UK 2012 ISSUE 21

Water Butts

Did you really think I had finished with all things garden and gardening.  There is still the outstanding issue of allotments and garden centres.  More than that I have more pretty pictures of flowers and plants to share.  Doing this blog actually forces me to take a look at the images I have captured and decide what is worth keeping and what requires a judicious trip to the trash.  Even those images considered "keepers" require at minimum, cropping and perhaps a little adjustment of light and shadow.  Unfortunately, if I really like an image, I can end up spending way to much time in photoshop just messing around with different treatments.  Generally speaking (for the purists among you) the pictures I have been sharing have not been too extensively "doctored".  

Back to England and their overwhelming preoccupation with growing things.  I imagine I have already touched on the question of allotments, which are really nothing more than community gardens with a long history.  Back even to Saxon times there has been a history of land being held in common for the production of food stuffs.  At various times over this 1000 year period the common land has been confiscated or seized and incorporated into the holdings of nobles, the crown or even the church.  The very first mention of an allotment is in Elizabethan England when an allotment of land was attached to tenant cottages for the growing of food and keeping of animals.  If you weren't a "tenant" guess you had a problem since common land for the use of the poor was increasingly being enclosed.  

Peek a boo pumpkin

Life went on, the ability to keep your own plot rose and fell as the the towns became larger and the agrarian lifestyle gave way to the Industrial Revolution.  In 1887, the Victorians, who were noteworthy for their interest in doing something to change the conditions of the poor city dwellers, albeit not generally very successfully, enacted the Cottage Gardens and Compensation for Crops Act.  The intent was to compel the local authorities to provide allotments for the production of food it there was a demand for them .  Naturally enough this was not terribly successful,. What would  you rather see, a rag tag lot of poor folk struggling to grow a garden or a new tastefully designed building.  Perhaps this was among the first acts of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard).  And let's be honest, were they more interested in providing land to grow crops or was it the Victorian perspective that idle hands are the devils workshop.  If you are busy tending turnips and brussel sprouts perhaps you would be saved from the evils of drink, while providing healthful and nourishing food for your family.

During both the First and Second World Wars the British coast was blockaded and food shortages were the norm.  Rationing, which lasted until 1954 (ask Mick, he though a banana or an orange was something truly exotic) was a real and ongoing condition.  The Victory Garden whether it was on your land or a communal allotment supplied significant food allowing the farmers to be a part of the war effort.   And so it is, the allotment exists still in the year 2012.  

Wheelbarrow in the garden

Groby, which probably has no more than 5000 people, has two sets of allotments which must encompass 10 square blocks in total, perhaps even more.  Allotments are so popular there are waiting lists to get a space, but once you get it, it is yours pretty much until you choose to give it up.  People put up structures for storing garden implements and as a means to capture water in there water butts (see left) for gardening purposes.  I presume there is a permanent standpipe for water but to be honest I'm not sure and in at least one instance I have seen someone using a watering can to water their plants.    The allocation is not a paltry little square of land but a fairly substantial plot of probably 10 to 15 feet wide by 40 or 50 feet long.

What do they grow, you would be amazed.  Roger, with whom we spoke fairly regularly, had potatoes, onions, leeks, greens, scarlet runner beans, strawberries, brussel sprouts, rhubarb, cabbage (multiple kinds) and lord only knows what else.  One of the corners where the path went through the gardens  had an

Poppy bud

 enormous plot of gooseberries, a true English delicacy.  Mick always refers to them as hairy grapes, I on the other hand refer to them as yuck.  There were a couple of old apple trees which had a bumper crop of apples, there were rows and rows of raspberries, all well beyond my reach over the fence and blackberries grew on the hedges.  The two most common crops had to be potatoes and runner beans. Lots of people interspersed flowers with their veggies,  Generally speaking the gardens were well tended and prolific, and if you look, no matter where you are, outside of the major cities, you will find allotments.  

Looks like an artichoke(?)

Over here we have the County Fair, or better still the State Fair as a place to show off your hard work and gardening/crafting/cooking expertise.  In Groby they have the Harvest Festival sponsored by the local church.  Looks pretty much the same, bouquets of roses and dahlias, plates of tomatoes (grown in the greenhouse of course), examples of needlepoint, loaves of banana bread, you get the picture.  But here's the twist, It all gets capped off with a community dinner . . . To be honest, it has been several years since I have had the pleasure of attending one of these events but I imagine little has changed.    The church hall is festooned with crepe paper and round tables seating eight people fill the space.  Butcher paper covers the table and there is a bouquet of flowers in a plastic tumbler  in the centre.  An odd assortment of cutlery, a plastic water glass, heavy white pottery plates and tissue paper thin serviettes (napkins) complete the place setting.  The crowd files in and I am probably the youngest person there apart from Mick.  You odd get snatches of conversation, "ooh lovey, did you see Violet's blue ribbon floral arrangement" . . .  "Beryl really did well with her lemon curd"  . . .  "why didn't Charles enter the knot tying competition" and of course the ongoing litany of who has what disease, or has had what procedure.  Just generally way more than you could ever wish to know about your neighbours health.  God save me from being one of the old people who dwells on there illnesses and inadequacies, life has to be oh so much more exciting that the latest advances in bypass surgery.  

