Heritage | Now I'm 64

Round tower churches – a picturesque part of the Norfolk landscape

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Platypus Man

Later this month, if things go according to plan, we’ll be off to Norfolk to spend a few days in one of our favourite parts of the country. Norfolk is a peaceful, rural county, a great place to get out into nature and enjoy some serious birdwatching. But it also boasts a distinctive – some would say quirky – style of church architecture.

***St Margaret’s church, Burnham Norton, is one of the oldest of Norfolk’s round tower churches. It dates from the late Saxon period, around 1,000 years ago.***

Although church attendance has plummeted in recent times the buildings themselves are mostly still there. Church towers, often topped off with a cone-shaped spire, remain a familiar part of the English landscape, particularly in rural areas.

***St Mary’s church, Roughton. Again, the tower dates from the late Saxon period, around 1,000 years ago.***

Historically speaking, church towers have been the tallest and most impressive structures in most long-established settlements. They typically housed bells that could be rung to mark important events, and to call the faithful to worship. The dominating presence and high cost of such towers was a source of local prestige, and emphasised the importance of the church within the community.

St Andrew’s church, West Dereham. The stone-built section of the round tower, which has the widest diameter of any in Norfolk, dates from C12. It is topped off by a brick-built bell section, which was added in C16.

In most parts of the country church towers are square. There are reckoned to be only around 180 English churches with round towers, nearly all of them in Norfolk (70%) and the neighbouring county of Suffolk (23%). Why round churches were built here in large numbers remains a matter of fierce debate.

***St Andrew’s church, Ryburgh. The bulk of the tower is C12, with some evidence of earlier work. The octagonal bell section was added in C14.***

Norfolk and Suffolk are on England’s east coast, and some experts argue that, because round towers are better able to resist attack than square structures, they were built to bolster local defences against Viking invaders. It’s a romantic notion, but implausible given that most round tower churches date from after the Viking invasions.

St Andrew’s church, Letheringsett. The lower part of the tower dates from C11, and the bell section was added in C14. When bell sections were added to round towers these were usually octagonal, but in this case it is round, matching the rest of the tower.

Another theory suggests that the round towers were an inevitable consequence of local geology, which meant that the stone available to church builders was not well suited for building load-bearing walls that joined at right angles. Again this seems fine until we recognise that other buildings in the same area dating from the same time were indeed constructed with walls that met at right angles.

St Mary, Beachamwell was one of Norfolk’s earliest round tower churches, dating from early C11. We visited in 2017, when we admired the tower and the fine thatched roof. Sadly, 5 years later, it was destroyed by fire.

Other experts suggest that it was simply a matter of fashion, and that visitors from mainland Europe who crossed the North Sea to Norfolk and Suffolk brought the design with them. Once more, the evidence for such an assertion is thin on the ground.

***St Andrew’s church, East Lexham. This unsophisticated round tower is perhaps the oldest in Norfolk. It dates from the Saxon period, possibly around 850AD.***

I guess we’ll never know for certain why Norfolk has so many round tower churches, although that won’t stop “experts” and other random nerds banging on about it ad nauseam. And does it it really matter anyway?

St Margaret’s church, Hales, a thatched building under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. A detailed guide to Norfolk round tower churches by Lynn Stilgoe and Dorothy Shreeve says it “is probably the nearest one can get to the original appearance of an early round tower church.”

The fact is that the round towers are there, and are a picturesque addition to the local landscape. I guess most Norfolk residents take them for granted, but to visitors like Mrs P and I they are important, helping to give this part of the country its unique “feel.” When we drive past a round towered church, we know we’re on holiday!

Mrs P is so taken by Norfolk’s round tower churches that she has vowed to photograph every one of them. She still has lots more to track down, many of them in tiny, almost forgotten villages lost in the middle of nowhere in this remote rural county. It’ll take a couple more visits before we can finally declare the project to be completed; meanwhile, this post is illustrated by photos of a few of the more interesting examples that we’ve visited so far.

Missing hermits and Netflix blockbusters – the Painshill story

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Platypus Man

Painshill, in the county of Surrey, is regarded as one of the finest remaining examples of an 18th-century English landscape park. Having been rescued from oblivion by the local council, it has won awards and been used as a filming location for the Netflix blockbuster Bridgerton. In the past, however, Painshill struggled to hang on to its hermits!

***The Woollett Bridge: installed in autumn 2022, replacing Hamilton’s original while copying its design***

The creator of Painshill Park was Charles Hamilton (1704-86), the 14th child(!) of the 6th Earl of Abercorn. Although Hamilton was plainly not at the top his family’s pecking order, his father was wealthy enough to buy him a “classical” education and to pay for him to undertake two Grand Tours of Europe in 1725 and 1732. It was these tours that helped inspire him to abandon formal, geometric garden layout at Painshill, adopting instead a picturesque and more naturalistic landscape.

