Ragged Victorians

 Today the Ragged Victorians were in town so we walked down the hill to find them. 

 They were at the Gladstone Pottery Museum where a Victorian Day was being held.

We could hear the music from the barrel organ as we entered the museum.  

The Ragged Victorians are a living history group re-enacting the lower classes of England in 1851 and very good they are too.  So many different characters.  The sober shepherd, the rat catcher, the fish wife, the policeman, the wounded soldier and many more.

I took loads of photos so I'll share a few now and perhaps do something later with more of them.  I might try to sepia tone some of them or perhaps monochrome.

The Fisherman's wife making nets.

Lavender seller

The Rat Catcher

In the Doctor's waiting room

A friendly hug

The sober shepherd seeking work

Policeman.  

The costumes were wonderful, suitably grubby and well worn, roughly mended shoes clattered on the cobbles.

All for now.

Whitby Abbey - Early History

 The Abbey ruin we see now is not the first religious building on this site.  In the 7th and 8th centuries the headland it stands on was known as Streaneshalch and was the site of  an Anglian settlement and Minster church established  in the 5th and 6th centuries by the peoples who had settled on this side of Britain - the Angli or Anglians.

The Minster was founded some time after the battle of Winwaed in 655 when the forces of Oswiu of Northumberland beat the pagan forces of Penda of Mercia. Oswiu married King Edwin's daughter Eanflaed.  Oswiu gave his infant daughter Aelfflaed into the care of Hild the Abbess of Hartlepool.   In 657 Hild founded a new Minster for both men and women at Whitby.  It is assumed that the first settlement and minster was destroyed sometime in the 10th century by Viking raiders who burned and sacked many of the Christian establishments along the North East coast.  The name of Streaneshalch all but disappeared from the records and the Danish name of Whitby appeared.

The foundation of the second monastery at Whitby came in the aftermath of the Norman invasion of 1066.  A second Romanesque church was built in the early 12th century and this in turn was replaced by the Gothic buildings, the remains of which we see today.

Although the weather looks sunny and calm it really wasn't.

The wind up on the headland was so strong and was buffeting us about, it must have been quite bleak living up in the settlement in those early days.  Through the arch you can see St Mary's church.  I'll write about this in a later post.

The building below was the home of the Cholmley family who leased the site of the abbey after the suppression or dissolution of Whitby Abbey in 1539.  At this time Henry Davell was the last abbot of the abbey and at the time it was handed over to King Henry VIII's commissioners there were twenty two members of the community and the estates were worth £437 2s 9d.  Whitby was one of the poorest Benedictine Monasteries in England.

It now houses the museum, gift shop and cafe.

All for now, more to come over the next week or two.

The Longest Yarn

The Longest Yarn - A Thread through History - is a travelling exhibition which depicts, in 80 panels, the lead up to the D Day landings of 6th June 1944, the Longest Day.  It was completed in time for this year's 80th anniversary.

Above Stoke Minster. The iron railings guard the resting place of potter Josiah Wedgwood.

The Longest Yarn is on display at Stoke Minster until 5th December and on Friday morning we went along to see it.

The inspiration for the 3D project came about as an idea from a lady called Tansy Foster who initially wanted to create a topper for her garden wall but the idea grew.  The 80 panels, each a metre long, represent the 80 years since the events and the 80 days of The Battle of Normandy.

Each panel depicts events happening across Britain and France on that one day and has been constructed by volunteer knitters from across Europe, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Photographs from the time inspired the creators of the panels.  Above President Eisenhower makes the final decision to go.

The detail in each display is amazing.

Parachutes landing and getting caught on buildings and trees.

Above the bombing of Carentan station.

After a while it became impossible to take photos as the Minster became quite crowded but the whole exhibition is quite spectacular and very detailed.

This morning when we passed by the Minster on our way to walk at Westport Lake there were queues waiting to get inside.  I'm so glad we visited yesterday.

There is so much more to see than the items I have photographed, apologies for the fuzziness of some of them. 

Above Stoke Minster in sunshine as we left the exhibition.

The exhibition is moving on to Tewkesbury Abbey from here, then to Enniskillen, Norwich and Peterborough before it leaves these shores to travel to Cape May, New Jersey in the USA in April next year.

A smaller exhibition of Britain at War is being made at the moment comprising of just 6 panels ready to go on tour next September.

A History Day

Yesterday's weather was perfect.  Friends came to visit and after a lunch of home made vegetable lasagne and raspberry cheesecake we set off to Ford Green Hall.  

The hall was hosting an open day for the Old Nortonian Society, a local history society which promotes the interest of local and family history in the village and parish of Norton-in-the-Moors.  

The society's wonderful collection of  photographs were on display throughout the hall and there were some fascinating images as well as information about them and also interesting recollections to be overheard as we wandered around.

 

After a good look around the house and garden we had a leisurely walk around the lake at the nature reserve which is close by.

The hall, as always was a pleasure to walk around and there were lots of fascinating items to see.  Photos below of the things that caught my eye.   I took photos of quiet corners and smaller objects as there were quite a few people looking at the photo displays and I didn't want to intrude on them.

 

Ford Green Hall was built in 1624 for yeoman dairy farmer Hugh Ford, owner of 36 acres of land in the area.  The  family lived at the hall for over 200 years.  After the Ford family left the Hall it was divided into three and later four cottages.  The building was purchased by Stoke City Council in 1946 and opened as a museum in 1952.  Following budget cutbacks in 2011 the hall was faced with closure but in 2014 its management was passed to Ford Green Hall Ltd a charitable organisation led by volunteers.