Hostas perhaps

Enough now of gardens and gardening, what about those garden centres.  You need some mulch or compost or a few new landscape plants, a quick trip to Home Depot or your local big box should take care of things.  If you are really looking for a specimen plant or something a little out of the ordinary you might even make the trip to your local nursery.  In an around Groby I can't think of a single shop, big box or small local, that sells anything gardening.  You MUST go to the Garden Centre.  Actually, I guess I do exaggerate a little, there were a couple of small nurseries, probably the size a the garden section in your average Home Depot in the area.  But if you really needed a gardening trip you made the pilgrimage to one of the Garden Centres.  

The one with which I am most familiar was on the way to Market Bosworth, several miles from nowhere and down a country lane.  The indoor portion was the size of a Home Depot store.  Over and above the indoor there were rows and rows of greenhouses, an enormous outdoor section under a mesh like cover, (too keep the sun out?) and a whole big display of garden sheds. 

Pretty Pink Flower

The garden sheds were totally fascinating.  I am accustomed to those brown Rubbermaid plastic boxes  with doors that look a bit like your Mother's Tupperware on super steroids.  We even own metal 4x6 box with a corrugated roof and sliding door down in Redwood City for storing tools and plant pots.  But my oh my something so plebeian as a Rubbermaid box will never do.  I reckon some of the ones I saw on display were big enough to live in.  Not only were they sizable but they were "architectural".  Windows and doors, dormers and flower boxes, porches for sitting, attached boot scrapers for your muddy boots, built in cabinets and hooks for hanging your wet weather gear, special doodads for hanging your various tools; it was all there.  

Trellis and Flowers

Moving indoors . . . there was a whole "room" with gardening gloves.  Did you realise there are special gauntlets for pruning roses?  Need to grub around in the mud, there was a nice selection of totally waterproof, yet flexible gloves that looked a little like what you might put on when washing dishes.  Need something more durable, how about a nice pair of leather work gloves, is style your thing  then try "an uncommon blend of elegance and practicality . . . soft brown suede with colourful cuffs".  

This place was a shopping centre all by itself.  Plant pots, compost, gardening clothes . . .  you must have a sun hat ( to go with your assorted gardening gloves).  God forbid you tie up the four corners of your hankie a la Monty Python.  There was rope and twine and scissor and tools, rubber boots stylin' and not so stylin', potted plants, bare root plants, seeds and tubers, plants and liners and paraphernalia for water gardens  and, and, and, it just goes on and on.  Now, just in case you become a little over awed and/or exhausted with your shopping experience you may need to take a tea break.  Wonder of wonders, what was right there on the premises but a rather sizable cafeteria offering everything from tea and scones to hot cooked midday meals.  

Carolyn's Beans

Never say die, there was more still.  Apart from the a mundane assortment of lawn mowers, there were riding mowers, rototillers and sundry other motorised gardening apparatus   I really kinda expected to see a John Deere tractor.  You also mustn't forget the outdoor furniture store.  It would give a small indoor furniture store a run for it's money.  Aside from the typical tables and chairs, swings and loungers there was an amazing display of BBQs and BBQ equipment.  When we lived in Birmingham a BBQ was unheard of, in fact I don't suppose the English would have considered cooking outdoors as something desirable.  Even in to the 90's when London friends, who had previously lived in the states, built a brick BBQ in their yard they were the talk of the neighbourhood.  Now you can find Weber kettles, gas grills, small portable grills for picnicking, and an assortment of outdoor kitchens.  Perhaps this climate change thing is for real, because its seems that the Brits have taken to outdoor entertaining in a big way.  

 A small sweet shop where I was able to purchase Humbugs and a kitchen supply store completed the selection.  

So here it is ladies and gentlemen.  I cannot be bothered to proof this any further so you get it bad punctuation and all.  Did allow spell check to have a go and got all my American spelling corrected . . . motorized with an "s"?  You may have to wait for another edition, I believe I have run out of things English to share, but there is always Ashland.  Thanks for coming along for the ride and I hope to hear from all of you soon.   It would be nice to  know who has been reading my blog, I can tell how many hits I get but not from whence they come.  So if you think of it drop me a line (gaylef8@gmail.com) and let me know you have been following my tales of all things English.  

Daisy

Sunflower

Coos aka Cows

ttfn (ta ta for now) and all my love     Gayle

UK 2012 ISSUE 20

How many kinds of sweet flowers grow

In an English country garden?

