. It’s a lot to mull over. All these years on, I’m still trying to process it.

Graham at Emali market, buying maize for the Kiboko grain store experiments.

Lens-Artists: Glowing moments Siobhan at Bend Branches blog asks us to show her our best moments.

Spring Comes Softly at Hergest Croft

The second day of April, and the last day of our Presteigne cottage holiday, we set off to nearby Hergest Croft Gardens. The 70 acre gardens, part of the Hergest Estate, lie on the England-Wales border in Herefordshire, not far from Kington. From the first moment you set foot in the place you know it will be a gardener’s treat at every turn. And how could it not be? Not only does it hold the national collections of maple and birch trees, it is also six gardens in one, created from the late 19th century, and home to over 5,000 rare trees and shrubs; every specimen mindfully placed and nurtured over the years by members of the Banks family, a dynasty of local lawyers-bankers-plants-men-and-women.

We’d hoped for sunshine, but the weather forecast lied. The day of our visit was overcast and, while the profusion of daffodils and magnolia cascades through the trees said ‘spring’, to this human it felt more like winter, the Arctic edge to the breeze lingering on and on, fingering into every exposed cranny. I was glad of my quilt-lined waterproof and woolly hat.

Here and there were signs of winter hanging on. In fact most of the deciduous shrubs and trees seemed to think so too; there was a general air of arboreal slumber, their hint-of-green looks (on closer inspection) often down to profuse colonies of lichens, which tells you something about the quality of the clear, fresh air up on Hergest Ridge.

In the end it didn’t matter if spring was slow to happen. The gardens were beautiful, and it somehow added to the pleasure of small finds: a clump of violets, some snake’s fritillaries, primroses, more daffodil and magnolia vistas, a maple just unfurling:

Of course all such visits to English gardens must include a tea room, and Hergest Croft has a very fine one with a suitably gracious terrace overlooking the lawns and parkland. The cakes were so delicious I forgot to take their photo (apologies cake lovers). I was anyway distracted by a burst of sunshine. That didn’t last long either.

But by four o’clock even pots of tea and slabs of coffee and lemon cakes could not fend off the gathering chill, and there was one final spot to visit before heading back to the car and the warmth of our Presteigne cottage.

The kitchen garden.

At first sight it was definitely still in winter mode, although the rhubarb was putting on a good spurt, the terracotta covers set out for forcing.

Then we found the orchard, an avenue of ancient apple trees, and beneath them an exuberant (if slightly mad) planting of bulbs and hellebores. I forgot about shivering and laughed. We’d been looking in the wrong place. Who said it wasn’t spring yet?

Over The Hills And Into Wales

My sister Jo is a whizz at finding lovely spots for family gatherings, and so it was last Thursday we found ourselves in the Radnorshire hills, staying at Wild Meadow eco-cottage just outside Presteigne. We were only an hour or so’s drive from home, having crossed from Shropshire into Herefordshire, and thence into Wales, although only just inside the border (red arrow marks the spot):

And we all agreed how very pleasing it was to arrive on holiday so quickly i.e. without the stress of planes, motorways and hours of tedious driving. In fact the entire journey from home was mostly through rolling farm land. It also included our first ever sighting of a terrestrial rainbow. It was lying across the fields below Walton Hills as we drove through Much Wenlock. Most extraordinary. After a brief, sharp drizzle it seemed to have fallen flat out of the sky.

And so here we are (some of us) at Wild Meadow cottage:

Nearby Presteigne was once the county town of the ancient shire of Radnor, but these days is part of Powys, the largest administrative region in Wales. It is fine sheep farming country, and mostly looks like this for miles and miles and miles:

And this is the town. Not much was happening when we stopped there mid afternoon last Thursday, although we were pleased to find coffee was being served in the the bar of the 17th century Radnorshire Arms along with a welcoming smile from the publican.

Back at Wild Meadow, Jo tried out the old oak tree swing:

And after a few squalls of rain, we watched the sun set across the hills.

Broseley: A Town Of Many Views

Well they say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do ~ and it was, and for more than a year, but here we are in a new small town, scarcely a crow’s flight from our old home in Much Wenlock.

Broseley as a town isn’t as ancient as Much Wenlock. There were only 9 residents recorded in 1086. Much Wenlock, by contrast, had its Priory which saw much growth from the Norman period onwards, the new cult of St. Milburga (who was abbess of the first religious house there in the 7th century) attracting pilgrims, and thus spurring demand for local trades and services throughout the Middle Ages.

Broseley, with its once well wooded and agricultural lands, was part of Wenlock Priory’s domain, providing prime territory for deer-hunting monks. The Priory also exacted various rents from Broseley manor tenants, including the lord himself, who held his land according particular obligations to the Prior.

In the 1200s the Lord of Broseley kept his possessions on the basis that on St. Milburga’s day he was to dine at the Priory and carve the principal dish. His immediate neighbour, the Lord of Willey was obliged to bear the Prior’s robes to Parliament. Rents were charged for pannage (grazing of pigs in the woods) and also for operating coal pits in the area.

In 1570 Broseley was a small (mostly) agricultural village of around 125 individuals. But this changed when the lord of the manor, James Clifford encouraged the immigration of miners to work the local coal deposits. He let the newcomers build cottages on irregular plots of the uninclosed commons and wastes to the north of the village above the River Severn, a part of the town now known as Broseley Wood.

