The brave shepherd boy of Canons Ashby

This statue commemorates an incident that took place at Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire during the English Civil War.

Canons Ashby is the ancestral home of the Dryden family, who acquired the site not long after the former priory of Augustinian canons had been evicted during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII.

During the 17^th century the Drydens were Puritans who supported the cause of Parliament when King Charles I declared war on Parliament in 1642. The Civil War was a long-drawn-out affair that was not settled until 1648. Only a few pitched battles were fought and much of the action consisted of minor skirmishes in which pieces of territory were claimed or reclaimed for one side or the other. The participants were mainly landed gentry whose private militias took part in these skirmishes.

Families such as the Drydens were therefore always on guard against an attack from a rival force. That was why, on an occasion when a group of armed men were being entertained to mutton pies and ale in the kitchen at Canons Ashby, a local shepherd boy was stationed in the garden as sentry so that he could sound a warning if any enemy force was seen to approach.

His means of sounding the alarm was to blow his flute, which he did when a brigade of royalist soldiers came into sight. The men in the kitchen heard the alarm and rushed off to find somewhere safer, namely the tower of the nearby church. The royalists saw them escaping and besieged them in the tower, where they were eventually forced to surrender and were captured.

The incident only led to one death, namely that of the unfortunate shepherd boy who was left out in the open when the royalists arrived. The Parliamentarian soldiers were eventually freed but the shepherd boy was executed for his act of treachery to the king.

His statue has stood facing Canons Ashby ever since 1713.

© John Welford

Sultan the Pit Pony, Caerphilly

Underground coal mining is no more in South Wales, with the last deep pit having closed in 2008. That does not mean that mining has left no impression on the Welsh landscape, because the millions of tons of waste material extracted from the mines had to go somewhere, and that meant the construction of massive slag heaps that grew on the hillsides that separated the Welsh valleys in which the mines were sunk.

In the years since the mines closed, huge efforts have been made either to remove the slag heaps or to incorporate them into the landscape – usually by planting trees to stabilize them and stop them being the eyesores they once were.

However, some schemes have been particularly innovative, and one such can be seen a few miles north of Caerphilly on the site of the former Penallta Colliery. This is a land sculpture of a pit pony, created by Mick Petts, a Welsh artist who has produced a number of similar works in other places.

What he did was to spread the slag heap material into a curved mound some 200 metres long and sculpt it into the features of a pony, including its mane, tail and hooves. The project took three years to complete, from 1996 to 1999.

The sculpture is a memorial to the many thousands of ponies that were used to pull coal trucks deep underground. This was a practice that declined during the later years of Welsh mining, although there were several retired ponies still alive at the time that Mike Petts was creating his sculpture. It was one these – Sultan – whose name has transferred to the sculpture.

Sultan the Pit Pony has a secondary function, which is to provide a windbreak for the otherwise exposed playing field that is also part of the re-landscaping of the Penallta colliery site.

The site is open to the public and many people enjoy walking across “Sultan” from nose to tail tip!

©John Welford

St Mary's Church, Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire

This small parish church was once considerably larger. It is all that is left of a medieval priory that belonged to a community of Augustinian canons, dating from about 1250. Although the priory never accommodated more than 13 monks, their priory was a substantial building and the church was the size of a small cathedral.

However, when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in the 1530s the priory at Canons Ashby was one of the first on a very long list. The property was acquired by Sir Francis Bryan, but he soon sold it on to Sir John Cope, a wealthy Puritan lawyer.

Sir John began the process of demolishing the Priory and building his own house on the site. However, this project was abandoned after the property became that of the Dryden family in the 1570s. They built their own house nearby but wanted to retain the priory church for their own use and that of the local community. They did not need a small cathedral so they demolished all of it except for two bays and the tower, and a new wall was built to enclose what was left.

The result is a truncated church with a high ceiling, which gives it a somewhat barn-like internal appearance.

It is one of only four parish churches in England that is privately owned, although the owner is now the National Trust rather than the Dryden family. Generations of Drydens have been buried in the church or are commemorated by plaques on the walls.

© John Welford

Oxborough Church, Norfolk

Parish churches in English villages often strike visitors as being far too big for the community that they serve. One forgets that at one time attendance at church on Sundays was compulsory, and also that rural populations were, in many places, much larger than they are now due to the highly labour-intensive nature of agriculture in the days before tractors and combine harvesters.

The Church of St John the Evangelist at Oxborough, Norfolk, provides an excellent illustration of how a church can shrink in size and yet be perfectly adequate for modern needs. However, the shrinkage was not caused by any wish of the villagers or its clergy.

St John’s Church was built during the 14^th century in the Perpendicular style, using stone and flint. It must have been an impressive structure in its heyday, with a nave and chancel of comparable length, and a magnificent stone tower and spire that rivalled that of Norwich Cathedral in its dimensions.

Oxborough has long been the home of the Bedingfield family, who built Oxburgh Hall in the late 15^th century. This splendid moated manor is a place that is well worth a visit. The first occupant of the Hall, Sir Edmund Bedingfield, directed in his will that a chapel be built at the side of the nave of St John’s Church to contain his tomb. He died in 1496 and the chancery chapel was built in 1500 and enhanced by later Bedingfields.

The church spire was struck by lightning in 1877 and rebuilt in 1879. However, the new structure was not strong enough to contain a peal of six bells and, on a windy morning in April 1948 it collapsed for a second time, but it fell in such a way that it brought down the entire roof of the nave.

A decision was made not to rebuild the church as it had been but to preserve what could be saved and – in effect – create a village church that was more suited to the needs of the mid-20^th century.

The chancel was largely undamaged, so a new flint wall was built to enclose the chancel, which now forms a perfectly adequate parish church in its own right. Fortunately, the Bedingfield Chapel was also spared from the collapse, as were the terracotta monuments that it contains. The Chapel is now entered from the roofless nave.

The church opened in its new configuration eight years after the collapse, with one of the offending bells finding a use as the sanctus bell above the new entrance.

Although Oxborough Church looks very strange today, being a half-ruin without a tower, it is one that has an unusual tale to tell, and it is a story of resurgence from disaster in which the local community can take justifiable pride.

© John Welford

King Henry VIII's Cornish castles

Following his divorce from Catherine of Aragon in 1533, and his break from Catholic Europe, King Henry VIII became increasingly concerned that he had made England vulnerable to invasion from either France or Spain. It was in order to guard against any threat from Spain that he built three castles in Cornwall that were designed to protect the ports of Falmouth and Fowey on the county’s south coast. These castles – armed with artillery pieces – would be the first land-based line of defence should any Spanish ships sail up the English Channel.

St Mawes Castle

Sited on the eastern side of the mouth of the River Fal, the castle was designed purely as a base for artillery fire. There is a four-storey central round tower and three circular bastions arranged in a clover-leaf pattern. The flat-roofed bastions were simply platforms for artillery pieces.

 

The castle is in an excellent state of repair, this being mainly because it continued in use long after the threat of invasion during King Henry’s reign had passed. At various times it acted as a garrison, although its small size meant that not many soldiers could be accommodated. It was only at the close of World War II in 1945 that St Mawes Castle finally lost its function as a military base.

However, despite all this apparent importance to the security of the realm, no gun was ever fired in anger from St Mawes Castle!

Pendennis Castle

Originally the western companion to St Mawes, and similar in design, Pendennis underwent much more development in subsequent years. Like St Mawes, Pendennis continued in use as a military base right up to World War II, but it was given greater importance because of its proximity to the port of Falmouth. New fortifications were added by Elizabeth I following the Spanish Armada, and yet more in the years preceding the English Civil War, during which the castle – held by supporters of King Charles I – was taken by Parliamentary soldiers following a five-month siege.

Visitors can see an interactive exhibition of the castle’s history, mounted in the Royal Artillery Barracks that date from 1901, and a special collection of World War II cartoons by the artist George Butterworth. A land train connects the castle with Falmouth town centre during the summer months.

St Catherine's Castle

This is another of Henry VIII’s coastal defensive castles, built to defend Fowey, some 20 miles north-east of St Mawes/Pendennis. This castle is nothing like as well preserved, consisting of a round two-storey tower, now open to the elements, with gun ports at the ground level. A small gun platform was added in 1855. The castle can be reached via a woodland path or from the beach of nearby Readymoney Cove. As this site is unstaffed, admission is free.

It should be noted that times of admission to these three castles vary considerably from site to site and they also change depending on the day of the week and the month of the year. Intending visitors should check the English Heritage website to avoid a wasted journey.

© John Welford

In the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth I at Worcester

 

Arthur, Prince of Wales, was the elder brother of Henry, who became King Henry VIII. Arthur was born in September 1486, just over a year after his father, Henry Tudor, had become King Henry VII by virtue of his victory over King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.

Arthur was therefore seen as the great hope for a new Tudor dynasty, and a suitably prestigious marriage was arranged for the future king. This was to Catherine, the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. The betrothal took place when Arthur and Catherine, who was a few months older than Arthur, were still young children, and the marriage took place by proxy in 1499, when they were still too young to be husband and wife in anything but name.

The couple met for the first time in November 1501, shortly before their official marriage in St Paul’s Cathedral. They were sent to Ludlow Castle, on the border between England and Wales, to begin their life as Prince and Princess of Wales, but disaster was to strike only a few months later.

A mystery illness – probably a viral infection – swept across the region early in 1502. Both Arthur and Catherine fell victim to it and were confined to bed in the hope of recovery. Catherine did indeed recover, but Arthur did not.

This event was to have massive repercussions in later years, because Catherine was then passed on to Henry’s new heir, then aged 11. They married seven years later, and it was her failure to produce a male heir that led to the drama of the English Reformation.

Arthur’s death, at the age of 15, was clearly a great tragedy that called for a suitable resting place to be found for his remains. This was Worcester Cathedral, not far from Ludlow, and already a royal resting place due to the tomb of King John that had been there since 1216.

Arthur’s tomb was placed not far from that of King John, but in a separate chantry chapel to one side of the altar steps. The tomb, which is not topped by an effigy of Prince Arthur, occupies most of the space, but it is possible to walk all round the tomb to pay one’s respects. The stonework of the chapel was intricately carved, but some of the figures of saints still bear the marks of the axes of Cromwell’s soldiers who did their best to eliminate such signs of Catholic idolatry in the 17^th century.

Entry to the chapel is via two stone steps, which have been worn down by the feet of many thousands of visitors during the 500 and more years since they were put in place. It is known that one such visitor was Queen Elizabeth I who came to Worcester to pay homage to her royal predecessor King John and her late uncle Prince Arthur, who had died more than 30 years before she was born.

Today’s visitors can therefore know that their feet are treading exactly where those of Queen Elizabeth trod nearly 500 years previously. To be accurate, though, today’s footprints are probably a couple of inches lower than those of Good Queen Bess!

© John Welford

Ice houses: how the landed gentry kept things cool

Before the invention of electric refrigerators, how did you keep your food fresh and prevent it from becoming uneatable? If you were rich and lived in a large country house, you would probably build an ice house. Many of these were constructed between the 17^th and 19^th centuries and surviving ice houses can be seen in the grounds of preserved stately homes in England and elsewhere.

The idea was that ice would be collected from frozen lakes in winter and stored in a cellar that was designed with the sole purpose of preventing the ice from melting for as long as possible. The ice could then be used throughout the year – both to provide a cool storage space for perishable food and as an ingredient in dishes such as ice creams and sorbets that would be very welcome on a hot summer’s day.

Most large country estates had a lake – which was both an attractive feature of the landscaped grounds and a source of fish for the kitchen. Parts of the lake would be shallower than others and be shaded from direct sunlight – these would therefore be more likely to freeze solid so that ice could be carved out in large blocks.

A typical ice house would be built in the grounds at a distance from the main house. This would ensure that no heat from the house would transfer to the ice. A typical design involved a pit being dug – often as deep as 20 to 30 feet – and lined with brick. In some cases a drainage channel was provided at the bottom of the pit to allow meltwater to drain away – this might well return the water to the lake from which the ice had been taken.

Temperatures at this sort of depth would be naturally cool because no heat could percolate to that depth. Extra measures were taken to ensure this, such as by building an earth mound on top of the domed roof of the pit and surrounding it with a grove of trees that would keep direct sunlight at bay.

The entrance to the ice house had to be wide enough to allow the ice blocks to be taken through and the produce to be carried in and out. However, there was a risk that the entrance could also allow heat to reach the ice, so it was placed on the north side of the ice house and often took the form of a low brick-lined tunnel through which sunlight could never penetrate.

Another precaution was to pack the ice in straw, which acted as insulation.

The evidence shows that ice houses worked extremely well, even to the extent that a mild winter in which little ice became available did not mean that the ice house became redundant. This was because it could take as long as 18 months for all the ice to melt.

The idea of packing food in ice probably goes back to medieval times or even earlier, but the first known example of a “modern” ice house dates from 1619, this being the one at Greenwich Park in what is now south London. This was built on the orders of King James I, who – having spent his early life in Scotland – was used to having plenty of ice around well into the Spring months. King James later had an ice house built at Hampton Court.

Not surprisingly, many aristocrats and landed gentry followed the royal example. Although many of these ice houses have been lost over the years due to collapse and redevelopment, there are also some notable surviving examples. One of these is at Hanbury Hall in Worcestershire, and another is at Hotham Hall in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.

© John Welford