We'll tell you now of some that we know

Those we miss you'll surely pardon

Daffodils, heart's ease and phlox

Meadowsweet and lady smocks

Gentian, lupin and tall hollyhocks

Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, forget-me-nots

In an English country garden

This is the first stanza a a lovely little ditty that somehow is permanently stuck in my brain  . . . of course it does go on to talk about how many kinds of bugs and birds do you find in an English Country Garden and then there is scatological version dealing with what else you might find in an English County Garden.  That one you may want to "google", it's quite amusing.  

But why, you might ask am I blogging about gardens?  Quite simply because the English are mad, berserk, bonkers, obsessed, crazy stupid about their gardens and gardening.  Am I perhaps mad, berserk, bonkers, obsessed, crazy stupid about gardens and gardening? No, not really, but this overwhelming fascination that seems so very English does quite intrigue me.  

Things began in March when I observed the profusion of Daffodils planted both wild and cultivated by the road sides.  It's March, cold, nasty and grey outside, but the landscape is a blaze of yellow daffodils.  They can be found growing in the median of the M1, they grow up the embankments for overpass, along the side of lanes, and in oh so many front gardens.  They are everywhere and help to lift the doom and gloom of a rainy spring.  Even William Wordsworth wrote about them  . . . 

DAFFODILS  - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

It does go on from there, but, perhaps it is time to stop or this will become poetry/daffodil blog and not a travel blog.  So it was, after being overwhelmed with daffodils I began collecting images of the plants and flowers in the front gardens in and around Groby.  As the bulbs finished the gardeners were out in force.  Every bed found it's owner taking up their faded blooms and introducing new bedding plants.  Suddenly the gardens were ablaze with numerous new and wonderful annuals . . . green was popping up all over.  If it were me, and left to my own devices those beautiful tulips, daffodils and hyacinths would be compost long before I found the time to dig them up and plant out something new and different.  

But then, again, I kinda get digging up your bulbs and putting something new and different in, even if I personally couldn't be bothered.  I admit to enjoying the changes that occur within a garden.  But, for the locals it doesn't seem to stop with taking out the spring bulbs in favour of something new.  As Spring moved toward Summer and Summer made its segue into Autumn the beds and landscape strips changed and morphed with each passing day.  One day you might find something bright and yellow but go back a few days later and it has all be replaced with red geraniums or blue pansies .  Never have I seen such a collection of peonies . Do you remember Mr. Wilson from the Dennis the Menace film?  Imagine a whole nation much like him, with a an overzealous passion for flowers and all things garden.  

Here, and by that I mean the USA, you become accustomed to people who pay little or no mind to their gardens.  Shrubs get overgrown and grasp at you as you pass by, the lawn and borders creep out in to the sidewalk and weeds grow rampant.  Not the case in England.  You don't see many front gardens left untended and even if no one is changing up the plantings on an ongoing basis they certainly aren't letting the weeds take over.  Despite the fact that there is a lot of hardscape in front of many of the homes, bricks and cement and the like, there is also a lot of grass.  Grass seems an easy enough thing to deal with.  You water it, you fertilise it, you mow it, right?  Well for starters, no one waters their grass, for that you can depend on Mother Nature.  And once you start having more than a few rain showers and a couple of hours of sunshine a day it GROWS, lush and thick and green.  As if tending to all those annuals, deadheading, pinching, picking and nurturing is not enough, now there is lawn to maintain.  I have never, not even in a Smith and Hawken store seen such an assortment  of implements used to maintain a lawn as I saw in my rambles around Groby.  Never mind mowers of various varieties, manual and powered.  The edging tools are a wonder to behold.  There are pokers to aerate, clippers to edge and half moon shaped doohickeys on the end of a stick for evening out the edges.  You even find nice, neat little troughs ploughed out between the lawn and the pavement.  Did you remember that a sidewalk is a pavement?  No effort seems to be  too much.  Nowhere is a  lawn  left to invade the garden beds or pavement, it shall remain right where it has been put.  These marvelous expanses of green are manicured and pampered, edged and trimmed.  No blade of grass is allowed out of place.  

As spring moved toward summer a progression of neighbors  with obviously too much time on their hands, power washed the bricks and other hardscape in their front gardens.  New sand was added to crevices between pavers and the baskets and pots that had once held bulbs were transformed with geraniums and nasturtiums.  As the days grew longer more and more people spent their evening hours puttering in their gardens.  A walk became a series of chats with those we met.  Isn't the weather grand, where do you buy the sand for the pavers, which is the best garden centre in the area.    The collection of all this invaluable information led to the necessity of emulating those around us and the bricks in Dad's front garden were power washed, the flower beds weeded and new sand was applied to the cracks in the bricks.  I did, however, draw the line at making a container garden to enhance the front step.  But in true British style Dad couldn't resist some petunias to add to the planters in the back yard.  

Soon enough the daffodils gave way to bluebells in the wood.  The Dogwood and blackthorn began to bloom and the trees were a riot of blossoms.  It is rather awe inspiring to watch the shades of green change from pale yellow green, new and fresh to the robust shades of established growth.  It is something you miss entirely if you are not paying attention but if you take the time to observe the progression it is really very beautiful.  The hedgerows become are prolific with blossom and a drive along a country lane is a heady adventure of light and shadow, shape and texture, colour and smell.  Talk about England's "green and pleasant land".  

Planting out in the yard is not the only gardening enthusiasm exhibited in rural, and most likely all other areas of the country.  A surprising number or people have backyard greenhouses.  In a land of little sun and lots of rain and not a minor amount of snow or freezing weather, it becomes an invaluable tool in maintaining plants through the winter and getting new  things  established before planting them out.    By far the most extensive use of one of these glass houses is in the cultivation of tomatoes!  Naturally enough, the Church family, not to be outdone by the neighbours, acquired four tomato plants.

 I understand growing vegetable, you go to the nursery, pick out your seeds and seedlings, go home and stick them in the ground.  Perhaps you fertilise them, about once a week you water things (unless it gets too hot when you water them once a day) and before long, voila, fresh produce.  Actually I did forget one step when living in southern Oregon, you also must put up a fence or netting to keep the local deer out (aka bambi wars).  Who knew growing something in a greenhouse could be so much work.  Let's begin with the soil in the Midlands. I think the kindest description would be black clay.  It is either hard as, well, you get the picture, and impossible to wet or it is a damp, thick, stodgy, mass that sticks to every gardening implement used to prepare it for cultivation.    How Dad ever grew anything in the ground is beyond my comprehension.  We did manage to clear out whatever it was that was growing in the greenhouse beds and put the tomatoes in.   Visions of luscious red beefsteak tomatoes for slicing and little gold and yellow cherry tomatoes for salads danced in my head.  First obstacle surmounted, ground is cleared and dug over and there are happy little tomato plants sunning themselves in the warm environs of a glass house.  

Next task water, much as in sunny California, plants need to be watered.  It didn't take too much observation to realise that there was no spigot in the back forty where the greenhouse is located.  I noticed that when Dad tended the plants he dipped water out of the water butt that collected rain water off of the greenhouse and shed roof.  Water butts, which seem to becoming popular over here are to be found everywhere there is an eave, or a downspout or a sloped roof.  This seemed to me to be a rather  insubstantial and unreliable water source.  So, rather than drag a hose across the entire back yard we began with a  watering can which we filled at a tap. .  Not many days passed before the surface of the bed was covered in  a white scaly mass of mineral deposit.  Seems that Groby water isfull of minerals and they are prone to precipitate out, or perhaps more 

accurately evaporate, out of the tap water.  Small wonder Dad used the water butts.  And really, a concern about reliability, in a country where, generally speaking, a week doesn't go by with out some rainfall.  Yeah, you guessed in I became an advocate of dipping out of the water butt. 

Garden dug, tomatoes planted, water issues resolved, what next in the learning curve of greenhouse gardening.  Glass houses, particularly glass houses in cold weather climates, with an unreliable source of sunshine, get cold!  There may not have been a water faucet near the green house but there was an electrical supply and a heater.  As we prepared for bed and the temperature outside plummeted to tomato intolerable conditions, it was now necessary to turn the heater on and remember to go out in the morning to turn it off. And now what new and exciting variables were to present themselves in the raising a crop of tomatoes, something which I carelessly planted and pretty much ignored in a California environment.  

I don't know if this next little peccadillo is a particularly English phenomenon or if it is done elsewhere.  I had seen Dad do it before on the plants in our garden when he was visiting.  As  the plant grew and thrived (by my definition) he would go out and remove leaves and branching  shoots so that as time progressed it looked more like a tomato tree than a tomato bush.  The theory, the plant would put more energy in to producing and ripening tomatoes than growing green stuff.  So it was we had tall, lanky, spindly tomato plants, which looked totally incongruous but seemed to thrive and put on fruit.

Earlier I spoke about how it was necessary to heat the green house, well the converse is true.  Not unexpectedly, when the sun is out and the days are warm, greenhouses get hot.  Not just warm, but HOT, plant killing hot.  No more turning the heater on morning and night, now it became open the doors and raise the roof flap to allow the excess heat to escape on a daily basis.  I like to ignore my food when it is still in the ground growing and mostly I managed to do that as there were two men in the household who took more interest in the garden that I did.  

In the end we raised a fine crop of tomatoes, there was even enough to share with a neighbour who did not have a green house.  With the addition of a few basil and parsley plants we were set for summer salads filled with glorious home grown veggies.  Perhaps it was more work than I may have wanted to do but it did provide a reason to go outside and putter on  a daily basis.  

Next time out . . . allotments and garden centres.  I did tell you they were mad, berserk, bonkers, obsessed, crazy stupid about gardening didn't I?  

p.s. more pretty flower picture to come.  

UK 2012 ISSUE 19

Did you feel like I dropped you like a hot potato, here one week gone the next.  I keep telling myself this is something I should continue, it's not like the only place of interest is the United Kingdom, there is certainly more than enough to share about Ashland, Oregon.  But I do still have a few thoughts to share before they all fade away.

Caulke Abbey

Caulke Abbey, above, is one of the few National Trust Properties in the Midlands.  The guide book described it as a great house maintained in a state of decline and having seen so many houses, castles, mansions, abbeys and palaces it never seemed to make it to the top of our things to see list.  In the end we decided a day out was in order and this was easily accessible.  The approach was like something out of Gone with the Wind, English style.  A long avenue of trees led to a gate house where they collected the entry fee.  This opened in to a meadow where a group of twitchers (aka bird watchers) were ensconced with binoculars, telescopes and picnic lunches.  I always though tailgating was an American past time but the Brits seem to do it in style, although not many gas fired BBQs were in evidence.  The road wandered on for more than a mile when at last, a sharp left turn brought a church steeple, some outbuilding, a long with a grassy open field being shared by sheep and automobiles in to view. Obviously, if you don't have a proper carpark (parking lot) you improvise. 

Walled Garden

 The house was originally owned by the Harpur Crewe  family, who built this home somewhere in the early 1700's.  The stories suggest that they were an eccentric lot who did not venture out in to society much.  In the end the last survivor was a Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe who lived in seclusion, with a single servant,  in a limited number of the rooms.  The family had not had the money to maintain the place since the late 1800's and as less and less of it was used the rooms were closed up and left as is.  It really is a picture of a time gone by, where no one has come in to make changes.   One of the family was a great collector of stuffed animals, bugs, birds, seashells, fishes and other such natural history sorts of paraphernalia.  Many of them are in cases creating displays much like you would see in a museum (creepy!).  The whole collecting and displaying of these exotic collections is  a very Victorian kind of occupation.

As with so many of these estates the grounds are, perhaps not awe inspiring but certainly overwhelming.  There is an enormous walled garden, a wooded walk of several acres, great grassy fields leading down to a

17th Century Shower

lake, an ice house built in to the earth, stables and outbuildings, a church and a brewhouse which linked the house to the stable buildings.  You must be careful, it may not be safe to drink the water but beer is always in fashion!

Do not ever, ever, ever complain about taxes in this country, particularly not about estate taxes.  This house, as is true with many, many, others, came to the National Trust as a result of the owners being unable to pay the death duties imposed on a subsequent family member.  Some families, in an attempt to retain ownership of their property simply open their houses up to the public and charges fees for tours.   Others choose to rent them out as venues for weddings and public or private receptions, conferences etc.  In the case of Caulke Abbey, a sudden death and lack of planning for the passing on of the property to another family member resulted in death duties of eight million pounds, while the property was only valued at fourteen million. 

Caulke Nursery

The National Trust was the beneficiary of their lack of planning and took on the property  as an illustration of the English country house in decline. A massive amount of remedial work was done to ensure the building was safe and would remain standing,  but there  was no attempt to restore it to its' former glory.   Even the interiors, which were minutely catalogued, have been left pretty much as they were found in 1985.  In the end the decay of the building and its interiors add a charm and most certainly photographic opportunities to the experience and provide a picture of English country life extending across a number of generations. 

No trip to England could be considered complete without the obligatory pilgrimage to Stratford upon Avon.  It's not as though we haven't been on numerous occasions,  but in fact, if my memory is correct we have not taken the time to see a play since probably 1971.   We booked tickets for King John in their small theatre which appears to be patterned after the Globe with the groundlings on the floor and three tiered gallery with seating.  Our seats were not exactly 

Stratford Swan Theatre

what you would call premium but then if you take a look at the picture none of them would be considered plush.  The wooden benches at least provided somewhere to put your legs but take a look at the white hairs in the balcony with their feet sticking through the railings . . . that would be us except we were in essence in the row behind them where you literally had to climb up and your feet were on a foot rail much like you would find if you "bellied up to the bar".  Cramped, awkward, unpadded wooden seats, difficult to get in and out of,  but either they were surprisingly comfortable or the play was just that good.  And as to the play . . . well maybe it was just that good.  How could it possibly be bad when they can incorporate "Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing into a history play about Kings fighting for the throne and princesses being married off in a political play for power.  Better still, the Bastard, a possible heir to the throne, is played by a woman.  

Couldn't leave this without a little history lesson, particularly since we stumbled on the excavations in central Leicester looking for the body of Richard III  . . . another story though.  The Battle of Bosworth Field was the last significant battle of the War of the Roses and it occurred  in Leicestershire, not far from Groby.   The US is not unique in having a civil war, ours may have been between states, in the case of Britain it was between two contenders to the throne, the house of Lancaster and the House of York.  In short the War of the Roses was a series of battle fought between two rival branches of the House of Plantagenet for the throne of England.  It is referred to as the the War of the Roses  because the heraldic symbol for the House of Lancaster was the red rose while that of the House of York was the white rose.  The final victory, which occurred at Bosworth Field went to Henry Tudor (aka Henry VII) and the loss to Richard III.  You want a little incest and cause to make your head spin, Henry Tudor married Elizabeth of York , daughter of Edward IV and they had a son Henry VIII.  In the end, all the fighting and warring ended with a Lancastrian (Henry Tudor) marrying a Yorkist (Elizabeth of York) and uniting the two families and creating the House of Tudor.  

