Tish Farrell Writer

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?

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.

Moving Day Snowed Off!

The snow that was supposed to stop yesterday (according to the weather oracle) didn’t. There was a good six inches this morning – the slushy, slippery stuff that causes havoc on untreated roads. And havoc there was. The removal trucks did try valiantly to reach us this morning, but found themselves caught up for two hours in traffic jams of accidents and breakdowns on the highway down the Severn Gorge. And even if they had managed to reach Wenlock, the bottom of our street was blocked by two huge lorries that strangely, and within minutes of each other, had broken down; there was no way out to Broseley.

Now at lunch time, it’s raining not snowing; the road is almost slush-free and the broken down trucks vanished. Graham, after reinstating the internet connection, has retreated for a nap (on the mattress on the bedroom floor), having been awake half the night, and I’m pondering on what bare minimum needs to be unpacked for an unanticipated camp-over. (My last ditch packing up session early this morning saw stuff popped wildly into nearest bags and boxes, thus leaving some items untrackable). The movers are rescheduling jobs and plan to be with us tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have the trusty wood burner and a stash of logs. Our lovely neighbour, Josie has brought us chocolate cake and a bottle of wine. And later we may well treat ourselves to dinner out at one of Wenlock’s hostelries.

So as they say: tomorrow is another day. And hopefully the snow will soon be on its way out.

Passing On The Saxon Past: Some Mystifying Fragments

Here’s a fine thing: Saxon carvings some 1,300 years old, but recycled in the 13th century when Wirksworth’s ancient church was being rebuilt. The curious fragments have been popped into one of the main inside walls, a cobbled assemblage of ram’s head, a wolf (or boar?), a leopard-like creature, a horse, and in their midst, a royal couple (?).

It is thought the carvings came from an early Christian building or Saxon cross. Wirksworth, in Derbyshire’s Peak District (England’s East Midlands) was once part of the great Saxon kingdom of Mercia, whose kings and sub-kings held sway over much of England from CE 600 to 900.

Christianity was established there in the mid 7th century as a condition of a peace treaty between pagan Mercia and neighbouring Christian Northumbria. Northumbrian Princess Elchfrida travelled south into Mercia to marry Peada, son of Penda, the last great pagan king of Mercia. She brought with her an entourage of missionary priests, one of whom, Betti, founded the church at Wirksworth in CE 653.

So could the couple be Elchfrida and Peada? We’ll never know. Though we do know from Bede that the real-life Elchfrida later betrayed Paeda, which led to his death and the reassertion of Mercian supremacy under his brother, King Wulfhere.

The church has another mysterious Saxon treasure, known as The Wirksworth Stone. It is a coffin lid dating to around CE 800, found a thousand years later during building work. The lid covered a large skeleton whose burial position under the floor close to the altar suggests a person of high religious status, an abbot perhaps.

But looking now at these curious works, and pondering, too, on my likely Anglo-Saxon origins, I can’t help but think of the opening line from L.P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

St. Mary’s, Wirksworth

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: statues, sculptures and carvings

River Of Clouds ~ But Which Way’s Up?

This week Patti at Lens-Artists wants to see shadows and reflections in monochrome. So here’s a cloudy-day view of the Mawddach Estuary in Wales: upright and upside down. Intriguing, isn’t it. It’s making me think of a Rorschach inkblot test.

Lens-Artists: Monochrome shadows and reflections

Looking Back: The Old Stones Of Din Lligwy

We came here last week, Monday 2nd January 2023. I’d been here before – the north-easterly corner of Ynys Mon (Anglesey) and to this field above the sea, where there are ruins of a Norman chapel (12th century) and a Romano-Celtic settlement of the late 300s AD.

And with all these chronological markers in place, I should perhaps add one more and say that it was probably 60 years since I was last here. Sixty years. Ye gods! How time does fly.

Back then, we were visiting what my mother mistakenly called ‘a stone age village’. It was one of my big holiday excitements whenever we came to Anglesey.

Above and below are the settlement’s two circular houses, inhabited during the later Roman era, but abandoned by 400 AD when the legions departed. So, mummy dear, not a Stone Age village at all, though unknown to me at the time of those childhood visits, there is in fact an impressive Stone Age monument very close by.

As you can see, the stone houses have massively constructed walls, faced inside and out with huge slabs, and the space between packed with rubble. They probably supported conical, timber-framed and thatched roofs. (A reconstruction HERE)

There are also at least 7 rectangular buildings associated with the houses. Two of these contained several smelting hearths and were probably iron-making workshops supplying the local Roman legions with tools and weapons. The whole site was then bounded by a pentagonal wall, well over a metre thick, and entered via a gatehouse. There were also further house remains outside the boundary wall.

To me it has the looks of a secure unit. Perhaps with workshops under direct Roman control. By the 4th century the locals could well have been growing restive; itching to arm themselves. This is just my hypothesis. Other interpretations are that the outer wall was for keeping cattle in, and that the defences were considered ‘light’.

But now a step back in more recent times and the way things were for the Ashford family circa 1960:

And finally a giant’s leap back – some 5, 000 years:

It’s only a short walk from the Romano-Celtic settlement, and barely a stone’s throw behind a field hedge, but here we have a Stone Age cromlech, the burial place of some thirty Neolithic farmers, men, women and children. Among their remains archaeologists also found animal bones, flint tools and pottery.

The hugeness of the capstone is breath-taking. It’s reckoned to weigh 25 tons and, in consequence, it’s also thought that the stone was already in situ at the time of construction (a handy glacial delivery?) and that the tomb builders excavated underneath, wedging it on boulders to create the chamber. The whole was then probably covered with turves and soil, and as with similar monuments that were in use over a period of time, may also have included some kind of ceremonial forecourt. But however it was constructed, it surely took a massively concerted effort.

Our visit over, we turned back to the car. Back to the present. Across the lane from the tomb was the misty view of the Great Orme on the mainland (named by the Vikings during the next invasion phase). Behind us was the small place called Din Lligwy – five millennia of human history documented in stone.

On my personal time-scale, I’d like to say I’ll be back there in another sixty years, but it seems unlikely. Still, you never know…

Lens-Artists: Looking Back This week Sofia sets the challenge.

A Curious Rendition?

Well, it is surprising, isn’t it – to find this Elvis artwork at the head of the grand staircase at Chatsworth House, Chatsworth being one of England’s most prestigious stately homes and the country seat of the Dukes of Devonshire.

Here’s more of the art work. It is pretty surreal, however it comes: whether in the original technicolour or in monochrome. (I’m afraid I omitted to make a note of its creator). But now I discover that the likely reason for its presence is that the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, otherwise known as Debo to her friends, was a huge Elvis Presley fan and had a fondly kept signed photo of him on her wall.

Also when the Duchess died in 2014 at the age of 94, he was to play a big part in her simple funeral service, held in the Chatsworth estate church. She had chosen his recording of ‘How Great Thou Art’ to play her out as she was borne aloft in her woven wicker coffin stranded with ivy and autumnal hawthorn berry sprays. A surprising soundtrack perhaps in rural gentrified Derbyshire.

Debo was the last surviving Mitford sister, a notorious brood of five ‘gels’, several of whom, in pursuit of love, bolted from deemed acceptable aristocratic marriages in order (between them) to embrace the full spectrum of political persuasion. Jessica was a communist; Diana ran off with fascist Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity pursued Hitler; novelist Nancy was a socialist and left her husband for a protracted affair with a French statesman; Pamela left her husband to live with an Italian horsewoman, while Deborah, in true English gentry style, married a future duke and spent her life developing Chatsworth House as a premier visitor attraction, including the pioneering of heritage shopping and the marketing of local produce.

You can find her final accompaniment ‘How Great Thou Art’ on YouTube.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: things musical

The Shortest Day And A Trip To Ironbridge

It seemed like a good way for the Farrells to mark the winter solstice – a little wander through Ironbridge town and over the bridge itself. It was anyway a glorious day, and the bridge was looking its festive best in its ochre-red livery.

A fine exemplar of Shropshire’s heritage.

Those of you who come here often will know that this is reputedly the world’s first cast iron bridge, built by Abraham Darby III and opened for the carriage trade and other toll paying traffic in the New Year of 1781.

Of course, as was intended all along, it became the sightseeing phenomenon of the age. Everyone who was anyone had to come, look and pronounce on this pioneering wonder. The Coalbrookdale Company of ironmasters were naturally well prepared. They had also built the Tontine inn, a smart hostelry at the foot of the bridge.

Here it is with its mint green shutters, and still open for business. Also if you squint, you can ‘see’ the church clock is just striking noon. Can you hear the chimes ringing out on the cold December air?

The middle of the bridge is a good spot to stop for views of the Severn Gorge, now a World Heritage Site.

Once, this upstream view would have been filled with busyness. There were boat builders’ yards along the left bank. Then there was the river traffic itself, Severn trows, the great sailing barges up from Gloucester and Bristol, putting in at the Coalbrookdale Company’s warehouse, just visible at the river’s vanishing point. The trows brought in luxury goods: fine glassware, casks of port, Madeira, Spanish wines, sugar, molasses, serge cloth, the latest hats and bonnets, peach wood for cabinet making, blocks of marble, tobacco, salt fish.

On the return voyage the trows took on consignments of pig iron and castings of every kind, in particular the iron cauldrons, latterly known as missionary pots. They came in all sizes from the family porridge pot to large scale containers for industrial processes. They were rarely, if ever, deployed for the braising of missionaries.

This downstream view suggests unchanging tranquillity, but think again. Come the February flood season, the force of water rushing down from Wales and through the Gorge can be devastating. Even these days, with flood defences in place, there can be extensive overflow. The Great Flood of 1795 saw every Severn bridge damaged or taken out. Only the Iron Bridge remained unscathed.

Times of drought brought other perils. Large sandbanks formed and well loaded barges could find themselves grounded, often for weeks at a time. Such eventualities were catered for by a string of inns along both banks. And these were not only places of respite for the stranded. The riverside taverns were also said to be the haunt of industrial spies, out to gather company secrets over a jug or two of ale.

On Wednesday noon, 21st Dec. 2022, the Wharfage slumbered in the winter sunshine. There was barely a sign of a Christmas shopper. No coach and horses clattering up the hill to the Tontine. No carts unloading and loading precious goods in transit. No crowds of merchants’ clerks checking the cargo lists, or shouts of boat masters cajoling their crews. Or the pounding of the steam hammer at the riverside ironworks, that caused the men who worked it to grow deaf; the thud and thud and thud rebounding down the Gorge. Some things change for the better.

Happy New Year One And All

And whatever our beliefs, or lack of them, a strong prayer for more sanity and truth will not come amiss