Dalesman January 2011 – Myton Grange

January 25, 2011

Myton stud farm

BRICK CHIMNEY AT MYTON GRANGE STUD FARM

BRICK CHIMNEY AT MYTON GRANGE STUD FARM

Brothers Nick and Nigel Ramsden restored a Victorian Stud farm, with help from Natural England.  The brothers’ involvement with Natural England came about as a consequence of the closure of the British Sugar factory in York, back in 2007.  They lost the sugar beet trade that was begun by their grandfather, 80 years ago.

They searched for other options, and liked the idea of Environmental Stewardship – grants for developing wildlife and conservation friendly measures.

On their arable fields, the brothers set aside field margins up to 6m wide.  Over the whole farm, explains Nick, this amounted to taking about 30 acres out of production.  The margins are good, he says, for English Partridge which nest there, and Barn Owls that feed there.

Natural England also wanted to increase numbers of Corn Bunting, a ‘red list’ bird that was discovered living on the farm.  This small brown bird now has 5 acres devoted to pleasing it.  Nick says, “We grow 5 acres of spring barley with no herbicides, pesticides or fertisilisers, then leave it unharvested through the winter.”  He explains that this is because corn buntings nesting in such fields tend to be late nesters, and are therefore often damaged by harvesting.  Nick says, “By leaving the barley unharvested, the nests are safe, and the birds get feed through the winter.  Also, not using pesticides allows insects for the chicks to feed on.”

Leaving off the pesticides and fertilisers, says Nick, results in the field producing only around a quarter of the barley that would grow with the pesticides and fertiliser.  It also gets weedy – “but the weeds are good for wildlife.”

As well as the wildlife, Natural England was interested in heritage, and, says Nick, “When they built Easingwold bypass, they found a big Iron Age settlement that goes through one of our fields.”  To prevent damage to the remains of the roundhouses, the brothers stopped ploughing the field, and put it to permanent pasture.

The brothers’ farms, Home Farm and Myton Grange, were built with bricks that were shipped by barge up the river from York.  Nick says, “They built a railway from the river to bring the bricks up to the site.”  Nick notes that horses, not steam engines, hauled the bricks on the railway.  He says, “There was a steam engine at Home Farm, but it was a stationary one, with pulleys and belts to transfer power to machinery.”  Machines would have included turnip cutters, feed mills, and threshing machines.

Nick’s Grange Farm House is next to the stud stables, and he says, “My house was built in 1868, then they built Home Farm and the Stud Farm in 1870.”

The stud farm buildings have been restored using as much as possible of the original fabric, and traditional materials such as lime mortar and copper nails.  Nick says that a condiiton of grant assistance is that the buildings must be used for their historical purpose.  He is therefore hoping to find someone to use them, perhaps for livery or horse training.

At one corner of the stable yard stands the water tower.  Nick says, “In the 1870s, the Estate put up the water tower, which supplied the village, vicarage and school as well as the farm.  Spring water was intercepted before it went into the river, filtered through a sand filter, then pumped into the tower by steam engine.  There’s lots of historical interest because it was an early water supply.”

“It’s been out of use for 30 years, but we’ve relined it and it’s sound.”

Nick is hoping to develop a renewable energy pump to refill the tower and use it once more.

Nick is happy to host educational visits, by appointment only.  Contact him at 07976 751463

Read the full article, in print only, in Dalesman Magazine

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THE YORK WAITS – THE BAND THAT PLAYED FOR 500 YEARS

December 6, 2010

I met the York Waits – aka William Marshall, Roger Richardson, Tim Bayley and John Peel -when they were leading the procession for the York Mystery Plays.  They had with them an impressive selection of instruments, including woodwind, brass, drums, and bagpipes.  Despite having no modern amplifiers, they made a powerful sound, performing to a considerable crowd.

All four of Waits confessed to an enthusiasm for Tudor music, for it trademark mingling harmonies and melodies.

They wore carefully-researched and reconstructed uniforms of red wool, with ‘Breughel boots’ – Mediaeval leather shoes.

Today’s mega bands would envy the longevity of the Waits as a band.  Player John Peel says, “They played for the best part of 500 years.”

Today, the band plays mainly 16th century music, which they have researched comprehensively.  One of their main instruments is the shawm, a reeded wooden wind instrument reminiscent of the oboe.

The Mystery Plays are a series of plays illustrating stories from the Bible.  They are ‘Mystery’ plays because they are performed by members of York’s Guilds – initiates into the ‘mysteries’ of their particular trade.  Each Guild acted out a story, using a wagon as a stage.  The wagons were pulled around the city, and the plays performed again at multiple stops.

The Mystery Plays were performed in Mediaeval times every summer on Corpus Christi day, but were, like many popular customs, suppressed by the Reformation.

They were revived for the Festival of Britain in 1951, and are now staged every four years.  They are a major spectacle, and involve Guilds that have survived for centuries.

Read the full article, in print only, in Dalesman Magazine, December 2010,  www.dalesman.co.uk

York waits  http://www.whitecottagewebsites.co.uk/york/cds.html

YORK WAITS THE TUDOR BAND

YORK WAITS, YORK'S TUDOR BAND

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Dalesman October 2010

September 25, 2010

For Dalesman this month, I visited Glenys Marriott, Chairman of the Upper Dales Family History Group.

The  Group has celebrated its tenth anniverary by  assembling  over a hundred stories of families who left the Dales for new lives in America, Canada, New Zealand, and other far-flung places.

All the familiar Dales names are there, such as Alderson, Metcalfe, Calvert, Atkinson, Bell, and so on.

Glenys  said, “Younger men would return to visit, and persuade another family member to go.  But many people never returned.  One family left a teenage daughter with an aunt.  The girl never saw her parents again.”

The exhibition material includes family letters home, telling of life in the new lands.  Many faced great hardships, even for hardy Dalesfolk.  In one letter, written in 1849 by Jno Humphry of Low Thoresby, to brother-in-law Matthew Willis, in Wisconsin,  Jno wrote, “…you send such Horrifying accounts you terrify your sister Ellen that she dare not venture over the sea into a country where the frost is so exceedingly severe as allmost to Freeze the Kettle to the Fire.”

On the whole, though, the tough Dalesfolk made a success of their new lives.  And now, thanks to modern technology, families are being reunited.  Glenys lives in a remote dale, with only dial-up internet access.  Despite this, she has built e-mail contact with family history researchers from across the globe, and new generations of families once divided by the oceans are being reunited by the interenet.

And many of these people are now returning to the Dales to meet long-lost relatives, and see the exhibition of letters, photographs, and objects made by their forebears.

The Exhibition of  Those Who Left the Dales will be opened by Lord Crathorne at 2pm on Sat 2nd October at Tennants’ Auction Centre, Leyburn, and will run to16th October, 2010, (Closed Sundays.)

For opening times and directions, see Tennants Auction House, Tel 01969 623780

There will be an accompanying series of lectures, for which places are limited, therefore booking is advised.

To order the accompanying book, book lecture places, or join the UDFHG, contact Glenys Marriott on 01969 663738.  Glenys researches her maternal family line of Cumpston, and further details of the exhibition can be seen on her website at www.cumpston.org.uk

And, of course, you can read the full article, in print only, in Dalesman Magazine.  If you can’t find it in the shops, you can order it at  www.dalesman.co.uk

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Dalesman for August 2010

July 29, 2010

The new August Dalesmans are out, marking Yorkshire Day by celebrating a few of the many wonderful things about our Broad Acres.

The people I met this  month all contribute to those wonderful things.  Dennis Edmondson recalls many years serving Dalesfolk with their practical needs.  Four ‘Bobbies’ working the villages on the northern escarpment of the Moors celebrate the pleasures of getting to know the people on their patch, and volunteers in Pickering look forward to a big event for Yorkshire Day.

When I visited Dennis Edmondson, he reassured me that the scone he brought with my tea was fresh – unlike the one described in his book, that he bit into eagerly, only to find the bottom covered in green mould.

It was a rare mishap in a book full of  happy memories, recording his years as the travelling representative for Spence’s Ironmongers, supplying hardware, ironmongery and household goods to people who rarely, if ever, travelled away from their Dales homesteads.

In those days, without telephones or cars, people used different methods of keeping in touch.  For instance, “In every house Arkengarthdale,” Dennis told me, “there was a pair of binoculars on the windowsill, so they could see what their neighbours were doing.  It wasn’t malicious: it was a natural connection.  They’d see their neighbour preparing for haymaking, and know that they’d better get ready too.”

Between Arkengarthdale and Tan Hill, he had to walk the last mile across the moor to the farmhouse.  Fog came down while Dennis had tea there one November afternoon – and the farmer, fearful that Dennis might get lost on the moor, escorted him back to his car.

It was typical of the kindnesses that Dennis reciprocated as he became a carrier of messages between relatives in different districts, who rarely saw each other.

His book solved a mystery for me.  I’d always wondered why there were tramlines in Friar’s Wynd, Richmond.  They were installed, explained Dennis, by Spence’s in 1894, to facilitate moving goods from warehouses in the Wynd to the shop in the market place.  Parts of the tramlines were removed, he said, when the pavements were re-laid.

Dennis remembers pushing trolleys in those tramlines, carrying stock from the warehouses to the shop.  The motive power was men: often, the trolleys were so heavy that it took two or three men to push them.  At the time, said Dennis, the theatre was semi-derelict, but the area at the back of the stage was used as warehouses.  Spence’s also had a steel warehouse in Finkle Street, where they produced hand-made nails and horseshoes.

Dennis showed me the chair by the fire where he sat, writing his book longhand, from memory.  “It was a different world, and the book gives a glimpse of it.  It was only the 40, 50s and 60s, but the quickness of change since the War has been tremendous,”  he said.

“When I began travelling, there four drapers’ stores in Richmond, and they sent out representatives too.  Sometimes I’d bump into the drapers’ travellers, having meals  at the same house as me.  But gradually, they all disappeared.  As cars came in, people were able to travel more.”

Travelling caused many changes.  People would go to Darlington for cheaper goods – but then, lost the service that Spence’s provided.  Dennis comments, “In effect, Spence’s financed many small tradesmen, as we’d supply orders, and they were paid for on my next journey, six months later.”

Spence’s had a delivery network that would be a model of environmental good practice today.  As an apprentice, Dennis was often sent to put goods onto the bus to Gunnerside.  He said, “Percival’s – who ran the buses – had a shop in Gunnerside, and people went there to collect their goods.  There were also people in the Dales called Carriers.  For instance, Yore Mills was a flour mill then.  They brought the flour to Richmond station, and when the empty wagons went back, they called at Spence’s to see if anything needed to go back.”

For fans of Dennis’ writing, there’s hope of a ‘prequel’.  He says, “I’m thinking about writing about growing up in the 30s, in Ravensworth.  I knew everyone in the village: eccentrics, tradesmen etc.  Probably only one or two of them are left now, but I remember them all.”

To buy Dennis’ book, call him on 01748 822692

Dennis would recognise many of the exhibits at the Beck Isle museum, especially the recreated ironmonger’s  store.  The Museuem is a treasure trove of what was ordinary and is now extraordinary.  The bulk of its collections are what Chairman Roger Dowson describes as ‘everyday objects from local life.’

So it is here that you will find a Grandmother’s knitting needles, a Grandfather’s chisels – and somebody’s stone axe, the basic household tool of the Stone Age.

The strength of the museum lies in its depiction of the lives of people who didn’t make it onto the national stage, but were treasured by their own families.  In this respect, the museum acts as the ‘family attic’ of the townspeople of Pickering and its area.  Many volunteers see their own families in the photographic collections, and visitors come to research familiy histories.

Roger says that the museum has a regionally important collection of photographs inluding a large body of work by Sidney Smyth, depicting life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

There are also two guardsmen, painted by artist Reg Whistler, whose life was tragically cut short in Normandy in 1944.  Roger says, “The guardsmen were painted as stage props for a children’s Christmas party in the Memorial Hall in 1943.

But it’s the everyday objects that bring history to life; the grocers’ shop, the dairying equipment, used daily within living memory, the sewing needles, and the toys.

The  history in the museum lives anew as volunteers use the tools to maintain the artefacts, and teach new volunteers how to use them.

There is always room for more volunteers.  In a recent foray into the stores, Kim Shoobridge says she sorted 55 boxes of ephemera relating to local people, businesses, and events.  It is a treasure trove for family history researchers, and visitors come from as far afield as Canada and Australia to learn more about their families and the area they lived in.

Even without family connections, the museum is a fascinating insight into the everyday lives of people living and working in a Yorkshire  market town.

For more information about the Beck Isle Museum, visit www.beckislemuseum.org

a room at the Beck Isle museum is filled with hand-operated dairy equipment

Dairying equipment at the Beck Isle Museum, Pickering

To read more, see the Yorkshire Dalesman

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The Man of Fossils

June 28, 2010

Dalesman this month features an interview with Mike Windle, of the North East Yorkshire Geology Trust

I spent a fascinating morning with Mike in Hovingham, where he showed me a beautiful collection of fossilised corals, all collected, he said, in fields in the area.  They had been cleaned up, and showed the structure of the corals beautifully.  He said, “These are proof that this part of Yorkshire was once a coral reef.”

He then produced a fossilised whelk shell – looking like a stone, but recongnisably a whelk.  He said they were easy to find on the ground in the area, and described how, over millions of years, the area of the Howardian Hills had alternately been a deeper sea – full of corals – then a shallower sea, filling with sand from a tropical soil.  These had then become compressed to produce alternating layers of limestone and sandstone under the ground.

The sandy soil, he said, had lots of iron in it, which gave it a golden colour, with streaks of red.

He added that the tropical corals had grown because, due to movements in the earth’s crust, North Yorkshire at that time had been roughly where North Africa is now.

He adds, “Charles Darwin studied a rock from here called Coral Rag.  He worked out from the limited number of species in it that here was at the edge of the ecology for that, because similar rocks from Europe have many more species.”

Geology, said Mike, is about looking for reasons for why things happened.  He said, “It’s a great detective trail – and anyone can do it.  All you need to do is concentrate on basic logic and common sense.”

He took me for a walk around Slingsby village, showing me fossils in the walls of houses.  Then we went to Wath Quarry, where he and the supervisor, Les Fenwick, chatted happily about the different rocks that Les had seen in his 18 years of working the quarry.

Mike made it clear how people have always exploited geology, explaining how Roman roads followed a line of better drained soil across the Vale of Pickering, how water flowed through the rocks and emerged as springs, and how villages were sited to take advantage of the best agricultural land.

He was enthusiastic about going into schools and teaching children about geology – and also about leading walks and talks.  He believes that people can enjoy country walks even more, when they understand the forces that created the landscapes they see.

He also had an interesting view of the future.  He said: “In future, I think we’ll mine landfill sites for the raw materials – we’ll have the technology.  In fact, it’s already happening.  They reckon that there’s more gold in landfill, because of old computers, than there is in natural gold mines in this country.”

Mike would like to make it easier for poeple to get involved in geology.  The Trust does rock and fossil roadshows, dino days, school events, and guided walks.  He said: “Our motto is ‘protect and share’.”