UK2012 ISSUE 18

 It seems I made a commitment to finish off Birmingham and move on to some of the things closer to home.  To that end, the Stafforshire Hoard, a single room in the Birmingham Art Museum, was a real find.  It captured our attention, or more accurately a docent captured our attention for more than an hour!  It wasn't so much what there was to see in the exhibit, but how it came to be there at all and the glimpse we got in to how an archaeologist approaches interpreting what they have found.  The "Hoard" is the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found.  The initial find was by a man with a metal detector searching in a recently ploughed field.  In England a find of this nature is to be reported to the coroner (?!) who will make a determination as to its value and whether the finder has a right to keep the booty.  In the end a team of archaeologist excavated the area and recovered in excess of 1800 items of gold and silver.  It is remarkable for being almost exclusively war-gear, with an extraordinary quantity of pommel caps, hilt plates and shield bosses.  Many feature beautiful garnet inlays or animals in elaborate filigree designs.  The odd thing was there was not a single item that could be attributed to a woman.  Little was complete, it was more a collection of oddments, bits and pieces.  They have tentatively dated these artifacts to the 7th or 8th centuries.

 Although, there was nothing especially exciting or wondrous to see, the learning opportunity was outstanding.  The possible explanations the curator wove around the how and why were fascinating.  What they know of the origin of the gold and uncut jewels is extensive, while who or where the components were fashioned in to decorative pieces is totally unknown.  Was it a collection made by a soldier from a succession of battles, could it have been stolen from a kings treasury, why was it hidden and more than that why was it never retrieved.   In the end the most thought provoking idea was that of value.  His

Sutton Hoo Burial Mask

contention was that at that time gold and silver had no intrinsic value, they were quite simply metals that were useful as decorations because they were easy to work with.  In an earlier time the Romans used metal coinage for commerce but circa 600 the peoples populating this area would have almost undoubtedly operated on a barter system.  Genghis Khan and his armies were only interested in horses and a little pillaging and spoiling, I suppose.  So why then collect the metal decorations that so obviously came from tools of war?  Many were obviously Christian but have been bent or otherwise damaged, is that significant?  So many questions and no answers.  There is nothing to use as a comparison except perhaps the masks from Sutton Hoo.  btw.  I know nothing of

Museum Skylight

Sutton Hoo but I need to go there . . . masks, possible viking ships, the things of legends.  I only wish I could remember half of what he said.

So enough of Birmingham and Art Museums and on to a museum of a totally different sort.  Taylors Bell Foundry, a happy find when driving in to Loughborough (Leuf burra).  When travelling around the UK keep your eyes open for brown signs with white lettering, they often show the way places of interest.   As you might expect Taylors Bell Foundry makes bells, not little hand bells or pretty little things to hang on a wind chime, not cow bells or ship's bells but

How bells are "stored" when not being rung

BELLS.  Their business is bells for churches, meant to be hung in belfrys and rung by pulling on ropes.  I find that once again I have forgotten most of the details but  a few bits I have held on to . . . they tune the bells after they have been cast.  Churches order bells that ring in certain tones so that a peal of bells actually has an intended sound and structure.   Each bell is a unique creation for it's recipient, there are no off the shelf bells.  A mold is made out of loam, sand, hay and horse manure!  They get buried in a pit of sand (the same sand had been in use since the 1880's) and the molten metal is poured in to the mold.  Minutiae alert, they stir the molten metal with a willow pole to remove air bubbles

Birmingham Museum

before pouring it in to the molds.  Willow poles, not some new technological marvel but a piece of a tree.  The building looks just like others I have seen in the states, red brick but painted white on the inside, quite tall and narrow with a gantry crane that runs the length of building for moving cauldrons of molten metal.  There are only two bell foundrys left in Britain and they are responsible for fashioning bells for use all over the world, the United States included.

Moving from one kind of manufacturing to another we made a trip to two different potteries in Derbyshire (pronounce darby not derby).  Denby Potteries makes what I call stone ware, not fine china.  It is easy to find their products in the states and I actually have a teapot and cups which we purchased as seconds in the 70's.  There was a time when all their products were hand painted (true of the Arabesque pieces I own) but in

B'ham Victorian Shopping District

 this day of mass production they actually use transfers to apply the designs.  I am by no means saying that it is not a highly skilled job, but it is not what it used to be.  Plates and platters and other flat pieces are actually created by pressing or stamping lumps of clay between two patterns but after that they are trimmed and prepped and generally finished by hand.

The really fascinating process was how things like cups, jugs, teapots and other pieces designed to contain things were shaped.  They start with a mold in the shape of the items being created, all the bumps and ridges, indentations and spouts, everything but the handles.  The molds

Denby Arabesque

are made of plaster and come in two halves which fit together and are held in place with large rubber bands.  The clay has water added to it until it is pourable (slip) and each of the assembled molds is filled with the liquid clay. The molds are then placed on a slow moving conveyor belt.  When they reach the end of the line the porous plaster mold has absorbed  some of liquid leaving behind the desired thickness of sold clay in the shape of the item being made.  The remaining slip is poured out of the mold and the item is allowed to continue drying until it is solid enough to be removed from the mold. 

Once the mold is removed handles are attached.  A little slip is used as "glue" and it's amazing how it adheres immediately, even better than super glue.  There's more cleaning up and grinding down and inspection before the pieces are fired in a kiln that must be a city block long.  They travel through taking something like 18 hours to go from beginning to end.  The kilns run 24/7, it is more expensive to shut them down and bring them back up to temperature that to leave them run even when they close for holidays.  Next comes the application of colours and designs.  I am sure everyone has seen a cup with one colour on the inside and another on the outside.  How that is accomplished elsewhere I have no idea, but at Denby the interior and lip are done, I'm not sure how, by one technician.  It is then handed off to another who actually dips the article in a vat of spinning "paint" or more accurately glaze, to apply colour to the exterior.  Rather precise work, say what.

Royal Derby Imari Hedgehog

Think you probably get the picture by now, Denby was definitely an interesting tour.  Just for contrast we went to the Royal Crown Derby Pottery works where they make fine bone china.  The processes were the same, but the product is something else entirely.  For starters anything labelled as "bone" china actually has 20% ash  from the bones of large animals, think horses and elephants, added to the clay.  The resulting pieces are much finer and more delicate, as in the difference between a tea cup and saucer and as opposed to a mug.  They use lots of real gold for decorative edges etc and their things are generally quite opulent and somewhat over the top.  The Hedgehog paperweight above retails for something on the order of $250 and it can't be much more than 6 inches high!  Fortunate for Mick there was nothing there I was interested in purchasing, even their seconds were out of my price range. 

Things I have learned:

1.  Pencil erasers are called rubbers.
2.  Kibworth Beauchamp is pronounced Kibworth Beacham.
3.  This is the place to find treasure; you must hand it over to the authorities but you will be compensated with it full estimated value.  No need to sell it on the black market or pay an auction house a commission.
4.  Walton, as a part of a place name, means "where the British live" in Anglo Saxon.
5.   Both Denby and Derby pottery works recycle over 95% of they clay that "wasted" in their manufacturing process.  If it has not been fired it crushed and put back in to the process for creating the liquid clay.  If it has been fired it is crushed and used as a base layer for roadbed construction. 
6.  The plaster molds used in the Denby plant are used about 30 times before imperfections make them unusable.  They are then sold off and are used in the creation of plasterboard. 

UK 2012 ISSUE 17

B'ham Facade

Our time here is slipping away and we are trying to make the most of it with day trips to nearby sights.  Our first destination was Birmingham (pronounced brr ming gum by the locals) to see the Back to Backs or courtyard housing.  Despite all my questions I never did quite understand how they were constructed . . . were they built to fill a  square city block or what.  In the end, the essence of them is one half of a series of units face the street while their mirror opposite face a courtyard all the while they share a common back wall.  I think perhaps it was more like a row each, on two parallel streets while the other two ends were a blank wall or contained things like privies and storage.  The units we visited were the last remaining such buildings and have been preserved by the National Trust.

Just a quick pitch for the National Trust, we purchased memberships earlier this year, which has meant our admission to all of their  properties has been free (well kinda) and we have seen many.  They own in excess of 300 properties in Great Britain and Wales and have reciprocal agreements with the National Trust organisation in Scotland.  Their raison d'etre is the preservation of historical properties.  Many are stately home that have been donated by the owners who can no longer pay the death duties or otherwise do the necessary maintenance on the buildings.  Little Moreton Hall, the black and white Elizabethan building I blogged about earlier, was one such property.  It was bequeathed to the National Trust when there were no surviving family members.  Others we have visited have been factories and mills that were shut down due to the changing economic climate or because they have become obsolete.  In the end they provide a museum like atmosphere and help preserve the history of the industrial revolution and beyond.

Back to Back Courtyard

So back to Birmingham and the Back to Backs.  The National Trust  provides a guided tour that takes you through four of the units with each representing a different era in their existence.  The buildings are three story brick construction and there is a common wash house and privies in the courtyard. The earliest "re-creation" dates to the 1840's and has no running water, gas or electric while the last is a tailors shop that was last in use in the 1970's.  My understanding is that they were middle class dwellings designed for the working man and his family but that often meant Mom, Dad, three or more children and a lodger; all this in two bedrooms above a living/dining/kitchen space on the ground floor. 

Back to Back Scullery

There were blocks and blocks of this style of dwelling built in the early 1800's to house the growing population needed to supply workers for the factories.

