Autumn Cottage Diarist

Golden Days before the Winter Dark

We have recently been blessed with some of those glorious, golden autumn days that often occur around this time of the year - days when everything seems to stand still, when not a leaf moves or a bird flies by; days that have the remnants of sultry summer days, but also a component of change - subtle ripening that builds to the rosy abundance of harvest time .

We took some time on Monday to get out and about to enjoy the countryside while the weather is still good. As an inveterate church crawler, I often put an itinerary together as a ‘steeple chase’,  creating a navigation pathway amongst villages,  between church and church, spires and towers.

I've mentioned before that I consider the British parish church to be one of the greatest repositories of People’s art hidden away in full view; even for those without religious beliefs, I have found at least one item of artistic merit (in my eyes at least) in every church that I have ever encountered, that is worth seeking out or at least being pleasantly surprised by on a fleeting visit. The experience is even more pleasurable if you can read the symbology behind so many of the artefacts and adornments inside and out of the building itself, and I would always recommend gaining a little knowledge of what may be found there before paying a visit.

Our first stop was not, however a tiny village, but the larger town of Bampton at the hub of our ‘visit wheel’ which has, over the last decade, become known internationally as one of the locations in which ‘Downton Abbey’ has been filmed. It's a town barely larger than a village, so it was not surprising to see both enthusiastic evidence of the filming and the tourist influx which has been created, in the form of ‘The Downton Mile’ – a  hand drawn map, which you can download here (and also watch a very interesting short video narrated by Hugh Bonneville on the history of the Old Grammar School).  But there was also a notice in one residence complaining of the fact that 30,000 visitors had ‘besieged’ the town (with  a population of round only 2,600 in 2019), which I can quite imagine must have given a sense of being invaded rather than visited. Downton Abbey did not bring joy to everyone!

St Mary's Church

'Mrs Crawley's'

The Old Grammar School, now Library ('Downton Cottage Hospital')

The charm of the town does not just hinge on the fact that it became ‘Downton’ however – much of the characterful, prosperous architecture hails from the 17^th & 18^th century - being a market town built on the thriving wool trade since at least the 13^th century. It also has a claim to fame as having a particularly enthusiastic Morris Dance tradition – a pursuit that is commemorated in this market square mosaic – and in the name of a local pub!

After a light lunch, we meandered slowly back - but what we hadn't bargained on when we ventured out on our meander was that, although churches in our own County are now by and large open for private prayer, in other counties it is not necessarily the same. In the area we visited (known as ‘The Land of the 12 Churches’), those that I had placed on our itinerary were all still locked. Some of them had notices declaring that the key was with a key holder if we wanted access, but these would have been time consuming to track down, so we contented ourselves with wandering around four small, very peaceful Cotswold villages, just enjoying their ancient vernacular architecture.

Alvescot

There is nothing quite so delightful as wandering around a little English village in September sunlight, with hardly another person around; most of our encounters were with workmen, carefully repairing old stone walls - and even that was a joy to behold, to see ancient structures being loved and cared for, their future ensured for another century. We ended up  in the villages of Alvescot, Black Bourton, Kencot and Broadwell,  and though the churches were closed - no matter, as there were still the churchyards to explore! It was just a delight to wander around the  little village lanes and alleyways, gathering photographs - the only souvenirs I usually collect these days.

Kencot

 And at our last stop, the lovely autumnal sight of four Crab apple trees inside the church wall, bending low with fruit. It was only when we took a walk around that churchyard that we noticed that the trees were depositing much of their fruit on the ground inside the wall, abundantly spread and many already rotting.

Broadwell

We thus felt no guilt whatsoever in gathering up the ripe, unblemished fruit in a carrier bag to bring home with us. That bag is now sitting in the kitchen, awaiting attention this afternoon to be turned into a batch of Crabapple jam to join the jars of Blackberry and Apple jam and the Fig and Date chutney which are now sitting on  my pantry shelves. (Update – all now bubbling in the slow cooker 😊 )

I often ponder on what I see offered to visitors to my country as examples of ‘typical Britain”, and I think it must sometimes be a disappointment to be presented with a tawdry,  ‘Disneyfied’ picture of ‘Ye Olde England’. The chances are that if you are visiting as part of a coach load on a whistle stop tour of the popular  ‘sites’, you won't really see old England (or Wales or Scotland). But the footprint and the fabric of our history IS very much still there - down a little one track lane, accessible probably only in quite a small car - or on foot. It won't have souvenir stalls or fast food, but if you can find it (and I can tell you where to look), in one’s and two’s (four at the most), you will be rewarded with restrained beauty, peace and tranquillity, living history and a courteous but possibly rather reserved British  welcome.

But if you can't get here, I plan many more ventures down those little country lanes,  and it will be my pleasure to take you along with me.

Root and Branch, Rock and Pot

It's been quite a week for parts of the Western World, hasn't it? and not one I have relished. Polarised opinions, anger and anxiety and that feeling - as I look into the future - of wondering what exactly will happen next?

When the pressures of the world weigh heavily on my shoulders, I turn to the natural world, and so it was today; I turned my back on the whole gamut of social media and the world of so many words which seem to ricochet around and sting right now, and took off - with my camera - to one of the places which truly does restore my soul.

The ancient ceremonial pathways and stone circle of Avebury henge have received humans for thousands of years - all seeking their own spiritual restoration and affirmation in one way or another. Today I walked those paths of the ancestors and they received me - on a dark, drizzling day with few other people around.

The stones were massive, lowering and grey - quite different to walking with them on a sunny summer's day - but they were good company. They just stood and listened - and I was restored, ready to face forward again, towards February 1st and Imbolc, the first festival of the Celtic year, a celebration of the first hopeful signs of spring.

Bring on the milk and fire of Brigid - the stones have got my back!

Exquisite decoration on a clay beaker - which may have been made like this....

In life...the tools used by Neolithic housekeepers

In death - fragmented bone cremains in a decorated urn

3000 years between them - two foci of spiritual sustenance - the Stone Circle and the Church

Facing forward towards Springtime - the lovely volunteers of the National Trust, grubbing out blighted Box Balls in preparation for the Mid-February re-opening of Avebury Manor. Doesn't that lovely smile cheer up the dreariest day?

 

Related articles

Again the Wheel Turns

It All Started with the Angels ...

Walking in (stone) circles: my modern-day pilgrimage to Stonehenge

The Great War and 'Downton Abbey'

It gives me such pleasure to hear the thoughts of all my American friends who have been waiting with bated breath for the start of series 2 of Downton Abbey to hit their screens, which it did last night. One friend of mine - Margaret L commented on Facebook today that 'This is all so close to being centenary events, I think it adds to the fascination. Our grandparents lived it, we knew them, heard stories of their experiences'.


To throw even more real light on the events depicted ficticiously in the series, you may all like to see this gravestone - which is in the cemetery of 'The Chapel in the Park' at Highclere Castle ('Downton Abbey'). This is the reality of one young man, who actually did lose his life in that terrible war but was, unusually, able to come back to be buried at Highclere.

When you watch the next few episodes, have a thought for Second Lieutenant M H Thompson, who now lies beneath the beautiful green trees and grass of Home, in the peace and seclusion of the cemetery at Highclere.

Touching Every Village Across the Land...

Mottisfont Church, near Romsey, Hampshire

Making the best of the glorious autumn weather that we are having at the moment, we ventured again, yesterday, to the Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum – but also managed to squeeze in visits to two churches. On our way there, to Stoke Charity, the little church in the middle of a field...and on the way home, to Mottisfont Church, in the village which is more familiar to me from having often visited Mottisfont Abbey, a National Trust property and home of one of the National Rose collections.

My interest in the church, however,  stems both from the fact that it IS a church, and for years I have been fascinated (obsessed?) with visiting them...but also that I have had, for ten or fifteen years now, an old photograph of a class of schoolchildren knocking around in my office, clearly labelled on the back  ‘A.B. Crump – September – Mottisfont School’. I have intended for a while to discover a little more – and yesterday I was able to do so.

It is the way of things that not all is made immediately easy ...there is, frustratingly, no year date on the back of the photo  – but there are names. The style of dress (often a good guide to date) is also quite difficult, in that the children in question would have been from rural/agricultural families – Mottisfont  was, and still is, a small rural community and fashions would not have changed there very rapidly in the 19^th century. I tentatively date this photograph at any time between about 1890 and 1910 (but if anyone can though a more enlightened guess I would be delighted to hear it!).

I entered the church to see several old photographs already there – but what caught my eye more – with the significance of yesterday’s date – between Armistice Day and today, Remembrance Sunday, were the War Memorials – both the ‘official’ brass plate, listing the  names of The Fallen from the village, but also a hand written script, listing all those who had fought (not just the dead) during the 1914-1918 conflict.

I photographed both – but only when I came home and looked up the names on the back of the photograph did I feel a genuine shiver down my spine and sense of intense sadness. Suddenly, names on a brass plate suddenly had what may have been their own images. A list of names became real people.

There are only a few names on the back of the photograph...A.B. Crump...(The Teacher?) Percy, Fred and Frank Dale...Poor Tilly (Lilly?), Tommy Rogers. But if you look on the brass memorial, a Frank Dale is listed there. Is it the same child who looks out from the photograph? Depending on the date, it could be...or perhaps the child of the child in the picture? What relation was Tommy Rogers to another name on the plate, Frank Rogers...and (looking at the handwritten list),  do you see the names of Percy, Frederick Dale, and a Maurice Rogers? How are they all connected? Because connected I think they must have been.

I am emphatically trying to make no assumptions. The  Old School is now the Village Hall, so I will soon contact the Booking officer there to request access, and hopefully, a fruitful conversation with her.  Until then, especially on this Remembrance Day, I am vividly left with the memory of another village, so very much like Mottisfont, where rural families once lived in peace until touched by War.

That village was Lark Rise, which, ‘stood on a gentle rise, in the flat, wheat growing north-east corner of Oxfordshire’ and was where Laura Timms (the author, Flora Timms/Thompson) lived in the last decades of the 19th century, with her family, including her baby brother, Edmund.  ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ begins with the description above....this is how it ends...

‘and all the time boys were being born or growing up in the parish, expecting to follow the plough all their lives, or at most to do a little mild soldiering or go to work in a town. Gallipoli? Kut? Vimy Ridge? Ypres? What did they know of such places? But they were to know them, and when the time came, they did not flinch. Eleven out of that tiny community never came back. A brass plate on the wall of the church, immediately over the old end house seat is engraved with their names. A double column, five names long, then, last and alone, the name of Edmund’.

For all those lists of names on all the War Memorials in villages, towns and cities all over the land, who were someone’s husbands, sons, wives, daughters... names which were each attached to a real human being; for all the war dead, and those who loved them, on this day, this Remembrance post is especially for you.

Your names liveth for evermore.

Returning to the Blogosphere... with some Mystery Pics

Well, it's gone - and I'm back. The MA dissertation that I have been working on for what seems like forever (actually only a few months - I postponed my submission last year) has been finished as much as it will ever be finished - and now all that has to be done is to sit and wait to see what the result may be.

Its a weird feeling - coming from spending practically all day and every day for weeks  in my office, to having the freedom to do whatever I like now (within reason!). I feel a bit disoriented, a bit confused as to what I do actually want to do - and then I sit and make a list of all the things that actually NEED to be done (like cleaning floors and windows that have not been properly cleaned for months!), and suddenly I am back to earth with a bump, and my time already allocated for the next few weeks. But still, I am very conscious that I have the luxury of choosing when I do all the things that need to be done.

I suddenly feel very, very tired now that the pressure is off - and have what feels like a pinched nerve in my shoulder from holding it at the same angle here at the computer for too long...but they are trivial, both will pass and then I can get around to sorting out Autumn Cottage, arranging some new writing courses for 2011 - and thinking a bit about what adventures I can have next!

During a few hours off on a Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago I visited the local car boot sale and discovered a most intriguing box of photographs, taken between the 1890's and 1930's. The most pleasing thing about them is that they are photographs of local people and places - so I might well get in touch with the local newspaper, to see if anyone recognises their great Grandpa or Grandma on them. But for now, here are a few that might intrigue you too, taken, at a guess, anywhere between 1890 and 1910. If any Newbury locals read this - do you know where 'May Villas' may have been? (and do you recognise your Grandpa or Grandma here?)

It's good to be back in the blogosphere again:-)))

Goodbye, Dear Old Woolies

Newbury's Woolworths Store - 29 December 2008

The last of the UK Woolworth's High street stores closed today - (Our own local shop in Newbury closed last week) and with the closure, a part of my own, and I am sure many other "Baby Boomer" childhoods disappeared.

"Woollies" was not just a shop - it was part of my history. It was where I would happily pester my darling mother for something useless, but passionately desired - and which she could not afford, most times that I went in with her. In those days, most parents knew how to use the word 'No' effectively, so my pleadings would go unheeded - but one or two of the items would almost certainly appear under the tree "From Father Christmas". He must have known Woolworth's VERY well indeed. (Though even he could not rescue them this time).

I remember shopping with her there from the age of about four - but definitely earlier than that in pre-memory, probably in my pram. It was Sweetie Paradise to most people, as well - in fact, the memories of "Woolies sweets" seems to be on most people's lips in the interviews that I have heard recently.

Empty shelves - themselves all up for sale

And oh, the Sales... pure Paradise for kids, with REAL bargains, overflowing from heaped-up bins - none of the fancy "marketing displays" of today - "pile it high, sell it cheap" was definitely their motto in the 1950's. Woolworth's was a synonym for "Cheap" - the products and the workplace - there was often a threat to people of my age  that if you did not work hard in school "you will end up working in Woolworth's" - the spectre of a dead end job that was supposed to spur us into dedication to our studies. That image changed considerably over the years, but the dead end has now sadly come to fruition in a different way.

I had a last walk around  last week - and I am sure that I was not the only person with a few tears running down my cheek. Surely Woolies could not be closing down? If this was happening, then civilisation as we know it really must be coming to an end.

But of course, it hasn't - though I think many of our lives will have changed a good deal economically by this time next year. What are your own memories of "Woolies" if you live in the UK - and wherever you live, what moves are you making to adapt to the changes that will be affecting all our lives?

Farewell Woolies - commiserations and good wishes to the 27000 employees whose jobs have now disappeared.

In Comes Bold Slasher and the Turkish Knight

The Overton Mummers, led by Musician towards the Greyhound

Boxing Day in England

A cold but bright day for the day after Christmas – “Boxing day” – the day on which Christmas “boxes” of cash gifts were given to visiting tradesmen, (nowadays left with a Christmas card, given to the postman & the milkman) – and for me, a visit to the little town of Overton, in North Hampshire, where I am studying the grave ornamentations in the new graveyard there.

A poignant Christmas embellishment  to Pamela Saul's grave

I had hoped to gather images of any Christmas contributions to the graves, and was not disappointed. Many graves bore beautiful, traditional wreaths and decorations, whilst some of the decorations were less conventional, but still spoke of an ongoing relationship of remembrance between the living and the dead.

Remembrance for  a child - Sophie Louise Sutton

Interior of Overton Church, looking west

 

The pulpit, with pew-end candle stands wound with holly and ivy.

 

The second reason to visit was in hope of catching the performance of the Overton Mummers play – an ancient form of performance, which has been revived in Overton (and performed there and in surrounding villages) since, I believe, the 1970’s, using a script which is recorded as having been collected in 1913. The plays are much, much older, however - the term was used in medieval times, though the earliest hard evidence in the form of surviving scripts goes back back to the 18^th century. Many performances died out in post-war times, but since the 1960’s many villages all over England have rediscovered and revived this delightful form of entertainment.

 

The mummers (also known as “guisers” – those in disguise) form part of the rich tradition of folk plays which can still be seen in Britain, in the same spirit as Pantomime, bringing light and jollity (and not a little political comment and bawdy innuendo) to the dark days of midwinter.

 

King George and the rear view of Old Father Christmas

I was not disappointed today – after a short visit to the church to see the interior decorations for Christmas, I caught the end of the performance in the Town square, then – (after a half pint of ale in The Greyhound Inn, a requisite imbibing before viewing to ensure full satisfaction!)  we were summoned outside by “Musician” to watch the play. Old Father Christmas told the tale, Bold Slasher and The Turkish Knight both battled and were killed by King George, and  then revived by The Doctor. Twing-Twang added his five pennyworth, we all commiserated “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear” at the deaths – but in the end all was well – and much more ale was drunk!

The Doctor about to revive Bold Slasher with a drop of "Elegant paint"

 Enjoy these images from the day – the Overton Mummers costumes are intricately made with shredded papers of all descriptions – wallpaper, shopping carriers, gift wrap. If you would like a larger image of any of these shouts, as ever – mail me and I’ll send it to you.

Read more about Mummers here and here is the script (more or less) of the play

Twing-Twang and The Turkish Knight ? - all revived and better again...another happy ending!

Stories in Pictures

This is the handpainted sign from our local pub, "The Gun", where we
often have Sunday lunch. There has been a building on the site for many
centuries, the name of the pub alluding to the fact that it stands on
the outskirts of the area that was the site of the 1st Battle of Newbury
in 1643, one of the important battles of the English Civil War. It is,
in fact, believed that the building originally functioned as a hospital
station during the battle.

Evidence of the fighting is spread all over the area of Wash Common -
people frequently turn up archaeological finds of musket, cannonball and
other militaria. Autumn Cottage lies about three miles away from the
battlefield, and even here we have found interesting items in the
garden. The most interesting of these is the lead top from what was
called an "apostle" - a measure of gunpowder, carried in a bandolier
across the chest.

We have been told that the cottage was inhabited from about 1700, but
that before that it may well have been part of some farm buildings - so
it is quite likely that soldiers travelling on their way to or from the
fray may have holed up here. I like to think so, anyway - so romantic!

As we are having a thorough overhaul of the garden this year, I am
toying with the idea of carrying out a more comprehensive dig there. I
have literally boxes and boxes of artefacts that have been retrieved in
the general course of digging the flower beds and when building work has
occurred, but it would be interesting to carry out a more thorough,
accurate dig and record it properly. A good friend is the retired
Curator of the local museum, whose expertise I should be able to call
upon. I'll have to think more about this...

This is one of my recent efforts at collage. Another on line friend who
owns her own Yahoo list called "Armchair Travelling" has encouraged the
idea of an "Artist of the Month" in the group. Last month we focussed on
Jean Cocteau - and this is the collage that I created as a result.
Initially started with paper & acrylic paint, then scanned and script
added digitally. It's only a quick effort, but I am learning more about collage all the time. I enjoy the facilites offered by digital manipulation, but there is something missing in not having the wonderful textures of a mixed media work to enjoy. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

This month we are finding out more about the authoress Georges Sand, one
time mistress of Frederic Chopin, but also an accomplished writer and
woman of the word. (I meant to write "world" here - but I think the slip
in fact describes her better :-)). I am enthusiastic to join in such an
enterprise as this - we can vote for our choice for the next month, but
I am quite happy to "lose" the vote - because then I discover more about
someone with whom I might be totally unfamiliar - which is much more of
an exciting adventure, don't you agree?