Soon the mining households outnumbered the locals’ homes more than 2:1, their presence leading to riots during the early 1600s, as Broseley villagers grew increasingly angry over their loss of common rights. Nonetheless, the hugger-mugger building of cottages in Broseley Wood continued as the mining enterprises(ironstone and clay as well as coal) thrived. As might be imagined, there was a proliferation of taverns to serve the workforce, and by 1690 Broseley Wood apparently had the looks of ‘a country town’. Miners were the main inhabitants, but there were also watermen (handling the export of coal down the River Severn), potters (making tavern mugs) and clay-pipe makers. Interestingly too, the hillsides down to the River Severn wharves were, from 1605, laid with a network of railways, the earliest ones made of wood, the haulage of trucks provided by humankind, often children.

New builds in the town emulate traditional local idioms and continue the habit of filling every available space, no matter how awkward to reach.

The cottages cling to the sides of precipitous ridges, access only by winding narrow lanes and cross-paths known as jitties.

I still have much to discover about the jitties, but on my short walk from the house yesterday, I revisited Maypole Jitty. It hives off Woodlands Green where the new maypole stands (reinstated in 1985), also the locale of the 1600s riots between villagers and miners.

Standing here, you can just see the top of the Severn Gorge above Ironbridge.

And here’s the maypole:

A nearby information board tells me that maypole dancing was part of an age-old fertility rite:

And now in case you’re wondering where the header image comes into this, well it was an unexpected discovery. After passing the maypole I found myself at the end of a cul de sac on Maypole Road where a discreet footpath sign caught my eye. It took me down a narrow bosky bridleway of celandines and wild garlic…

And in no time brought me to this spot at the top of the Gorge, and thence to the wood on Ball’s Lane and the maypole.

And so back into town:

With a here and there burst of spring colour if not spring warmth:

More Broseley views to follow.

Lens-Artists: New experiences This week the theme is set be Anne at Slow Shutter Speed

A Blooming Fanfare ~ Installed, If Not Quite ship-Shape

I ‘activated’ the Amaryllis bulb in February, as soon as I knew our house sale was settled and our moving date fixed. It was a Christmas gift from our best chum, Lesley, and I’d dithered over planting it up precisely because of the (sometime) imminent move.

I have to say when I finally opened its package, it did not look too promising: as in more dead than dormant. Still, I followed the instructions, installing the bulb’s bottom two-thirds into moist compost. The reaction was almost instantaneous. By the following day fresh leaf shoots were peeping out the top. Monitoring progress then became an amusing diversion from packing-up stress.

And come the snowy moving day, five leaves had emerged along with a fat budded stem. I transported it in the car and popped the pot on the kitchen cupboard by the new-house French doors where it had the best light. A few days later the flower stem was off on it own trajectory, clearly prompted by the Lance Penny work on the wall behind it.

And now, a week later, and moved to the dining table, all four flowers have opened, stealing the show from John Scarland’s Cafe Women:

So: the Farrells have landed; and most important of all, the kitchen is up and running. I’m getting the gist of the gas cooker that comes with the place, this after years of electric cooking. Several batches of soda bread have turned out well, and today’s first attempt at rye and almond shortbread proved passable:

We like the kitchen with the French doors that catch all the morning sun and open onto the small walled garden. Most of our stuff seems to have fitted in. Well, almost. He who no longer has a shed is busy trying to rein in the chaos of surplus possessions in the garage, this after setting up music and viewing systems in kitchen and living room. My writing den is pretty much set up; the too many books on new shelves. We even know where most things are, which has to be a first.

Next stop: Operation Explore Broseley. We’ve already located the old clay pipe works, the ancient Quaker Burial Ground and the town’s handsome striped maypole on the green near Maypole Jitty. More of which anon.

For now, it’s A Big Thank You, Lesley! So much entertainment from this extraordinary life form.

Farewell Townsend Meadow

Oh, how the weather gods teased. Well, they thought, why not bestow snow storms in March just when humankind are expecting spring and the Farrells in particular are booked (within a very narrow window of opportunity) to up sticks. We’ll show them, the deities said, taking us for granted, thinking they’ve got everything planned to the nth degree

And so it was that our first attempt to move house (two weeks today) failed, the main roads blocked with car accidents and jack-knifed artics, and the removal vans unable to reach us.

And then once the mover crew did manage to extract their vehicles from a two-hour jam, they decided to cut their losses and go and move someone whose house they could reach, meanwhile rescheduling us for the following Friday morning.

We felt stranded; misplaced; displaced. It was all very weird. We wandered round a cottage full of boxes, bereft of ‘home’, trying to locate the kettle and emergency tea-making kit. As the day wore on it began to rain, and spirits lifted; there were signs of a thaw. When we went into town later to find some supper, the roads were clear and the pavements slushy, we were sure that the snow would be gone by morning. We were still thinking this when we bunked down for the night on the mattress, the bed having been dismantled.

So it was a very bad moment when I opened the bedroom blinds at 7 a.m. on Friday to find the world white again and more snow falling. I had visions of our buyer trying to move in with us.

I needn’t have panicked. The movers were on the phone early, saying that although the main road was still closed, they would come the long way round and be with us at 9 am. And so they were. They had us away in 2 hours, the loading much helped, (surprise surprise) by the snow. The bad weather reports and the ongoing road blockage beyond Wenlock meant we missed out on the the usual morning traffic mayhem. There were no big container trucks squeezing by the house.

So: all there was left to do was to say goodbye to no. 31…

It’s a tad hard to process just yet – the moving on, but we seem (physically at least), to be settling into the rental house. And, besides, there’s so much to learn about our new home town of Broseley. Of which more anon, although I can report in advance that the locals are proving most welcoming. The snow is long gone too, although the weather gods are still teasing and giving us wintery gales instead of spring.

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge