Two Derbyshire Villages

My gt-gt grandfather, George Robinson, was born in the Derbyshire village of Tideswell. I've never been there in spite of the fact that it's only half an hour's drive from my house so the other weekend I decided to go and have a look round. The 14th century parish church of St John the Baptist is known as ' The Cathedral of the Peak'. The building of the church began in 1346 but was interrupted in 1349/50 when the Black Death devastated England killing a third of the population. Eventually the building began again though and the Tower and the chancel were added. Since then the exterior has remained unaltered and looks today exactly as it did when it was completed in 1400. It wasn't the first church on this site though, there was a church in Tideswell from at least 1193 when 'Henry, clericus de Tideswelle' was appointed as priest.



Inside the church is huge and there is a wonderful feeling of light and space thanks to the enormous traceried windows filled with clear glass. This photo is taken from the end of the nave looking up towards the chancel.


This is the 14th century font in which George, his parents and his grandparents and almost certainly many previous generations were christened. So far I only know George's parents, Joseph Robinson(bap 10 Dec 1789) and Ellen Hall(bap 14 Feb 1790), and their parents, John Robinson and Hannah Fletcher and Robert Hall and Sarah Wyatt. More is going to be discovered later today I hope as this morning's post brought me the CD containing all the baptisms, marriages and burials for Tideswell going back to 1635!!



This is one of several pew end carvings done by a local man with the marvellous name of Advent Hunstone. The carvings portray the sacraments - this one is baptism. The Hunstones of Tideswell were a well known family of woodcarvers.



The Lady Chapel contains thes two stone gravestones of women, dating from 1300 and 1375. It isn't a very good photo as they were the other side of the altar rail and I had to perform all sorts of contortions to get it at all.



This is the tomb of Sir Sampson Meverill in the centre of the Chancel. Sir Sampson was born on the 29th September 1388 and was a famous local Knight and landowner. He fought at Agincourt and against Joan of Arc surviving both those and many other battles and eventually dying peacefully at home at the ripe old age(in those days) of 74.



If you crouch down and peer through the stone tracery of the tomb you see this rather unsettling sight - a cadaver wrapped in a winding sheet! I've never seen anything quite like this before. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and there was too much light streaming through the windows to get a good photograph unfortunately.



More carving, this time done by Suffolk craftsmen in 1800. Here we have St George slaying the Dragon which rather ties in with my previous post.


Tideswell was granted a market charter in 1250 and was an important centre for both wool and lead. The area was famous for lead mining and this is the source of the wealth which enabled the building of such a fine church. The Tideswell lead miners were well known for their strength and were greatly prized by the military authorities. George III is reported to have remarked when a platoon of Tideswell miners were paraded before him in London-

“I don’t know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God they frighten me!”

Next door to the church is The George Inn (above) which was built in 1730. It was known originally as The New George Inn and was a busy coaching inn serving routes to Sheffield, Derby and Buxton. These days the road through Tideswell is surpringly quiet and it's a pleasant place to wander round. At some point I shall go again and explore some of the medieval lanes and alleys that apparently lie behind the main street.



I decided to go home via the little village of Foolow which must be one of the most delightful villages in the Peak District. The Bull's Head is the village pub,a pleasant place to spend some time on a warm summer's evening.



A solitary duck on the village pond! Three more appeared a few minutes later but this was really the place where the four farms in the village watered their cattle and horses. Sadly there isn't a single one left now, all are private houses.


A medieval cross stands on the village green.



Just to one side of the pond stands this marvellous stone well. An elderly gentleman who was passing told me that there are two wells in Foolow and this one on the Green was water for animals and I would guess also that water for washing clothes and other domestic tasks would come from here.



I imagine that Foolow had many fewer people suffering from water borne diseases than most places as it has a second well which I wouldn't have found if my elderly gentleman hadn't told me about it. This one stands a good few hundred yards outside the village and is the one that was used for drinking water. Being so far from the houses and fed by a spring it wouldn't have been tainted by water from the local privies and other unpleasant sources as so many water supplies were. It would have been hard work hauling buckets of water up and down the lane though especially on a freezing winter's day.


This is the view from the drinking water well with the lane to the neighbouring hamlet of Bretton snaking away over the moor.


The tiny church of St Hugh of Lincoln was originally the village smithy and only seats about 80 people. It was converted to a church in 1888.



I haven't come across a St Hugh's Church before so I did a little research and discovered that Hugh was born in Avalon,France in 1135. He came to England in 1179 and eventually became Bishop of Lincoln. He died in November 1200 at his London residence but was brought back to Lincoln cathedral for burial. There is a lovely story about the white swan which is St Hugh's emblem. The Manor of Stow was held by the Bishops of Lincoln and a particularly fierce swan which lived there formed a great attachment to Hugh and would follow him about, and was his constant companion whilst he was at Lincoln. In case you are wondering Stow is about 10 miles from the city.



Foolow is full of attractive buildings, this is the 18th century Manor House.



According to my elderly gentleman Old Hall Farm dates back to 1630 and inside it still has cruck beams and two stone staircases. It's now divided into two separate homes, it always makes me feel so sad when the old farmhouses are turned into upmarket homes and all the land is sold off.



A final little touch of history, just along from the modern postbox is the original Victorian one set into a wall. You don't often see these now and this one is only a decorative feature these days but at least it's still there.
This is a lovely area, one I've only driven through on the main road on my way to somewhere else in the past but I've decided that this summer I shall go and explore some more of the villages and lanes of the White Peak.

A Fire and A Fortress

My plan on the morning after visiting the Waterhouse exhibition was to go to the Tower of London and spend most of the day there and catch a late afternoon train home. I was able to leave my luggage at the hotel which made life easier, I couldn't have done any sightseeing if I hadn't been able to do that. As the Tower didn't open until 10am I decided to get off the Underground at Monument and have a little look round the area where the Fire of London began in September 1666. You can enlarge all the photographs so that you can read what is on the plaques etc.



The fire began in a baker's shop on Pudding Lane and burned for three days destroying virtually all of the medieval City of London. The city was rebuilt using brick and stone as the building materials rather than the wood and wattle and daub of the medieval buildings. This is the period in which Sir Christopher Wren built St Paul's Cathedral and over 50 other London churches. Many of these were destroyed or damaged by the second Fire of London in the Blitz of 1940-41.


Charles ll was the king at the time of the Great Fire of London and he commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to build The Monument to commemorate both the Fire and the rebuilding of the City. It is 202 feet high which is the distance that it stands from the site on Pudding Lane where the fire began. On this site originally was the church of St Margaret, Fish St which was one of 86 churches destroyed. The really amazing thing is that, in spite of the huge amount of destruction,only six people died.



The base of The Monument - I've never actually climbed the stairs to the top of it. It's a spiral staircase and no place to discover half way up that you can't manage to go any further !



This is St Magnus the Martyr Church which is mentioned on the plaque in the previous photo. The original church was one of the first to be destroyed and this one is the replacement designed by Wren. The clock dates from 1700 and used to hang over the road to Old London Bridge which ran through the churchyard to the right behind the white van.



The Tower of London is over 900 years old and was built by William the Conqueror soon after his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The original part is the White Tower on the right of the photograph which now houses the Royal Armouries Museum including suits of armour worn by Henry Vlll. I didn't go in there - at least, I did go through the door and took one look at the rugger scrum inside and the huge queue edging slowly up the stairs and rapidly changed my mind!



The entrance to the Tower is over a bridge which is where the drawbridge over the moat would have been in medieval times. The archway leads through the Byward Tower built by Edward l in the 13th century. As you can tell by all the umbrellas it was raining pretty hard and not your ideal sightseeing day. The Tower is a huge place and I'm afraid I didn't follow the recommended route as set out by the guide book but wandered about indiscriminately here and there picking out the things that interested me.



The word 'Medieval' is always a surefire draw as far as I'm concerned so the words Medieval Palace on a signpost acted like a magnet and off I went up the steps and into St Thomas's Tower which, with the Wakefield Tower and the Lanthorne Tower, are known collectively as the Medieval Palace. St Thomas's Tower was built by Edward l between 1275 and 1279 and was where he had his living quarters on his visits to the Tower. This is a reconstruction of his bedchamber using replicas based on original 13th century furnishings and decoration. And very nice too!



This is Edward l's private chapel which was through a small door leading out of the bedchamber.



Outside again I headed towards Tower Green. This is where ten people were beheaded including three Queens - Ann Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey who was only 16 years old. Only the most important personages were executed actually inside the Tower precincts and another of these was Queen Elizabeth l's favourite, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. The many others who suffered the same fate were taken to the public execution block on nearby Tower Hill. In the foreground of the photograph is the execution site memorial. You might be surprised to know that the last execution in the Tower took place as recently as 15th August 1941 when a German spy was shot by a firing squad. The building in the background is Waterloo Barracks which was built in the 19th century and is now the home of the Crown Jewels.


There wasn't one particular place where prisoners were kept at the Tower, they were squashed in anywhere there was room. In the Beauchamp Tower the walls are covered with graffiti carved by prisoners over the years, most of them date from the 16th and 17th centuries.Some are really elaborate and must have taken years to carve but I suppose that time was one thing they had plenty of! The photo needs enlarging and isn't that great even then as there were spotlights all over the place which create a lot of glare.


On the left of the photo is the doorway leading into The Bloody Tower and the walkway in the centre is called Raleigh's Walk because it is where Sir Walter Raleigh took his exercise during his 12 years as a prisoner here.



There were prisoners and then there were prisoners at the Tower - this is the room where Sir Walter spent his time furnished as it was during that period. Not exactly a bread and water regime I don't think:) Apparently his family were allowed to visit frequently and his son Carew was born while he was a prisoner! Obviously walking wasn't the only exercise he got!! He was in there accused of treason in case you're wondering...



I seem to have the knack of often being in the right place at the right time invariably purely by chance. I was wandering around Tower Green again when I heard marching feet and turned to see two guardsmen marching smartly round to the sentry box ready for the changing of the guard - the soldiers spend two hours at a time on duty in the sentry box. That's a long time when you have to stand there wearing that heavy bearskin and without moving regardless of the weather.



The ravens are an integral part of the Tower, there is a legend that if ever they leave then the White Tower will crumble and great disaster will befall this country.
It has an interesting origin,according to Geofrey of Monmouth's 'History of the King's of England' written in 1136 an ancient British king called Bran Hen was killed in battle and requested (presumably before the battle!)that his head be buried on the White Mount as a talisman against invasion. The Welsh word 'bran' means raven and the White Mount is where the White Tower now stands. One gathers that William of Normandy wasn't regarded as an invader:) One of the Yeoman Warders is Ravenmaster and has specific care of the ravens who have their own Raven's Lodgings. They also have one of their wings clipped just in case!



This is Traitor's Gate - not the entrance to the Tower that you would want to use in Tudor times! Ann Boleyn, Sir Thomas More, Catherine Howard and many others were brought along the River Thames by barge, passing under London Bridge where the heads of recently executed prisoners were tastefully displayed, and in through this water gate to climb those steps and face imprisonment and death. It actually had a much more cheerful start in life as it was originally built as an entrance for Edward l's royal barge.



I am standing looking through the archway under the Bloody Tower towards Traitors Gate. The portcullis of the Bloody Tower is still visble and the timber framed building over the top of Traitors Gate was built as lodgings for Ann Boleyn before her coronation. By this time it was mid afternoon and the sun had finally come out, but it was time for me to leave so that I could retrieve my luggage and catch the train home. I could have spent much more time here had it been available, it's well worth a visit if you ever get the chance.


Fortunately I'd given myself plenty of time to get back to the hotel because as I walked back towards the Underground I saw a sign which said 'oldest church in the City of London' - well, I couldn't not go and see it could I? The church is All- Hallows-By-The-Tower and there is still an arch from the original Saxon church of 675AD remaining down in the Undercroft. This is where the headless bodies of those people executed on Tower Hill were brought and William Penn the founder of Pennsylvania was christened here in 1644. US President John Quincy Adams was married here too when he was the American Ambassador. In 1666 Samuel Pepys and Admiral Penn, the father of William Penn, climbed the brick tower of this church and watched as London burned.



All Hallows has strong maritime connections, there is a Mariner's Chapel in the South Aisle and all over the church are models of ships, they are all tokens of thanks for cargoes safely delivered and voyages safely completed. I wish I'd had more time to look at these.



In the Undercroft under the Saxon arch is the best preserved piece of Roman tessellated pavement in London, it was once the floor of a Roman house.



The Undercroft was a little Museum full of all sorts of fascinating bits and pieces from an altar that had accompanied Richard ll on the Second Crrusade to this barrel which is the crow's nest from Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship 'The Quest' which he used on his last Antarctic expedition. It's a little jewel of a place and there was nobody else there!
I shan't be posting or commenting for a couple of weeks now as we are off to our house on the coast for the rest of this month and it's a computer free zone there.

Saving The Best Until Last - Part Two

This is Stinsford church where Thomas Hardy's father and grandfather came every Sunday to play their violin and cello as part of the church choir. Those of you who have read Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Under The Greenwood Tree will know this as Mellstock Church. Hardy himself was christened here and was a regular member of the congregation as a boy and young man.

It was always Hardy's wish to be buried at Stinsford among all the other members of his family. In the end his wishes, and those of his family, were ignored and his ashes are buried in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey - only his heart was removed and buried in this grave with his first wife Emma. I find it astounding that it was possible to override the wishes of both Thomas Hardy and his family, including his wife, in this way. Hardy's second wife, Florence, was buried in this grave when she died in 1937 and the graves on either side also contain members of the Hardy family.


The church itself was not really all that exciting, there has been a good deal of Victorian 'restoration' and although it is a pleasant enough little church the really interesting things such as the musician's gallery, where Hardy's father and grandfather sat to play for the services, have been removed. There is now a modern replacement gallery, nice enough but without the history. This is the stained glass memorial window which shows Hardy's favorite Old Testament story (I Kings, chapter XIX) in which Elijah, here robed in purple, listens to the "still small voice" which followed the tumult of wind, earthquake, and fire.



This is the cottage where Thomas Hardy was born and where he wrote Under The Greenwood Tree and Far From The Madding Crowd. It was built in 1800 by his great grandfather. When he was only 16 years old he wrote the following poem describing his home.

Domicilium

It faces west, and round the back and sides
High beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs,
And sweep against the roof. Wild honeysucks
Climb on the walls, and seem to sprout a wish
(If we may fancy wish of trees and plants)
To overtop the apple trees hard-by.

Red roses, lilacs, variegated box
Are there in plenty, and such hardy flowers
As flourish best untrained. Adjoining these
Are herbs and esculents; and farther still
A field; then cottages with trees, and last
The distant hills and sky.

Behind, the scene is wilder. Heath and furze
Are everything that seems to grow and thrive
Upon the uneven ground. A stunted thorn
Stands here and there, indeed; and from a pit
An oak uprises, Springing from a seed
Dropped by some bird a hundred years ago.

In days bygone—
Long gone—my father’s mother, who is now
Blest with the blest, would take me out to walk.
At such a time I once inquired of her
How looked the spot when first she settled here.
The answer I remember. ‘Fifty years
Have passed since then, my child, and change has marked
The face of all things. Yonder garden-plots
And orchards were uncultivated slopes
O’ergrown with bramble bushes, furze and thorn:
That road a narrow path shut in by ferns,
Which, almost trees, obscured the passers-by.

Our house stood quite alone, and those tall firs
And beeches were not planted. Snakes and efts
Swarmed in the summer days, and nightly bats
Would fly about our bedrooms. Heathcroppers
Lived on the hills, and were our only friends;
So wild it was when we first settled here.’



The cottage is National Trust property and when I asked my usual question about taking photographs inside I expected the equally usual answer of 'No'. The friendly warden amazed me by saying that I could take as many as I liked! It was quite difficult to get good ones as the rooms are very small and there was lots of sun pouring in through the windows but I did the best I could:) I really liked the parlour with it's flagstone floor and lovely big inglenook fireplace though I would have wanted a nice big rag rug on it in the autumn and winter months!



Thomas Hardy had a brother,Henry,and two sisters, Mary and Kate and this is the room which the two girls used. Thomas was the eldest child and it was 5 years before his sister Mary arrived. Henry was 15 years younger than Thomas and Kate didn't arrive until Thomas was 19 so the two girls were 14 years apart and probably didn't actually share the room for very long. And I have to say that I doubt whether the bed was that close to the fireplace when the room was actually in use!



I was standing as far back as I could to take this photo so you can tell how small the rooms are. This is the where Hardy and his brother and sisters were born.



This is Thomas Hardy's bedroom, he wrote Under The Greenwood Tree and Far From The Madding Crowd in this room, he used to sit on the lovely deep window-seat or at an old table that was set beside it. There was no electric light of course, only oil lamps and candles so he would have needed the light from the window to work. From here there was an incredibly steep, narrow stair leading down to the ground floor. It was more like a ladder really and I went down it facing the steps as if I was on a boat.



At the bottom of the stairs was the door into the kitchen with its brick floor. The original range has been blocked up but to the right of the fireplace is the old bread oven.



The lean-to at the side of the cottage with the old barrel being used as a water butt and handy for watering the vegetable garden. The cottage garden here is lovely and a couple of weeks after these photos were taken it would have been even better, there were so many plants almost ready to bloom. Like all cottage gardens it would be at its very best in mid to late June. I so enjoyed my visit, both cottage and garden were an absolute delight. I wish I'd had time to explore some of the surrounding woodland too, Thorncombe Wood is ancient woodland with nature trails and it has a Roman road running through it too. That will have to be for a future trip though- this time I wanted to go in search of Lawrence of Arabia.



I've known about Lawrence of Arabia for a long time of course but my first real encounter with his life was several years ago when I was in Jordan visiting various archaeological sites. We spent one of the days driving out into the desert in open top jeeps and visiting various places associated with T.E.Lawrence including the rock formation known as The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in Wadi Rum. Lawrence was a complicated and fascinating man and when I discovered that he had lived and was buried in Dorset I decided that I must see both his grave and his cottage.


Moreton Church where Lawrence's funeral service was held, it was attended by many famous people including Sir Winston and Lady Churchill and the poet Siegfried Sassoon. The church looks quite simple and ordinary from the outside but when you open the door and go in.......



...this is what you see, it's really beautiful inside and this photo doesn't do it justice. The church was hit by a bomb in WW2 (there was a US Army base at Moreton which was probably the actual target) and half of it was destroyed. After the war the church was rebuilt and they made a wonderful job of it.



The original stained glass windows were destroyed and they were replaced by plain glass which was etched by the artist Lawrence Whistler and I think they are the most beautiful windows I've ever seen. Do enlarge this so that you can see the detail. This was the only one where the light fell so that I could get a really good photo.



The main churchyard where Lawrence is buried is just across the road from the church but this is the original graveyard behind the church, what a wonderfully peaceful place to be laid to rest.



Clouds Hill, the cottage that Lawrence lived in from 1923 until his death in 1935. Another National Trust property now so we are back to 'no interior photography'. It was very interesting inside but even the Guide Book photos aren't up to much so you will have to take my word for it! Lawrence never actually lived here full time as he was a soldier and based at the nearby Bovington Camp. He used Clouds Hill as a place to write his books during his off duty times. The plan was to live here when his term of enlistment was up in 1935 but he was killed in a motorcycle accident a short time before this.



I think I stopped in Bere Regis so that I could look at the map, I turned off the main road and parked by the church and as the roads were busy with 'going home from work' traffic I decided I'd have a look round while I waited for it to quieten down a bit. It turned out that there was another Thomas Hardy connection here, Bere Regis was the manor of the Turberville family for over 500 years from the 13th to the 18th century and the family tombs are in the church. The inspiration for Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles came from this powerful family which had eventually died out in the late 1700s.


The church itself was well worth seeing -and fortunately the verger, who arrived pretty much at the same time as I did to lock up, said he'd come back later so that I could look round. The photo shows the entrance to the church and above the porch door are two iron hooks with chains. These date to about 1600 and were attached to long poles and used to pull thatch from the cottage roofs in the face of an advancing fire. Fire was an ever present danger in an age when houses were built largely of wood with thatched roofs. Apparently there were several disastrous fires in the village and consequently there are very few really old buildings left here.



The interior of the church which dates originally from 1050 though there is little left from this period.



The really spectacular part of the church is the fabulous 15th century nave roof. It is made of oak with full length carved figures of the twelve apostles. There are various other carved heads and devices including a Tudor rose. These are all painted and gilded and it looks absolutely spectacular. It was the gift of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of the Exchequer to King Henry VII.



The font is 12th century and really beautifully carved. It's amazing that it has survived for around 900 years in such wonderful condition.



The wheeled parish bier isn't as old as some I've seen, it was acquired in 1898 to "ease the burden of funeral bearers, who, since the establishment of the cemetery in 1881, had been required to walk the whole distance to and from the church."





On the north wall of the chancel is a lovely carved table tomb commemorating John Skerne who died in 1593. The three brasses depicting John, his wife Margaret and the family coat-of-arms. The lower photograph shows a detail of one of the brasses.

At this point I thought I'd better let the verger come and lock up though I'm sure there was alot more of interest to see. This was my last day in Dorset and definitely the best.