***The Five Arch Bridge, with the Gothic Temple beyond***

Hamilton’s vision was to create a pleasure park offering visitors a series of sinuous trails and scenic vistas, with a range of eye-catching follies – including a Crystal Grotto, a Temple of Bacchus, a Gothic tower, a Turkish tent and a mock-Gothic “ruined” abbey – scattered amongst them. It was a revolutionary approach to garden design, one that influenced a generation of landscape gardeners. Today, Painshill is regarded as one of the finest examples of the English Landscape Movement.

Work began in 1738 and continued until 1773, at which point Hamilton was forced to sell up to cover his debts. Over the next two centuries Painshill passed through a number of owners. Some of them bought into Hamilton’s vision, most notably Sir William Cooper – the High Sheriff of Surrey – who installed a suspension bridge and a waterwheel, and planted an arboretum. But ultimately the dream began to fade, the Park became neglected and its features started to decay.

***View from inside the Gothic Temple***

Painshill was recued by Elmbridge Borough Council. In 1980 the council purchased 158 acres (64 ha) of Hamilton’s original estate, enabling work to start on the restoration of the Park and its features. The following year responsibility passed to the Painshill Park Trust, which was newly created with a remit “to restore Painshill as nearly as possible to Charles Hamilton’s Original Concept of a Landscaped Garden for the benefit of the public.”

***An alternative angle on the Five Arch Bridge, with the Turkish Tent (another folly!) beyond***

At the heart of the Painshill landscape is a man-made serpentine lake, fed by water pumped from the nearby River Mole. Eye-catching in its own right, the lake also enabled the creation of picturesque islands and gave Hamilton an excuse to build some pretty bridges. The Five Arch Bridge is particularly elegant, and featured prominently in an early episode of Bridgerton, a hit Netflix drama set at the start of the 19th century.

***Hidden in the trees, the Temple of Bacchus.*** ***Yes, it’s a folly!***

Bridgerton is a story of upper class secrets, lies and love, in which the poor and the ordinary are notable by their absence. This was also true of the early days of Painshill, when it was only well-bred or otherwise prominent folk – including future US presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams – who were personally shown around by the head gardener.

***The reflections on the serpentine lake were superb on the day we visited, although the grass was brown and parched after a long period without much rain.***

Luckily, these days Painshill Park is open to anyone prepared to pay the modest entrance fee. Mrs P and I visited last year, and loved the place. It’s incongruous, quirky but strangely appealing. Sadly the day of our visit was very hot, and we didn’t feel up to walking into the woods to find the Hermitage, another of Hamilton’s flights of fancy.

***The waterwheel – one of Sir William Cooper’s creations***

Hamilton was clearly an eccentric, and had the resources to indulge his eccentricities. One of these was that his park should host an “ornamental hermit.” Unlike genuine hermits who locked themselves away from the outside world for devotional or spiritual reasons, ornamental hermits were employed by rich estate owners to live in a hermitage on their land and amuse guests by making appearances.

An advertisement was duly placed to secure the services of a hermit to live in Painshill’s purpose-built Hermitage for a period of seven years. The fee was 700 guineas, to be paid as a lump sum at the end of the contract period, but only if the hermit was still in residence at that time and had not broken any rules.

The rules were explained in an advertisement for the position, which advised that the successful applicant “shall be provided with a Bible, optical glasses, a mat for his feet, a hassock for his pillow, an hourglass for his timepiece, water for his beverage and food from the house.” He was not allowed to speak, to cut his hair or nails or to leave the grounds of the estate.

***The Hermitage. IMAGE CREDIT: Rictor Norton & David Allen from London, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons***

This appears onerous, but the fee was generous: 700 guineas is equivalent to around £135,000 (USD 170,000) in today’s money. It’s said, however, that the first resident hermit liked an immediate beer rather more than the prospect of a pot of cash in the distant future. He lost his job after just three weeks, having run away and been tracked down to a local pub, where he was found to be as drunk as a skunk!

The Hermitage eventually fell into disrepair and was finally demolished for firewood in the 1940s. It has since been rebuilt by the Painshill Park Trust, based on drawings of the original structure. Mrs P and I plan to make a return visit to the Park, and when we do we’ll be sure to track down the Hermitage. I may even take up residence…the prospect of living in splendid isolation, insulated from rantings of crazed politicians, random so-called “celebrities” and all their media cronies is strangely appealing!

Dunrobin – a fairy tale castle

Posted on January 24, 2024 by Platypus Man

No trip to Scotland is complete without visiting a castle. Last year, on our way north to Orkney, we did just that when we broke our journey at Dunrobin, which has been home to the Earls and Dukes of Sutherland since the 13th century. Boasting no fewer than 189 rooms, Dunrobin Castle is the largest great house in the Northern Highlands. It is also one of Britain’s oldest continuously inhabited houses, dating back to the 13th century.

Although vestiges of the early medieval castle remain, they are today buried deep within a much larger and grander structure. A series of extensions over the centuries have transformed the original fortified tower into something altogether different, something apparently straight out of a fairy tale.

One of the men most responsible for the Dunrobin we see today was architect Sir Charles Barry (1795 – 1860), who oversaw a massive remodelling exercise in the mid-19th century. Under Barry’s guidance, Dunrobin morphed into a grand house in the then-fashionable Scottish Baronial style, similar to that adopted at Queen Victoria’s Balmoral residence.

Barry had a big national reputation. Amongst numerous other accomplishments, in 1836 he won a commission to design the new Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) in London. The Duke of Sutherland’s great wealth and extensive social connections are clearly evidenced by his ability to secure Barry’s services at Dunrobin.

As it happens, that wealth was generated to some considerable degree through the forcible eviction of many thousands of estate tenants during the notorious Highland Clearances. This is something that should, I feel, give visitors pause for thought when they murmur appreciatively at Dunrobin’s undoubted magnificence. The cost of Dunrobin should properly be measured not just in financial terms, but in human terms too.

Dunrobin Castle had an eventful time in the 20th century. In 1915 much of the interior was destroyed by a huge fire, so what we see inside today is largely the work of Scottish architect, Sir Robert Lorimer (1864 – 1929) rather than Charles Barry. Despite the fire, parts of the castle were used as a naval hospital during the First World War, then, later in the century between 1965 and 1972, it was used as a boys’ boarding school.

Today no trace of the school remains, and instead visitors are offered glimpses of an opulent lifestyle that is almost certainly beyond their reach. The formal gardens are also rather grand, and are another part of Sir Charles Barry’s legacy. They are arranged into two parterres, both laid out around circular pools where fountains playfully splash. The layout of the gardens has changed little since they were planted more than 150 years ago, although new plants are constantly being introduced.

Barry took his inspiration from the Palace of Versailles in Paris. That the Duke of Sutherland was prepared to commission and bankroll such a project in this remote, windswept corner of the Scottish Highlands speaks volumes about his cultural awareness and social ambitions. Visionary? Pretentious? Completely out to lunch? You’ll have to make up your own mind on that one!

Although Dunrobin Castle is impressive and its formal gardens are majestic, I have to confess that the most memorable part of our visit was the falconry display. Falconry is the ancient art of hunting with birds of prey, and for reasons that aren’t entirely clear Dunrobin puts a show every day. No actual hunting takes place, but the birds – including Peregrines, Gyr Falcons and Harris Hawks – are exercised on the Castle lawn, under the watchful eye of the resident and highly knowledgeable falconer.

The birds are given the opportunity to fly around freely and do so with obvious pleasure, often whizzing just above the heads of an enthralled audience. In the end, however, the birds always return to the falconer, secure in the knowledge that he’ll be providing dinner once the show is over! It’s highly unusual to be able to get so close to birds of prey, and as they were bred in captivity and are plainly well cared for we had no qualms in watching and applauding the show.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

What, then, is the overall verdict on our visit to Dunrobin Castle? Perched on a high terrace and bristling with fairy tale spires and turrets, the castle sits somewhat incongruously within the Scottish Highlands’ landscape. It is a relic of another age, an age when great wealth and all the opportunities that went with it was concentrated in just a few fortunate hands. The splendid gardens and the falconry display add to this other-worldly feeling, making a visit to Dunrobin a somewhat surreal experience. It’s a fascinating place to spend a few hours, but don’t make the mistake of thinking this place has anything to do with the real, 21st century world!

A jewel in the crown of the UK’s heritage railways

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Platypus Man

The Bluebell Railway is without doubt a gleaming jewel in the crown of the UK’s heritage railways. Its locomotives puffing serenely through 11 miles (18 km) of rolling countryside in the county of Sussex, the Bluebell is thought by many to be England’s best steam railway experience. So, when we were in the area earlier this year, we decided to check it out for ourselves.

Railway nostalgia is big business in the UK. There are, astonishingly, well over 200 “minor and heritage railways” operating across the country as a whole. According to the government’s Office of Rail and Road (ORR):

“Minor and heritage railways are ‘lines of local interest’, museum railways or tourist railways that preserve, recreate or simulate railways of the past, or demonstrate or operate historical or special types of motive power or rolling stock….Much of the rolling stock and other equipment used on these systems is original and is of historic value in its own right. Many systems deliberately aim to replicate both the look and operating practices of historic former railways companies.
Source: ORR website, retrieved 7 December 2023

The Bluebell Railway, which is named for the profusion of bluebells that flower in the area each spring, fits the ORR’s definition perfectly. It is Britain’s oldest preserved standard-gauge railway, and is run by the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society. The Society ran its first train in August 1960, less than three years after British Railways closed the line to “regular” rail traffic. A ride from one end of the line to the other takes around 40 minutes, but most passengers break their journeys to explore what each of the stations along the route have to offer.

The star attractions are, of course, the vintage steam locomotives. They seem to have personality, not something I would ever say about 21st century railway technology. And don’t you just love the sooty smell of a locomotive in full steam, a smell from another era that seems out of place in our sanitised modern age. The Bluebell Railway Preservation Society has more than 30 steam locos under its care, making this the second largest collection in the country after the National Railway Museum at York. We were pleased to see – and smell! – several in action during the course of our visit.

In addition to the wonderful locos there are nearly 150 carriages and wagons, most of them dating back to the first half of the twentieth century. As well as riding some of the rolling stock as it trundles along the Bluebell’s tracks, it’s also possible for visitors to get up close and personal with more examples in the huge loco sheds and carriage workshop.

But it’s not just the rolling stock that offers glimpses of a lost world. The stations have been restored to show how they would have looked at different stages in the line’s history: Sheffield Park Station reflects the 1880s, Horsted Keynes Station the mid-1920s and Kingscote Station the 1950s. As a result, the Bluebell Railway and its stations have been used as locations for scenes in movies including Muppets Most Wanted, and period TV dramas like Downton Abbey.

**A souvenir of the** ***Downton Abbey period tv drama!***

In common with every other heritage railway, the Bluebell is dependent on volunteers. There are some paid staff, but most of the people keeping the show on the road do it for free, and presumably for fun.

The cynic in me says that the anachronistic steam locomotives are little more than “big boys’ toys,” while the guys (and it is, I think, mostly men) who dress up as train drivers, guards, signal operators and buffet car assistants are a bit like Peter Pan, kids who never quite managed to grow up!

But where’s the harm in that? The Bluebell has clear educational value, it boosts the local economy by attracting tourists and keeping them entertained, and enables ordinary people to play an active role in a wider community venture. Everyone’s a winner on the iconic Bluebell Railway.

Mural reveals village’s hidden history

Posted on November 29, 2023 by Platypus Man

Murals are springing up all over my home county of Derbyshire. A little while ago I wrote about a magnificent painting of a kingfisher that had suddenly appeared on the side of a house in our local town. And just a couple of weeks later we came across another unexpected mural, this one featuring a railway locomotive in full steam.

To be fair, the steam train mural has been there since 2021, but it’s in a part of the county we rarely visit. Driving through the village, Westhouses appears totally unremarkable, and my initial reaction was to question why anyone would choose to cover one wall of its abandoned social club with a painting of a long extinct mode of transport. All of which proves how little I knew about the history of that corner of Derbyshire!

It turns out that Westhouses owes its very existence to railways. The village is named after West House Farm, but there was little if any other habitation in the area until the middle of the nineteenth century when the Midland Railway company drove a line through it to serve numerous local collieries and ironstone pits. The company needed to put in place a range of support facilities, and so in the 1870s it set about the creation of a new village, including workers’ houses, a school and a church, as well as a big engine shed to stable and maintain its locomotives.

Once upon a time railways were the lifeblood of Westhouses, but not now. Both the engine shed and railway station closed decades ago, and it seems improbable that any local people are now employed in the railway industry. However, residents remain proud of their connection with that industry, and when organisers of a community arts project searched for topics to engage local interest it’s no surprise that a steam locomotive was amongst those chosen.

The mural was painted by two artists from Leicester-based spray art collective Graffwerk. It took them five days of spraying to finish the job, and local train enthusiasts – many of whom had family connections with the Stanier 8F steam locomotive that is pictured – were on hand to make sure they got all the details absolutely right!

Trawling through social media posts dating from immediately after the project was completed in 2021, it’s clear that local residents were blown away to have such a wonderful piece of art in their village. Murals that are well chosen and brilliantly executed clearly have enormous power to bring whole communities closer together.

They are also a reminder to casual visitors such as me that seemingly ordinary places may have hidden histories that are well worth celebrating. Before seeing that mural I would never have given Westhouses a second glance, but having stumbled across it I was curious to know how and why it came to be there. So, thanks to the mural – and then the internet! – I did some research, and discovered the extent of my earlier ignorance. It’s clear there’s much more to Westhouses than I would ever have guessed, thanks to its proud railway heritage.

Powerful messages at the National Memorial Arboretum

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Platypus Man

My last post reflected on just a few of more than 400 memorials dotted around UK’s National Memorial Arboretum, memorials commemorating individual units of the armed forces, specific wartime incidents and sundry other causes and organisations. Today, I want to focus on two further memorials to be found at the Arboretum, particularly powerful pieces designed to make us all think hard about the nature and consequences of warfare.

Commemorating 306 British Army and Commonwealth servicemen executed during the First World War, “Shot at Dawn” is perhaps the most surprising of all the memorials. At first glance a sculpture in memory of men executed for – amongst other things – desertion and cowardice maybe sits uncomfortably alongside memorials to soldiers who died bravely while fighting for their country. But, of course, these days we know much more about the workings of the human mind than they did when senior officers were making life-and-death decisions at court martials over a century ago.

Based on our understanding today, there is good reason to believe that the behaviours leading to many of these executions were a result of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Combat Stress Reaction (CSR). If this is so, many of those shot at dawn were not bad men. Rather, they were guys who had been psychologically traumatised by the horrors of war.

The memorial statue portrays a young British soldier blindfolded and tied to a stake, hands bound behind his back, awaiting execution by firing squad. A small disc, hanging from a chain around his neck, marks the point at which his executioners have been ordered to aim. Arranged in a semi-circle behind the condemned man are stakes, each bearing the name of a man executed in this manner during the First World War.

Artist Andy DeComyn based his statue on a likeness of 17 year old Private Herbert Burden, who lied about his age to get into the army and was later executed for desertion. It is a poignant piece of work, a reminder that simple words like “coward” or “deserter” do not necessarily do justice to the realities of life – and death – on the battlefield.

As such, it also brings to mind Michael Morpurgo’s “Private Peaceful”, an insightful novel for young adults – later made into a stage play, concert and film – that featured at its heart a battlefield execution. In my view, Private Peaceful and Shot at Dawn should both be compulsory viewing for those who seek to portray warfare as a glorious or noble activity.

Poignant in a different way is “Every Which Way“, a memorial to the evacuation of children from cities to the relative safety of rural Britain during the Second World War. The memorial remembers the evacuation of millions of children separated from their families during the conflict. It also pays tribute to the adults who made this huge logistical operation a success, including train and coach drivers, teachers, nurses, billeting offices, and the foster parents who gave the evacuees temporary new homes.

The artist responsible for “Every Which Way” was Maurice Blik, who was commissioned by the British Evacuees Association (BEA). It is an outstanding, emotionally charged piece of work.

Here’s what Blik had to say about his sculpture when it was inaugurated in 2017:

The title of the memorial was inspired by one of the members of the BEA who on seeing my initial scale model of the sculpture, exclaimed ‘That’s it exactly – we were going every which way’…With the design I hope to convey some of the confusion and anxiety felt by the child evacuees. This is not a straight forward line of children about to set off on a journey; … items of clothing are back to front and luggage is split open to symbolise families being torn apart.”
Source: Maurice Blik, writing in his booklet about the memorial and quoted in the Volunteer London Blog

I leave you with this thought: Blik’s sculpture is a powerful, brilliantly executed reminder that innocent people, including children, inevitably get hurt in wars. We shouldn’t need reminding, but the daily reports of suffering, destruction and death in Ukraine and the Middle East suggest otherwise. Have we, as a species, learned nothing? In 1969, John Lennon urged us all to Give Peace a Chance, and today his words seem more relevant than ever.

***Photo Credit: by Miha Rekar on Unsplash***

Reflections on the UK’s National Memorial Arboretum

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Platypus Man

Next Sunday, 12 November, is Remembrance Sunday, when the UK reflects on the sacrifices made by men and women who have died in the service of their country. Services and ceremonies of remembrance will take place at locations up and down the country, including the National Memorial Arboretum in the county of Staffordshire.

The Arboretum opened in 2001, and exists to ensure that –

“the unique contribution of those who have served and sacrificed is never forgotten
the baton of Remembrance is passed on through the generations
there is a year-round space to celebrate lives lived and commemorate lives lost.”

I am, at heart, a child of the sixties, brought up in the era of the peace movement to the sound of Edwin Star reminding us that “War can’t give life, it can only take it away,” and John Lennon pleading with us all to “Give peace a chance“. I accept that warfare might sometimes be necessary as a last resort, the lesser of two terrible evils, but any attempt to promote or glorify it is, and will always be, anathema to me.

I therefore visited the National Memorial Arboretum earlier this year with a degree of trepidation, fearing it would be little more than a shallow, macho glorification of armed conflict, a misguided homage to the notion that “might is right”. As it happens, I had nothing to fear: taken as a whole, the memorials are broader in scope, more sensitive and more thought provoking than I had imagined. Indeed, some have little or no direct link to the military services.

More than 25,000 trees have been planted on the site, which was reclaimed from old gravel workings and measures around 150 acres (60 hectares). It currently hosts around 400 memorials to individual units of the armed forces, to specific incidents and to sundry other causes and organisations. Memorials come in all shapes and sizes, and in various materials including steel and bronze, as well as glass and stone.

The centrepiece is the Armed Forces Memorial, an imposing Portland marble installation upon which are engraved the names of around 16,000 servicemen and women who have died in the line of duty or been killed by terrorists since 1945. Inspired by monuments of prehistoric Britain, a 43 metres diameter stone structure sits atop an earth mound 6 metres high. Depressingly, there is space on the walls for another 15,000 names to be added.

The Polar Bear Memorial was the first memorial erected at the site, and was dedicated in 1998, three years before the official opening of the Arboretum. It’s a tribute to the 49th West Riding Infantry Division, who adopted their distinctive polar bear cap badge after service in Norway and Iceland in World War 2. Around its base are the badges of the regiments in the Division, and the towns liberated or defended by them. Inside the bear is a capsule carrying details of those who died, together with personal mementoes. Versions of the Polar Bear statue have been erected at towns liberated by them in World War 2.

Another thought-provoking memorial is that to the crews of submarines. The Submariner’s Memorial was designed by sculptor Paul Day. Its representation of a conning tower, through which a sailor gazes up longingly towards the sky, eerily conveys the sense of confinement that submarine crews must have felt every day.

Some memorials, including the Clapton Orient memorial, hint at a fascinating story. Why, the casual visitor might wonder, do a soccer ball and a pair of soccer boots flank an obelisk commemorating members of the 17th Battalion Middlesex Regiment? The inscription gives the answer, telling us that “Clapton Orient were the first football league club to enlist en masse to serve king and country during the Great War.”

The club’s players enlisted in December 1914, serving in what became known as the Footballers’ Battalion. The inscription goes on to tell us that “Many [of the footballers] sustained wounds, and three of the club’s players made the ultimate sacrifice during the Battle of the Somme.” The memorial is based on an original, paid for and unveiled by Orient fans in 2011 at Flers, in the heart of the Somme battlefield.

***Memorial to the Royal Army Medical Corps***

It is not just members of fighting units who are honoured at the National Memorial Arboretum. One of the most striking sculptural works on display is a bronze memorial commemorating the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Sculpted by Alan Beattie Herriot, it features a member of the RAMC carrying a wounded soldier over his shoulder. Since the foundation of the Corps in 1898, 29 medics have been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest and most prestigious decoration for military personnel in the British honours system.

***Memorial recalling the Christmas Day truce, 1914***

Another soccer-related memorial recalls the Christmas Day Truce in 2014, when British and German soldiers met in no man’s land to exchange gifts, take photographs and play impromptu games of football. For one day only these men decided to give peace a chance, and although hostilities resumed soon after, their action remains one of the most famous and inspiring encounters of the First World War. The memorial is based on a design by 10 year old Spencer Turner for the Football Association’s “Football Remembers” competition, and depicts a British and a German soldier shaking hands. Simple, but symbolic and very moving.

***The Aguila Memorial to 21 Wrens lost at sea in 1941***

It was not only men who gave their lives in the service of their country. The Aguila Memorial, carved from wood on a stone base, commemorates 21 members of the the Women’s Royal Naval Service (aka the WRNS / the Wrens) who were lost at sea in August 1941 when their ship the Aguila was torpedoed by a U-Boat. The Aguila was en route to Gibraltar where 12 of the Wrens were due to take up duties as cypher officers, and the other nine as wireless operators.

***“Free Spirit”, in memory of more than 1,000,000 horses and mules used by the British Army during WW1***

“Free Spirit” takes a very different look at the victims of warfare. Animals can be in the firing line too, and this bronze statue of a horse designed by Georgie Welch commemorates more than 1,000,000 horses and mules used by the British Army during the First World War. Most did not survive the ordeal.

One of the notable features of the National Memorial Arboretum is that it recognises wars are fought and won on the home front, as well as on the battlefield. One memorial, for example, commemorates the Bevin Boys. These were young British men conscripted to work in coal mines between December 1943 and March 1948, to increase the rate of coal production, which had declined through the early years of the Second World War.

Another memorial marks the contribution of the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corps, and rightly so: over the course of the two World Wars over 240,000 “Land Girls” and “Lumber Jills” produced desperately needed food and timber for the war effort.

The National Memorial Arboretum is full of surprises, and gives the visitor lots to think about. Two of the most striking memorials commemorate soldiers who were executed on the battlefield during the First World War, and children evacuated from their city homes into the countryside to protect them from bombing during the Second World War. This post is already far too long, so I will write about these two very different, and very special, memorials next time.

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Musical postscript

Writing this post has inevitably led me to a period of sombre reflection. At such times I tend to find that music – particularly within the broad tradition of English folk music – is better able to capture the emotions engendered by the realities and consequences of armed conflict than mere words written on a page. With that in mind, I offer you links to two songs that mean a lot to me. I hope they speak to you too. Listen, and quietly weep.

“And the band played Waltzing Matilda” was penned by Eric Bogle, a Scottish-born Australian singer-songwriter. It describes the grim realities and consequences of war, and the short-sightedness of those who seek to glorify it. Here is Bogle singing his anti-war masterpiece:

As a noted apologist for the British Empire, Rudyard Kipling, the English poet, short story writer, journalist and novelist, is not the obvious composer of an anti-war song. Perhaps he didn’t regard “Soldier, soldier” as an anti-war song at all? I do, for it is a stark reminder not only of the brutal consequences of war for the combatants, but of the pain and suffering of those watching from afar as events unfold on the battlefield. Here Kipling’s words are sung by English folk singers Anni Fentiman and Brian Peters, to an arrangement by Peter Bellamy

St Magnus Cathedral and Orkney’s turbulent Viking spirit

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Platypus Man

Set in the heart of Kirkwall, St Magnus Cathedral dominates the skyline of Orkney’s biggest town. Built from distinctive red and yellow sandstone, construction began in 1137, with major additions following in the early 13th and late 14th centuries. Its foundation reflects Orkney’s turbulent Viking spirit.

At the time, Orkney was ruled, and largely inhabited, by Scandinavians. Norsemen first came to Orkney in the late 7th century, and the number of arrivals rose rapidly over the next 100 years. Some came to farm, while others simply used the Orkney islands as a base from which to launch Viking raids on other coastal communities in Scotland and beyond.

By the early 12th century Orkney was part of the kingdom of Norway, ruled on behalf of its king by joint earls Magnus Erlendsson and his cousin Haakon Paulsson. This arrangement worked well for several years, until their followers began to quarrel. In 1118 Magnus was captured and executed by Haakon’s men.

After a few years Magnus was canonised, making him a saint of the Roman Catholic church. In 1137, Magnus’s nephew Rognvald commissioned a ‘fine minster’ to be built at Kirkwall in honour of his late uncle. Magnus’s remains were later re-interred in one of the columns of the cathedral, and lie there to this day.

St Magnus Cathedral is a striking achievement, a fine building in the Romanesque style with later Gothic embellishments, and boasting particularly fine vaulting in the nave. It is one of the oldest cathedrals in Scotland, and the most northerly in the whole of the United Kingdom. But perhaps not for much longer! Many residents of Orkney, particularly their leaders, believe their island home has been unfairly treated by both the UK and Scottish governments. They are calling for more autonomy.

One idea under consideration is that Orkney, which has a population of just 22,000, should quit the UK – and therefore Scotland – altogether, and become a self-governing territory of Norway! To be honest, even if a majority of Orcadians voted in favour I think it’s highly unlikely the British government would ever allow this to happen.

However, that such an audacious proposal has been voiced at all is an indication that feelings are running high. Orkney’s turbulent Viking spirit clearly survives to this day. But St Magnus himself was known as a pious man, a man of peace, hope and reconciliation, someone who prayed for the souls of the men about to execute him. I wonder how he would feel about these extraordinary developments?

Inspirational and serenely beautiful – Orkney’s Italian Chapel

Posted on June 28, 2023 by Platypus Man

Returning to the Orkney islands after a gap of seven years there were many places I was anxious to revisit. Right at the top of my list was the Italian Chapel, an unlikely outpost of the Roman Catholic Church located on a remote, windswept Scottish island. It is serenely beautiful, and the story of its creation is truly inspirational.

Scapa Flow, a body of water sheltered between several of Orkney’s islands, is one of the world’s great natural harbours. As such it was the UK’s foremost naval base during the First and Second World Wars.

To give added protection to naval vessels anchored there it was agreed late in 1939 that barriers should be constructed to block off the four eastern entrances to it, while simultaneously linking up several islands with a causeway. The man who made that decision was Winston Churchill, at the time the First Sea Lord and later the UK’s victorious wartime Prime Minister. The barriers now bear his name.

From a military perspective it was a thoroughly sensible decision, given that German submarines had proved themselves adept at sneaking into Scapa Flow and attacking British warships. However, constructing the barriers was more problematic, not least because of a shortage of local manpower to do the heavy lifting.

The solution, it became apparent, was to send in some Italians. The Italian army had been having a difficult time in North Africa. Many thousands of its troops had been captured, so sending a few hundred of these wretched captives to Orkney to help with the construction of the Churchill Barriers must have seemed like an opportunity too good to miss.

And so it was that around 500 Italians found themselves in Camp 60 on the tiny (40ha / 98 acres), uninhabited Orkney island of Lambholm. It was not a pleasant experience, and not just because – as prisoners of war – the men were expected to put in long days of hard physical labour with no prospect of a decent meal, a glass of wine or female company at the end of it:

“The little island could hardly have appeared more desolate: bare, foggy, exposed to the wind and heavy rain. The camp consisted of thirteen dark, empty huts, and mud.”
Domenico Chiocchetti, quoted in The Italian Chapel: Orkney’s Sanctuary of Peace

From the end of September 1943, the prisoners’ spiritual needs were overseen by a camp priest, Padre Gioachino Giacobazzi. It was he who suggested that their welfare might be better served if their British guards enabled the provision of a chapel. To their credit the British agreed to this, allowing the prisoners to take over – and bolt together – two Nissen huts for this purpose.

Wikipedia tells us that a Nissen hut “is a prefabricated steel structure originally for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated iron”. This doesn’t sound like a promising starting point for the creation of a place of worship, but what the Italian prisoners achieved with their huts was extraordinary.

Having bolted together the two huts end-to-end, the first task was to ensure they could withstand Orkney’s challenging weather. This was achieved by applying wire ‘bolster’ nets and copious quantities of concrete along the whole length of the structure. Once they were sure the exterior of the huts was weathertight, the prisoners could move on to line the interior of the corrugated walls with plasterboard. This created a smooth surface capable of being transformed into something resembling a “normal” chapel.

***The Madonna of the Olives. “Mother of Peace Pray for Us”***

Fortunately for the success of the project, one of the prisoners was a talented artist with relevant training and experience. Domenico Chiocchetti was born in May 1910, the youngest of 12 children. Coming from a poor family he had no opportunity to attend art college, but instead managed to get an apprenticeship to train as a church painter. The skills he developed at this time were invaluable on Orkney, where he came up with the design of the chapel and its artwork, and supervised its internal decoration..

Chiocchetti was personally responsible for painting the exquisite sanctuary end of the chapel, including the altarpiece which he based on Nicolo Barabino’s Madonna of the Olives. When he went off to war Chiocchetti’s mother gave him a prayer card bearing a copy of Barabino’s work, and it was this image that he used as his inspiration for the painting. The Madonna is pictured holding the Christ Child, who has an olive branch in His hand. Appropriately, given the circumstances in which Chiocchetti created this piece, the Latin phrase that surrounds them reads ‘Regina Pacis Ora Pro Nobis’ – ‘Mother of Peace Pray For Us’.

Other tradesmen also played an important part in the creation of the chapel, including Giuseppe Palumbi, a blacksmith, and Domenico Buttapasta, a cement worker. The prisoners used whatever materials were to hand to further the project: the altar and altar rail, for example, were made out of concrete left over from work on the barriers, lamp holders were made out of corned beef tins and the font was fashioned from the inside of a car exhaust covered in a layer of concrete!

Chiocchetti was conscious that the ugly appearance of the exterior of the Nissen hut detracted from his creative endeavours, and gave no clue to the beauty that lay inside. Once again, concrete provided the answer, with the prisoners using it to fashion a beautiful façade, complete with bell-tower. Today, without knowledge of the chapel’s history, it would be all but impossible to guess at its humble military origins.

***Internal view of the entrance end of the chapel.***

Upon its completion, the chapel undoubtedly enhanced the spiritual lives of the prisoners incarcerated at Camp 60. But just as important, perhaps, its creation gave the men who built it and worshipped within it a sense of purpose and renewed hope. At what must have been the bleakest time in their young lives, the chapel offered them some reassurance that there is more to life than warfare, and that with hard work and a positive outlook nothing is impossible. Here is how one of the prisoners put it:

Nights were our worst enemy. Long nights when thoughts went back home to those we loved…Only thinking of something more nobler, more elevated, could we find inner peace and hope. So the tiny chapel came gradually into existence.”
Bruno Volpi, a POW at Camp 60, quoted in The Italian Chapel: Orkney’s Sanctuary of Peace

Orkney’s Italian Chapel is a remarkable building, all the more so for being tucked away on a remote, tiny Scottish island where, at first glance, it simply does not belong. Its serene, uncomplicated beauty and the story of how it came to be should give us all cause for hope.

Orkney – It’s good to be back

Posted on June 14, 2023 by Platypus Man

At last, after a gap of six years, we’re on our way back to Orkney for our 11th visit over a period of around 30 years. We were due to come here in 2020 but the pandemic got in the way, so it’s a relief finally to be back on the ferry for the 90 minutes long crossing from Scrabster on the Scottish mainland to the Orcadian port of Stromness. As the ferry passes the iconic Old Man of Hoy, we know we’re nearly there. It’s good to be back!

***The Old Man of Hoy, a 137m (449ft) high sea stack, formed from Old Red Sandstone.***

For the uninitiated, Orkney is an archipelago around 16km (10 miles) off the north east tip of mainland Scotland. There are around 70 islands, of which some 20 are inhabited. Orkney’s total population is around 22,000, meaning there are more sheep than people, and many more birds than sheep – both signs of the perfect place to spend time, in my view!

Orkney’s attractions include some magical coastal scenery and a wealth of wildlife, particularly seabirds. It also boasts numerous important archaeological sites, including stone circles, standing stones and Skara Brae, the best-preserved Neolithic settlement in Western Europe.

More recently, beginning in the late 8th century, the islands were invaded and colonised by Norse raiders. For several centuries they were ruled by Denmark and Norway, and did not come under Scottish control until 1472. The Norsemen thus left an indelible mark on Orkney, and today’s Orcadians remain intensely proud of their Viking heritage.

***The Ring of Brodgar is a prehistoric stone circle dating back to the 3rd century BC.***

Unsurprisingly tourism plays a big part in the local economy, alongside the more traditional pursuits of agriculture and fishing. A growing number of cruise ships visit during the season, something that is regarded as a mixed blessing by locals and “regular” tourists alike. But it’s easy to see why they come: Orkney simply has so much to offer.

For many years Mrs P and I harboured a secret dream of relocating to Orkney and building a new life here in this wonderful sea of tranquillity, which is light years away from the stresses and strains of our 21st century suburban lives. Sadly this was not to be, due to our family responsibilities back home. So, for as long as we are able (and always assuming the world is not struck by another pandemic!) we will continue to visit this great place regularly.

Meanwhile, over the next few months, I will publish several more posts about Orkney, sharing some of its many highlights and demonstrating why this is, without doubt, our favourite place in the whole world.