Author: Platypus Man

Mine’s bigger than yours – top guys have huge dovecotes!

Posted on by Platypus Man

This may be difficult to believe, but dovecotes were once important status symbols. Yes, that’s right, dovecotes, those quirky structures that our ancestors built for pigeons. Back in the day, you could discern a man’s wealth and social status by the size of his pigeon house. Top guys had huge, sometimes ornate dovecotes, middling guys had plain, little dovecotes. Ordinary guys – a.k.a. commoners, like my ancestors – weren’t allowed to have a dovecote at all.

Sibthorpe Dovecote in Nottinghamshire is believed to date from the 14th century. It is 15 metres high by 10 metres in diameter and has 1,148 nesting chambers.

Why so much fuss about pigeons and the places in which they spent the night? Well, the thing about pigeons is that they were once an important source of meat. In the Middle Ages, before root vegetables were widely available and grown in Britain, keeping livestock such as pigs and cows alive over the winter months was a struggle.

Swainsley Dovecore, Staffordshire. Evidence here of human occupancy, as well as pigeons!

Pigeons, on the other hand, were much less of a challenge. Simply give them a safe place to roost overnight, to build nests and to raise their young, and they look after themselves. At daybreak the birds would fly off to forage for food, before returning to the dovecote as night began to fall. The owner therefore had ready access to fresh meat every day of the year, as well as a plentiful supply of guano with which to fertilise his fields, and even a few feathers if he felt the need to make an arrow or two.

Rendall Doocot is on one of the Orkney islands off the north coast of Scotland. It dates from the mid-1600s. The birds entered the doocot (dovecote) through a small hole in the roof and nested inside

Dovecotes were most probably introduced into Britain by the Norman invaders nearly 1,000 years ago. But the defeated Brits had to be kept in their place, so from the outset the right to keep doves was limited to the Norman aristocratic elite and their descendants. For this reason, early dovecotes were usually sited in or close to castles and great houses.

Tucked away in the far right of this photo, which features the 16th century Ford Green Hall in Staffordshire, is an early 18th-century brickwork dovecote. The windows suggest a later conversion for human occupancy.

Unsurprisingly, given our obsession with social status, dovecotes soon became a vehicle for one-upmanship. They were strategically located within estates, on approach roads or next to the main entrance, ensuring they could be seen easily by those whom the Lord wished to impress. And no expense was spared in the design of a dovecote – bigger was better, and hugely ornate was better still.

Dunster Dovecote in Somerset dates from the late 16th century

It is reckoned that, by the middle of the 17th century, there were over 25,000 dovecotes in England. At around that time a more relaxed attitude began to emerge; commoners, albeit commoners with a good deal of money, began to build modest pigeon dwellings of their own. This, in turn, destroyed the incentive for members of the elite to construct grand dovecotes – there was no longer any social status to be gained from pigeon houses if mere commoners were allowed to have one!

Kinwarton Dovecote in Warwickshire dates from the 14th century and has over 580 nesting chambers.  It is the only remaining relic of a moated grange (country house with associated farm buildings) belonging to the nearby Abbey of Evesham.

The final nail in the coffin of dovecotes came in the early 18th century, when root vegetables were introduced into British agriculture. From that point, farmed livestock could be overwintered in large numbers, eliminating the need for alternative sources of meat during the colder months. Dovecotes were no longer needed. They swiftly fell out of fashion and into disrepair.

Wichenford Dovecote in Worcestershire is timber-framed and dates from the 17th century. IMAGE CREDIT: Wichenford Dovecote by Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Today anyone can have a dovecote, but few of us bother. If you want it, fresh meat is available to buy in the shops all year round, and for those who care about such things social status is determined by the schools we attended, the jobs we do, the clothes we wear and the cars we drive.

A modern dovecote at Trent Lock, Nottinghamshire. Size clearly counts for less in the 21st century!

But as this post illustrates, over the years Mrs P and I have stumbled across numerous dovecotes scattered haphazardly across the British landscape. Some have been restored and adapted for modern use, while others stand abandoned in the countryside, memorials to a forgotten world in which size really mattered and pigeon pie helped keep the ruling elite well fed during the winter months.

Disneyesque fantasies, ancient timbers, knotted dachshunds – the diverse joys of Great Dixter

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Most old buildings have a story to tell: you just have to know where to look. Great Dixter, in the county of East Sussex, is a case in point. In its present form it dates from 1910-12, the work of celebrated architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944). Lutyens was famous for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era, so it should probably come as no surprise that Great Dixter is in fact three buildings – two of them medieval – in one.

Great Dixter – three houses in one.

The original building on the site was a house known simply as Dixter, and dates from the mid-15th century. When businessman Nathaniel Lloyd (1867-1933) bought it in 1909, he quickly decided that it didn’t meet his 20th century needs. However he was a wealthy man, thanks to his colour printing business, wealthy enough to be able to buy his way out of the problem.

The oldest part of Great Dixter was built between 1440 and 1454.

Lloyd’s solution was to purchase a 16th century Yeoman’s Hall, built in a similar style, from the adjoining county of Kent. This new acquisition was swiftly dismantled, loaded onto trucks and brought to Dixter for re-assembly. Lutyens was hired to renovate both buildings, and to design and construct a third, linking the two older structures together. The result was a single house, much larger than its individual components, that was given the name Great Dixter.

The Great Dixter we see today is, in effect, an early 20th century, sanitised re-imagining of medieval life. Eat your heart out, Walt Disney!

Probably the most significant room is the Great Hall. At 40ft (12m) long by 31ft (9.5m) high, it is one of the largest surviving medieval timber frame halls in the country. It looks wonderfully, romantically comfortable. Wow, we think to ourselves, didn’t they live well in the Middle Ages! But don’t be fooled, back in the day the Great Hall was altogether less agreeable than today’s visitor to Great Dixter might assume.

Two views of the Great Hall, as modernised by Edwin Lutyens for comfortable 20th century living. In medieval times the Great Hall would have been a public space, open to the wider family and guests.

Originally the floor was nothing more than beaten earth, covered with rushes. The Great Hall was heated by an open fire in the centre of that floor, the smoke from which escaped through unglazed windows – which could only be closed off with wooden shutters – or via a louvre-capped hole in the roof. To this day the wooden roof beams are stained black, evidence of the smoky-choky environment the medieval occupants had to endure.

The Solar would have been the principal private apartment of the 15th century house.

Unsurprisingly, this was not a lifestyle that Lloyd intended to embrace. He and his family used the Great Hall as their living and dining room for around 20 years, and to give them a standard of living in line with their perceived position in society, they installed modern amenities, including electric lighting and central heating. Radiators are concealed beneath old oak chests specially adapted for the purpose, and there’s not a shuttered window or wisp of smoke in sight. Lloyd was in love with the romance of life in the Middle Ages, not its harsh realities.

In medieval times the Parlour was one of the other private room to which the family could escape.

Only four rooms at Great Dixter are open to the public, as most of the building is used as accommodation for international students of gardening who are based on the property. While none of the others is as special as the Great Hall, all are impressive. Courtesy of Edwin Lutyens, they conjure up cosy, sentimental notions of a lost medieval world. I’m sure the Lloyds must have been happy living in their Disneyesque fantasy world; I know I would.

This is part of the 16th century Yeoman’s Hall, which was dismantled and moved here from Kent. In the early 20th century Mr and Mrs Lloyd used it as their bedroom

But now I have a confession to make. Great Dixter is a fascinating building that simply oozes with history (real and imagined) and architectural charm (I just love those ancient timbers), but the thing I enjoyed seeing most of all during our visit was this delightfully witty little carving of a dachshund! Yes, I know, it seems like I’m trivialising an important, Grade I Listed piece of architecture. But that’s not the intention. Surely it’s no sin to make the most of an unexpected opportunity for a happy laugh in these troubled times?

Christopher Lloyd was clearly a dog lover with a mischievous sense of humour.

Christopher Lloyd, who was the youngest of Nathaniel Lloyd’s children and spent his whole life at Great Dixter, was mad-keen on dachshunds (aka wiener dogs or sausage dogs), and happily shared the property with these furry draft excluders. The presence of the carving hints at his love for these popular little dogs, and helps turn what could otherwise appear to be a sterile piece of architectural whimsy into a home lived in by a real person. Way to go, Christopher!

Way to go, Christopher!

Where art and religion meet – the Berwick Church murals

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Once upon a time, the interior of the typical English church was a riot of colour. In the Middle Ages churchgoers were greeted by vibrant images on just about every available surface; images featuring great biblical events and stories from the gospels. At a time when most of the population were illiterate, wall paintings were an important teaching aid, communicating key messages of Christianity to the masses. And then the Reformation came along, and put a stop to all of that.

St Michael and All Angels Church, Berwick, dates from the Middle Ages, but the paintings are several hundred years younger.

The Protestants who found themselves empowered by the Reformation in the 16th century regarded painted murals as just one more example of Roman Catholic frivolity, a distraction from the deadly serious business of religion. Convinced that God was on their side, the Protestants ordered the whitewashing of church murals. Soon, church interiors were uniformly white. Boring!

The exterior of the church gives no hint of the artistic treasures that lie within.

Although some murals survived, hidden for centuries beneath successive layers of whitewash, most were destroyed when the whitewashed plaster was eventually hacked off prior to resurfacing. The newly applied plaster was equally white, and equally boring. But in just a few places, enlightened individuals speculated that the return of wall paintings would not provoke the wrath of God, but instead might serve to celebrate the glory of His creation. One such place was the village of Berwick, in the southern English county of East Sussex.

The chancel arch, depicting Christ in Glory, was painted by Duncan Grant – one of the Bloomsbury Group – in 1941.

The murals that now adorn St Michael and All Angels Church, Berwick, were the brainchild of Bishop George Bell of Chichester, in whose diocese the church is to be found. The Bishop had a personal interest in Modernist art, and was keen to forge links between the church and the arts. With his encouragement the project was undertaken at the height of World War II: it was commissioned in 1941, and a service of dedication to mark the completion of the murals was held in October 1943.

These paintings at the bottom of the chancel screen depict the Four Seasons. They were painted by Duncan Grant in 1944.

The Berwick murals were painted by renowned artists Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Quentin Bell, who all happened to be living just a few miles away at the time. They were all part of the Bloomsbury Group, an informal circle of English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists active in the first half of the 20th century. Members of the Group also included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey.

The reredos screen (behind the altar) was painted by Julian Bell in 2020. He is the grandson of Vanessa Bell.

Those associated with the Bloomsbury Group were regarded as unorthodox in terms of attitudes to aesthetics, fashion, gender, politics, sex and war, and it’s therefore no surprise that what the artists came up with at Berwick is unlike anything else to be found in an English church.

“The Supper at Emmaus” by Quentin Bell

Although the subject matter of the Berwick murals is religious, they have a distinctly modern feel. For example, the landscapes that form the background to the paintings are representations of the local South Downs area of Sussex, while many of the figures represented in them are based on local farmworkers, their families and children.

The three servicemen depicted here, to the left of the chancel arch, were from Berwick village. They are a reminder that the country was at war when the church’s murals were painted.

Given that the country was at war with Adolf Hitler and his henchmen, the murals celebrate a way of life that was then under threat. One of them, Christ in Glory, depicts three servicemen, representative of the countless soldiers, sailors and airmen who put their lives at risk to keep the people of Berwick, and all their compatriots, safe from the Nazi hordes.

The pulpit was originally painted by Vanessa Bell. It was vandalised in 1962. As she had died the previous year Duncan Grant repainted them to designs by her daughter Angelica Garnett (Bell), a painter and writer in her own right.

The aim of the artists was clearly to make Christianity more accessible and relevant to the local community. Bishop Bell (who, incidentally, was unrelated to either of the artists who shared his surname) put it this way:

“The pictures will bring home to you the real truth of the Bible story …help the pages of the New Testament speak to you – not as sacred personages living in a far-off land and time, but as human beings …with the same kind of human troubles, and faults, and goodness, and dangers, that we know in Sussex today.“

I’m not a religious man, nor do I have any artistic tendencies or abilities, but I have to say that I found Berwick Church to be extraordinary, quite unlike any other that I’ve visited before. Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England since 2017, summed it up perfectly when he said:

“…the remarkable decorative scheme in Berwick church is of national and even international importance. It is, critically, the only example in the country of the complete decoration of the interior of an ancient rural parish church by twentieth century artists of repute.”

I can’t help thinking, however, that the Protestant zealots who whitewashed the walls of parish churches up and down the land in the 16th century wouldn’t have been nearly as impressed as either me or the estimable Mr Serota!

Left: The Annunciation, by Vanessa Bell (1941). Top Right: The Nativity, by Vanessa Bell (1941). Bottom Right: Christ in Glory, by Duncan Bell (1941).

Well Dressing – a quaint Derbyshire tradition

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Water, in the right quantity, is essential for the survival and well-being of our species. Too much or too little and we’re in big trouble. But rainfall is, of course, totally outside of human control, so our ancestors decided that, just to be on the safe side, it would be prudent to keep on the right side of the water gods. And thus was born the quaint Derbyshire tradition of well dressing.

Well dressing in the Derbyshire village of Taddington in 2022

Well dressing is the art of decorating wells, springs and other water sources with natural objects – particularly flower petals, leaves and seeds – to create vibrant pictures and designs. Its origins are uncertain. Some people assert that the practice was introduced by the Romans around 2,000 years ago, but others believe it to be even older. According to this theory, Celtic tribes that pre-dated the arrival of the Romans decorated sources of fresh water to give thanks for past supplies, and to encourage these supplies to carry on flowing in the future.

The tradition of well dressing is almost entirely confined to my home county of Derbyshire and surrounding areas of the Peak District. Why this is so remains uncertain. Clearly, reliable supplies of drinking water are essential everywhere, and so practices giving thanks for it can also reasonably be expected to happen in every corner of the country.

One of Belper’s well dressings in 2023.

There are suggestions that the ancient Celtic practice had indeed died out everywhere, but was revived in Tissington in the mid-14th century when the Derbyshire village was reportedly spared the ravages of the plague by the purity of its spring water. Alternatively, it is proposed that Tissington was saved from the great drought of 1615 by the reliability of its springs, and the villagers sought to give thanks by reviving the tradition of well dressing.

Either, or both, of these theories could be true, but ultimately this is of little importance. The fact is that the tradition is flourishing, with around 80 towns and villages in Derbyshire and the Peak District now having annual well dressings. Some of these don’t even have a proper well or spring, but such is the enthusiasm to participate in a traditional, community-focused activity that another local landmark is chosen to show off their floral creations.

Two well dressings from 2023 in the village of Wingerworth. Above – in situ. Below – in more detail. Note that one has a religious theme and the other a more naturalistic (spiritual?) theme.

Well-dressing begins with the construction – close to the well, spring or other chosen location – of a large wooden frame upon which the image will be created. Clay is then collected from the local environment, and strenuously worked until it’s soft and malleable. The worked clay is packed into the wooden frame, and smoothed out until it has produced a totally flat surface upon which the image can be created. To allow several teams to work on different parts of the well dressing at the same time the frame may comprise several separate panels, which are brought together only when they have been decorated.

A sketch of the proposed design of the Chadkirk well dressing, to help guide the team working on its creation.

An outline of the intended image is sketched on to a large sheet of paper. The design is applied to the smooth surface of the clay by pricking through with a sharp instrument and the paper is removed.

Working on an abstract part of the design. The colours are not shown on the sketch.

Now the real fun begins! Teams of makers from the local community “paint” the design onto the clay surface, using natural materials to create a stunning, colourful mosaic. The can take up to a week to complete, and the picture thus created lasts only a few days until the clay starts to dry and crack.

This part of the design is more naturalistic.

Writing nearly 30 years ago, a prominent local historian noted that well dressings are invariably blessed in a religious service, and suggested that around 75% of well dressings have a religious theme. However, my own observations lead me to believe that images are increasingly focused on the natural world rather than Christianity, reflecting perhaps a more modern approach to spirituality.

The watercolour taped to the wall towards the top of the left hand image shows what the volunteers were working towards. Still lots to do at this stage!

Some communities make arrangements for visitors to watch their well dressings being created. Mrs P and I did just that last year when we visited the little village of Chadkirk, which lies on the edge of the Peak District, within the neighbouring county of Cheshire. It was fascinating to watch the painstaking efforts of the volunteers working on various panels, where nature rather than religion was at the forefront of the design.

Sadly we never got to see the finished well dressing, which was not ready until several days after our visit, But Mrs P’s photos of the work in progress are a good indication of what the final result must have looked like. Chadkirk’s well dressing, and dozens of others scattered through towns and villages of Derbyshire and the Peak District, celebrate a tradition that is deeply embedded within our local culture. Long may it continue!

My surprising discovery about Tufted Ducks

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Tufted Ducks are a familiar sight at wetland habitats in our part of the UK. Although less plentiful than Mallards and Canada Geese, they are nevertheless a bird that I would expect to see whenever we visit local reservoirs, lakes and ponds. For me they are a fixture in our birding landscape. But, as I recently discovered to my surprise, that’s not quite true: Tufted Ducks, or “Tufties” as Mrs P and I prefer to call them, first arrived in this country less than 200 years ago.

Records suggest that Tufties started to colonise the UK in 1849. A few decades earlier the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha had been accidentally introduced into the country, and as this invasive species began to thrive Tufted Ducks followed in pursuit of a much-favoured source of food.

The number of resident Tufted Ducks in the UK grew steadily until at least the early 2000s, and it now breeds in most of England, as well as parts of lowland Scotland and localised areas of Wales and Ireland. The breeding population is around 18,000 pairs. In winter, numbers swell with the arrival of around 100,000 migrant birds from as far away as central Russia.

Male
Female

Male Tufties are handsome black-and-white birds, with a characteristic tuft and bright yellow eyes – totally memorable. Although the females also sport a tuft and yellow eyes, their drab buff-brown plumage renders them somewhat forgettable. Scouring Mrs P’s vast photographic archive, I discovered that nearly every photo that she’s ever taken of this species features the male. That, I think, tells you all you need to know about the differing visual appeal of male and female Tufted Ducks!

Tufties are fun to watch, busy little ducks that paddle swiftly across open stretches of water, before diving in pursuit of aquatic invertebrates and bivalve molluscs. It seems like they belong in this landscape and must therefore have been here forever, which makes it difficult to believe that British nature lovers at the start of Queen Victoria’s reign would have been denied the pleasure of their company.

The lesson to draw from this, I guess, is to remember that what we see today is just a snapshot in time. Species come and species go; it’s a natural process, although human activity speeds it up and can cause major instability. I wonder which birds species are entirely absent from the UK today, but will be taken for granted by British birders in the 22nd century?

A taste of Scotland by the sea – St Monans

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We’ll soon be heading north to Scotland on our annual pilgrimage. The Scottish landscape and natural scenery are fabulous, but some of the little fishing villages are quaintly picturesque too. To me, born in London and resident for nearly 50 years in landlocked Derbyshire, the seaside seems like another world, so it’s always a treat whenever we go there.

The picturesque harbour at St Monans

One of the fishing villages that caught our eye during our last trip to Scotland was St Monans in the county of Fife. The village is named for the eponymous 6th century saint who came from Ireland to Scotland to spread the teachings of Christianity.  At its heart is the harbour, overlooked by traditional fishermen’s cottages, some with white walls, others colourfully painted. They date predominantly from the 18th and 19th centuries, and although most have since been significantly altered, their origins are clear if you know how to read the signs.

More harbour views…seems like another world born in London and resident for nearly 50 years in landlocked Derbyshire!

Many of the cottages are roofed with distinctive red pantiles. This style, which is found widely in villages on the east coast of Scotland, originated across the North Sea in the Low Countries (the Netherlands and Belgium). The pantiles were used as ballast on trading ships returning from mainland Europe, and were then adopted as roofing materials when the ships were unloaded at St Monans.

Pantiles can be seen on several of these cottages. Note also, on some of the roofs, the “crow-stepped” gables that are believed to have been developed to break up the airflow and protect the tiles from being blown off in a gale.

To my eyes, the most striking feature of some of these cottages is the forestairs, an outdoor staircase leading to a door on the first floor. Fewer than ten examples survive today, but in the past they would have been much more common. They hark back to the heydays of the fishing industry, when living accommodation would often have been on the first floor, above a boat store, workshop and sail store on the ground floor.

The outdoor staircases (forestairs) leading to doors on the first floor are an echo of the time when the residents of these cottages were fishermen.

Although it is the historic residential buildings that give St Monans its character, the church is also worthy of comment. It dates from 1369, and was originally founded by King David II of Scotland in gratitude for his having survived a shipwreck on the coast nearby. Originally built as a small house of Dominican friars, it was restored in the early 19th century and now serves as the local parish church. When viewed from most angles the church has the sea as its background. It is widely claimed to be the nearest to the sea of any church in Scotland.

Photo credit: By Jim Bain, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9222537

A little further outside St Monans is the last remaining windmill in Fife, a relic of the salt industry. Large scale salt production began here in the late 18th century, and the windmill was used to pump seawater into the saltpans where it would be evaporated to reveal the finished product. The industry lasted only a few decades before closing down in 1825. The remains of the saltpans are unimpressive, little more than a few grassy mounds and depressions close to the shoreline. The windmill, however, has been restored and acts as a reminder of an industry that is unknown to most people today.

The (reconstructed) windmill, and the (barely visible) humps and bumps in the grass between it and the sea, are all that remains of a salt production industry that closed down 200 years ago.

By no stretch of the imagination could St Monans be described as spectacular. But there’s lots to admire there, including glimpses of a world and a lifestyle that is a total mystery to those of us who live our lives a very long way from the sea. Definitely worth a visit, if you’re ever in that part of Scotland.

Getting back on track, courtesy of a Peak Rail steam train

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Foul weather was our constant companion from the start of 2024. It wore us down, the sombre grey sky, the biting wind, the constant rain. There was no pleasure to be had in going out, so we stayed at home, and as grim weeks ganged up to become relentlessly miserable months we started to go stir-crazy. So when, at last, conditions began to improve we quickly decided we deserved a treat, courtesy of our local heritage railway.

This is Peak Rail at its best…the sight, and the sounds and the smells of a gleaming, steaming locomotive! This loco was built in 1955.

We live in Derbyshire, on the edge of the Peak District. Famed for the natural beauty of its limestone hills and verdant dales, in 1951 the Peak District became the UK’s first national park. The railway that crossed it, running between Derby and Manchester, was a triumph of nineteenth century civil engineering. It was claimed by many to be Britain’s most scenic railway line.

Sadly I never got to find out in person if this claim was true. Much of the line was closed down in the 1960s, the victim of an efficiency drive shaped by the infamous “Beeching Report” of 1962. Accountants, politicians and British Rail bosses doubtless allowed themselves a glass of champagne to celebrate this “victory” for cost-effectiveness, but railway enthusiasts were dismayed. Their response was to band together to form the “Peak Railway Society” – later “Peak Rail Operations – with the aim of restoring the line for recreational and community use.

This is the little steam locomotive that pulled our restaurant car. It dates from 1946.

Half a century later, the dream lives on. Peak Rail has succeeded in re-opening around 4 miles (6.5 km) of track, between Rowsley South Station and Matlock, over which it operates a service featuring heritage steam and diesel locomotives. Here’s how Peak Rail describes its offer:

Whether it’s simply a nostalgic journey back to a bygone age or a discovery of the sights and sounds…of a steam or diesel locomotive[,] Peak Rail welcomes you to experience the thrill of our preserved railway whilst travelling through the delightful Derbyshire countryside…As well as our normal train journeys, there is something for everyone to enjoy, luxury dining is available on our Palatine Restaurant Car which offers Afternoon Teas and operates on various days during the year. [Source: Peak rail website, retrieved 14 May, 2024]

Views from the train hint at the picturesque charms of Derbyshire’s rural landscape

The reality, it must be said, proved to be more modest than the marketing hype. The part of Derbyshire through which the train travels is pleasant, but not exceptional (it’s on the edge of the national park rather than within it), and given that the line is just 4 miles long there’s not a huge amount to see. The locomotive that powered our train gleamed brightly in the welcome afternoon sunshine, but wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination remarkable in the context of other UK heritage steam trains. And the Afternoon Tea, while thoroughly enjoyable, didn’t align with my understanding of the words “luxury dining!”

But it’s important to remember that this is an organisation run by volunteers, and a service delivered almost entirely by volunteers. It’s not a commercial operation, so you have to adjust your expectations accordingly.

Not the best Afternoon Tea we’ve ever had, but the setting makes it a memorable treat

Peak Rail offers an opportunity to escape the rigours of the 21st century for a couple of hours, and to wallow in nostalgia. Back in the 1970s, dear old British Rail – the late, unlamented provider of the UK’s national rail network at the time – ran a series of commercials that sought to persuade motorists to abandon their cars in favour of rail travel. Its strapline was “let the train take the strain,” and that’s just what we did for a couple of hours, courtesy of Peak Rail.

Thanks to Peak Rail we were finally able to get back on track, after many months of meteorological misery. I’m pleased to report that a fine time was had by all

One of the good guys – Robert Owen at New Lanark

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For most British people, the early decades of the Industrial Revolution were a grim time to be alive. Conditions were horrendous. Workers routinely had to labour for 12 to 14 hours per day in harshly managed and often dangerous factories, for which they received a pittance in pay that was barely enough to cover basic necessities. And when they got home from their workplaces things got no better, as these workers usually lived in cramped, cold and insanitary accommodation provided by bosses who were motivated solely by the pursuit of profit.

Mill 3 replaced an earlier mill destroyed by fire in 1819. It now houses the site’s main exhibitions, including working mill machinery.

Let’s be honest, some early captains of industry were monsters who cared nothing for the welfare of the men, women and children upon whose lives they impacted. But not all of them. New Lanark in Scotland was proof that there were workable alternatives to rampant, exploitative capitalism.

The “new buildings” were constructed by David Dale as millworker’s housing in 1798. Robert Owen enlarged them as the village size increased.

Founded in 1785, New Lanark is a village in southern Scotland clustered around several cotton mills that harnessed the power of the River Clyde. Under the direction of joint founder David Dale (1739 – 1806), this was an entirely new settlement, built as accommodation for the millworkers and their families. New Lanark thrived. Within a decade of its foundation the village was home to one of the largest and most important cotton mill complexes of its period, employing around 1,500 people.

Prior to his involvement with the New Lanark project, Dale was a prosperous Glasgow-based cloth merchant. He was also a man with a conscience, someone whose philanthropic tendencies tempered, to some degree, his capitalist instincts. This was evidenced by his treatment of the orphan apprentices who worked at his mills – Dale ensured they were taught to read and write, were well fed, and were provided with clothing and decent accommodation.

Although the accommodation it provided was decent by the standards of the day, in the early years of New Lanark whole families lived in a single room.

In 1799 Dale’s daughter Caroline married Robert Owen (1771 – 1858), a Welsh-born industrialist and social reformer. Soon after, David Dale sold New Lanark to his new son-in-law, who formally took over as mill manager in 1800. Owen was committed to continuing the philanthropic approach to industrial working that Dale had initiated, and under his management New Lanark became a model community, emphasizing social welfare and improved living conditions for workers.

Robert Owen was a Utopian social reformer, who aimed to create a perfect, harmonious society in which poverty and unemployment were eliminated. Owen’s abilities as a business manager were central to the success of his social experiment, for it was the profitability of the cotton mills that provided the cash needed to finance schemes designed to improve the lives of his workforce. A vibrant and resilient community was central to his thinking.

Robert Owen’s School for Children was completed in about 1818, providing spacious classrooms for its students. Punishment was not allowed, with strategies of encouragement and kindness being adopted instead.

Owen’s intentions can be discerned from the creation of the Institute for the Formation of Character. Opening in 1817, it was intended to provide educational and recreational facilities for the whole community. Amongst these were a library and reading room, classrooms and halls for concerts and dancing. It also accommodated what is thought to be the world’s first nursery school.

These two photos offer a glimpse the types of mill machinery in use at New Lanark.

About a year after the opening of the Institute, work was completed on Robert Owen’s School for Children. Here’s what the New Lanark Trust has to say about this visionary initiative:

Owen spared no expense in building and equipping his school, and the curriculum included music, dancing and singing, as well as art, natural history, geography and world history. Punishment was not allowed. Instead, kindness, encouragement, and the fostering of children’s natural curiosity were deemed to be much more effective. [Source: New Lanark Heritage Trail – A guide to New Lanark’s Historic Buildings, 2008]

Owen’s idealism is also apparent from the way he set up his Village Store, which was completed in 1813. It effectively had a retail monopoly in the village, and many other industrialists used such arrangements to their financial advantage by providing poor quality goods at inflated prices. In contrast, Owen put the community’s welfare first, buying good quality food and household goods in bulk, and selling these to his workers at close to cost price. Any profits made were re-invested in the village, being put towards the running costs of the School.

Another view of Mill 3.

Robert Owen was clearly one of the good guys, and his enlightened methods attracted international attention. In 1824 he sold the New Lanark mills and moved to the USA, where where he planned to establish a Utopian Community or “Village of Unity and Mutual Cooperation” based upon the principles that had helped shape his grand Scottish project. However this experiment, based at the settlement of New Harmony in Indiana, proved largely unsuccessful and in 1828 he returned to the UK, financially much poorer but still optimistic that one day the rest of the world would come round to his way of thinking.

Owen’s legacy is now preserved by The New Lanark Trust, which was formed in 1974, six years after the final closure of the cotton mills. The village was one of the earliest examples of a planned settlement, where layout, housing design, and green spaces were carefully considered. Its architecture showcased a blend of practicality and aesthetics, emphasizing functionality while maintaining a pleasant environment. All of this can be enjoyed by visitors, who also have an opportunity to get up close to some of the machinery that drove the success of New Lanark’s cotton mills. Tourists can even visit Owen’s modest house, as well as examples of workers’ accommodation.

Although larger and grander than the homes of his workers, Robert Owen’s house is refreshingly modest for the owner of such a large and successful mill complex.

The Trust’s aim has been to restore the village as a living, working community, but one which also offers visitors tantalising glimpses of a lost world shaped by a remarkable man. A measure of its success was evident in 2001, when New Lanark was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The village and its cotton mills are now a major tourist attraction, and deserve to be visited by anyone with an interest in industrial history.

Monkey business at Yorkshire Wildlife Park

Posted on by Platypus Man

Yorkshire Wildlife Park opened in 2009 on the site of a former riding school and petting zoo, and has grown steadily ever since. We aim to visit several times each year, to check up on old friends and to look out for new kids on the block. And I’m delighted to report that thanks to a couple of old friends getting it together there is indeed a new kid on the block, in the form of Carlos, a beautiful young Venezuelan Red Howler Monkey.

Carlos was born on 29 April 2023. He was exactly 5 months old when this photo was taken.

This species of howler monkey is native to the western Amazon basin, in parts of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil, where they live in the tree canopy. Their diet consists largely of leaves, supplemented with a mixture of nuts, fruits, seeds, flowers and small animals. Howlers are named for the ear-splitting guttural roar that males produce to mark their territory and warn off potential intruders.

Venezuelan Red Howlers can live up to 20 years in the wild, but have become increasingly rare due to hunting and habitat destruction. Collections in zoos and conservation centres are therefore an important insurance policy helping to support the long-term future of the species. Yorkshire Wildlife Park is home to England’s only Venezuelan Red Howlers, and the good news is that the adult monkeys who live there have been doing their bit to boost numbers.

Carlos was born at the end of April 2023, the second child of mum Tila and dad Geronimo. Their first offspring was born in October 2021, and Yorkshire Wildlife Park was understandably proud that this ground-breaking birth of a Venezuelan Red Howler Monkey had taken place on their turf. Within a few days the Park was sharing Tila and Geronimo’s news with the world, telling anyone who cared to listen that their son was to be named Pablo.

Interestingly, Pablo is now called Pabla and is referred to as Carlos’s big sister. Oops! Media releases in the days following the birth of baby Carlos were quick to point out that “It’s still too early to tell the sex of the baby”, implying that keepers may have been a bit too eager to do just that when the first youngster was born. It wasn’t until nearly three months after his birth that Carlos’s gender and name were revealed on Facebook, accompanied by a piece of video footage clearly showing him to be a very well endowed young man – no mistakes this time!

The top left and middle left photos were taken on 6 July 2023, when Carlos was just 68 days old! He was almost 12 months old when he was pictured hanging upside down (top right). In the remaining two photos he is 5 months old.

The name Carlos was apparently chosen to reflect the monkey’s Hispanic heritage, while at the same time marking the fact he was born just a few days before the UK’s new king was crowned. But whether King Charles III is amused to have a red-haired, prehensile-tailed, ballsy baby monkey named after him must forever remain a mystery.

Mrs P and I first encountered Carlos in early July 2023, just a few days before his gender and name were announced to the world. Although he clearly wanted to remain close to his mum most of the time, he was already demonstrating an adventurous spirit when he set off to explore the trees growing in his enclosure. His agility was plain to see, as was his burgeoning manhood – check it out by following the link to my short video on YouTube.