We lived in Birmingham in the early '70s and Mick did his Masters at the University of Aston in Birmingham, which is right in the downtown and not far from the Back to Backs.  We were appalled, amazed and overjoyed at how little we actually knew about a place we lived for more than two years.  For example, they have major Jewelry Quarter of which I was totally unaware.  We did a little wandering around and took a tour of a jewelry manufacturing facility which was a going family concern during the period 1880-1960.  This business, much like those belonging to the National Trust, was shut up and left with all the machinery and artifacts in place when the last remaining relative died.  Someone quite literally locked the doors and walked away leaving bookwork and records, tools and machinery, tea bags and jars of marmite.  We also stumbled on a pen museum which was not so much a museum but an overwhelming collection of old pens and pen paraphernalia and some of the machinery that was used in the production of nibs for fountain pens. The volunteer that was there that day was having a grand time demonstrating some of the equipment to a group of young people.

Bull Ring Shopping Centre

We re-discovered the Bull Ring Shopping Centre, which, although it existed when we lived there has been totally renovated/reconstructed/reconfigured.  It is reputed to be the largest shopping centre in Western Europe but in the end there is nothing out of the ordinary there.  It is like every other shopping centre, an endless parade of  the same shops and business you see pretty much the world over.  Large corporations have a lot to answer for.  I'll get off my soap box long enough to allow as how the spaces they created were pleasant enough to encourage us to walk around. 

Birmingham Square

We explored the canal basin and walked some of the canal that ran through the city centre.  Some of it was old and quite rough but there was a general veneer of renewal about Gas Street and it's environs.  One area of new construction particularly pleased Mick, what with his predilection for New Urbanist Design standards.   There appeared to housing above commercial at street level and well designed public spaces.  Despite the fact that the weather was tending toward damp people seemed to using the space, sitting and reading, eating lunches and relaxing. 

This next image is of a building called the Rotunda.  It was brand new when we lived in Birmingham as were the shops on New Street Station.  Now the Rotunda is a Grade II listed building, which means it is a building of special historical or architectural interest.   When it was new

The Rotunda

it was considered to be something of a joke and an eyesore, at least by those students with which we associated at the University.  Now, although they may be able to mess around with the interior,they must maintain the exterior and it cannot be demolished without permission from Parliament!  What it was in the '70's I don't recall but now it is high end apartments and flats. 

New Street Station was also new in the 70s. It was our shopping destination of choice.  They had Mothercare and Habitat, Boots the Chemist and W.H. Smith Booksellers.  It was also the source of an ongoing joke about not being caught without a penny on New Street Station.  Back in the day it was not entirely uncommon to find you needed to insert a penny in to the door of the toilet to gain access.  There were also attendants always present to maintain the cleanliness and ensure all necessary paper products were available, so a penny was not an unreasonable fee.  Despite the necessity to pay there was always at least one stall that was free, read that as

Groby Fishing Pool

unmaintained.  When new Street Station was completed there were no free toilets, hence "don't get caught short on New Street Station without a penny."  Also paying for the used of a toiled would seem to be the genesis of the euphemism for going to the toilet of needing to "spend a penny".  Oh yes, asking for the restroom or bathroom over here may get you the necessary directions but if your accent doesn't give you away as an American this word usage definitely will.  You will find the "facilities" labelled either Toilet or WC (water closet). 

New Street Station is a railway station, of which there are at least two others in the the city centre.  By the look of the number of people we saw in the area I would imagine it, along with Moor Street and Snow Hill stations are the major means of transportation in and out of the downtown shopping district.  Parking is limited and navigating the city centre crazy making.  About five square blocks, or possibly more, of the centre have been pedestrianised, ie., no vehicular traffic is allowed during business hours.  Where cars are allowed it is a one way system intersected with block square roundabouts and lousy signage.  Just in case that is not intimidating enough much of the access from outside the centre goes through tunnels that twist and turn so that once above ground you still have no earthly idea of where you could possibly be.  There are streets and building that I would love to photograph that I saw when we were in the car, but for all the walking we did I never saw them again.   How we got around with a car is beyond me and if it weren't for the Pagoda that is in the middle of one of the roundabouts (making it easily identifiable) we might still be going round and round looking for our way home. 

Think it must be time to get this out there in to the ether before it gets too long.  Next time out the Staffordshire Hoard, Taylors Bell Foundry, Pottery and Bone China and a little history of Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth Field.  


Things I have learned:

1.  On the A5 there is a town called Weston Under Lizard as well as Crackleybank.  Wikipedia has failed me, I cannot find an explanation for the names.
2.  The Welsh National Bread is Bara Brith which translates spotty bread.
The name is understandable when you realise it has raisins and currants in it. 
3.  The phrase most commonly used to describe a senior discount or price is concessionaires.  Other Britishisms for those of a certain age. . . OAP or Old Age Pensioner and a little less pc Wrinklies.