When we visited Yorkshire Wildlife Park again two weeks ago Carlos had clearly grown in both size and confidence. As my video shows, he strutted arrogantly about the place like a teenager of our own species, fearlessly challenging himself to scuttle along – and dangle precariously from – ropes that are strung across the Red Howlers’ enclosure. What a great guy he’s become.

Watching Carlos’s performance, as well as the antics of his parents and sister, is a real joy. I wonder what new monkey business they’ll be up to when we next pay them a visit?

Waddesdon Manor – opulent, ostentatious and over the top

Posted on by Platypus Man

I have often written on this blog about our visits to some of the UK’s grand houses, houses that are hundreds of years old and oozing with history. You might assume that all our great domestic properties have a pedigree dating back many centuries, but you’d be mistaken. Some of them are much younger; Waddesdon Manor, at less than 150 years old, is one of the new kids on the block. Despite that – or maybe because of it – Waddesdon is one of the most opulent and ostentatious of them all. But it’s a bit over the top, in my humble opinion.

Rear view of Waddesdon Manor. The bedding plants on the parterre are changed each spring and summer.

Waddesdon Manor is located in the Buckinghamshire village of Waddesdon (no surprises there, I guess!), around 50 miles (80 km) north-west of London. It was constructed between 1874 and 1889 at the behest of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-1898), a member of the enormously wealthy Austrian banking family.

The fountain at the centre of the parterre was originally made for an Italian palace in Colorno.

In 1874, Rothschild – known as “Ferdy” to his sister and close friends – bought the Waddesdon agricultural estate from the Duke of Marlborough, with money he’d inherited from his father. He’d come across it when fox-hunting in the area, and clearly saw its potential. The estate had no house, park or garden at that time, and therefore offered Rothschild a blank canvas upon which to impose his will.

Front elevation of Waddesdon Manor (sadly in shadow, but at least the more attractive rear view – including the parterre – was well lit!)

Said to be as much at home in Paris as in London, Ferdy was an ardent Francophile. His vision for Waddesdon was to build a magnificent mansion in the neo-Renaissance style, copying features from several of his favourite French chateaux. And he was also keen on giving Waddesdon an unforgettable garden, including a parterre (a symmetrical, formal garden design with intricate patterns), a colourful and fragrant rose garden, a serene water garden and an aviary of epic proportions.

Ferdy was very fond of birds. This cast iron aviary was erected in 1889 to house his collection.

Given his wealth, it is to be expected that Ferdy would spare no expense in fulfilling his dreams at Waddesdon Manor. More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that he never intended to live there permanently. His plan was to use Waddesdon simply as a summer weekend retreat, a place where he could entertain high-society guests and show off his vast, priceless collection of art and antiquities.

The Grey Drawing Room, to which lady guests retired after dinner!

Baron Rothschild was clearly an intelligent, well-educated man, and must have been familiar with concepts such as modesty, moderation and self-restraint. Plainly, however, he thought they shouldn’t apply to him!

Ferdy’s “Renaissance Museum” was once housed in this corner room

The great and the good – as they no doubt liked to think of themselves – were Ferdy’s guests at Waddesdon. Even Queen Victoria and the future king Edward VII spent time there, thus reassuring a man of Austrian heritage and born in France that he’d made the grade as a fully fledged English gentleman.

The Organ Clock is Dutch, and dates from c1775

After Ferdy’s death in 1898, Waddesdon passed through the hands of two other members of the Rothschild family before, in 1957, it was bequeathed to the National Trust. At last, some 83 years after the project was born, ordinary members of the public were able to visit the property, to view the stunning art collection, and to witness at first hand how the other half lives!

Left: The Red Drawing Room. Centre: The East Gallery. Right: The Baron’s Room.

Unusually, unlike most National Trust properties, at Waddesdon the donor’s family continues to manage the house and to invest in it through the Rothschild Foundation. And it was through the financial support of the family that the stunning Wedding Cake art installation by Portuguese artist extraordinaire Joana Vasconcelos – which I wrote about in an earlier post – found its way to Waddesdon.

The dining room seats 24, just enough for one of Ferdy’s famous house parties

Waddesdon is extraordinary. The “three Os” sum it up perfectly – Opulent, Ostentatious and Over-the-top. I’m pleased we finally got around to visiting it last year. On the one hand it’s a truly magnificent creation, breath-taking, almost surreal. Definitely worth the entrance fee.

Automaton elephant clock, made in London in 1770

But on the other hand, Waddesdon is just a bit too much. It’s reminds me of being back at school, of that annoying kid sitting at the front of the classroom, the kid who was always waving their hand furiously in the air to attract teacher, making it abundantly clear that he (or she) was much, much better than the rest of us. You remember that kid, don’t you? Well, Waddesdon’s a bit like that, full of itself, boastful in the extreme, bling on steroids!