NORTH EAST YORKSHIRE GEOLOGY TRUST MIKE WINDLE WITH FOSSILS

MIKE WINDLE WITH A SELECTION OF FOSSILS

To find an event, see Mike’s website at www.neyorksgeologytrust.com – and read the full article in Dalesman Magazine, July 2010 issue, out now.

www.dalesman.co.uk

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June 2010 Dalesman

May 24, 2010

The June Dalesmans  are out, and this month features an interview with Jennifer Smith, who is searching out Hidden Gems in the landscape around Sutton Bank.

I met Jennifer, who works for the North York Moors National Park, in a cosy cafe in Hovingham.  Jennifer was here to tell me of the ‘Hidden Gems’ in the landscape around Sutton Bank.  After enjoying coffee, we walked around the village, where she told me about Jurassic Limestone, and Thomas Worsley, who loved riding so much that he built a riding school as the entrance to his new home.

Jennifer’s Hidden Gems range from Spa baths near Hovingham, to an observatory tower built to celebrate the accession of Queen Victoria, from extensive water engineering works carried out by the monks of Byland, to a mysterious maze known as the City of Troy.

She is interested in the spa at Hovingham.  Jennifer comments, “The spring waters of the area have been attractive for many generations: the Romans built a villa with a large bathhouse here.”

In the eighteenth century, with the revival of interest in spa waters, basins and baths were built at the spa.  It was of note because three springs, each with water of a different character, arose in a small area.  In the nineteenth century, the railway station was ‘Hovingham Spa’ in the hope of encouraging visitors.  Today, says Jennifer, Hovingham Spa Villa is a private house.  But, with current interest in spa breaks, Jennifer wonders how long it will be before the next revival in the Spa waters of Hovingham.

She also told me about the City of Troy Maze, near Brandsby, an intriguing mystery.  It is believed to be the only surviving ‘classical’ turf maze in England.  The turf path, defined by gravel gullies, is banked towards the centre, to allow it to be run.

It seems that there is more unknown, than known, about the maze.  Similar designs are found on ancient Greek vases, and in stone mazes in Scandinavia, so some people think the design arrived here via Viking raiders – but why is it called ‘City of Troy’?

The maze is known to have been recut several times, but its age is unknown.  It is thought to have existed at least since the eighteenth century enclosures, as the turf contains wild flowers that would have grown in the open grassy heath before the fields were enclosed.

The maze is near Brandsby, and, said Jennifer, “I’ve heard that the Moorsbus stops there.”

The capacity of people to alter their environment has always existed, and at Byland Abbey, the monks did it in a big way.  Jennifer said that they permanently altered the way that water drains through the land.

When they arrived at the site in 1177, there was no natural water supply.  Therefore, the monks dug channels to redirect numerous springs and small becks in the vicinity.  They used the water not only for drinking, cooking and sanitation, but also to run mills, to operate bleaching and dyeing works, and for fish farming.  Today, says Jennifer, “There is hardly a beck in the area around Byland that follows its natural course.”

We concluded our walk on one of the many bridges over the beck in Hovingham, admiring the clear, sparkling water.

Jennifer is organising events for people to learn more about the local landscape heritage.  See www.visitthemoors.co.uk

Read the full article in Dalesman, available through all good newsagents. www.dalesman.co.uk

BECK IN HOVINGHAM

HOUSES ALONGSIDE THE BECK IN HOVINGHA

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A Bloom of Blacksmiths

April 5, 2010

I was lucky to be invited to a gathering of  blacksmiths to celebrate the birthday of Ryedale Folk Museum’s resident blacksmith, Robin Butler.

The smiths agreed that a collective of blacksmiths should be dubbed a ‘bloom’ – lovely as spring flowers, and also because Mediaeval iron smelting produced a ‘bloom’ of iron which had to be hammered to remove the slag.

The smiths all demonstrated making a nail.  It was good to see that the skills are not dying out, as Robin had taught several young volunteers at the museum.

One of Robin’s young ‘apprentices’ loved it so much that she took herself off to National Blacksmithing College.  When she graduates, she hopes to return to the area to set up her own forge.

Blacksmiths at Ryedale Folk Museum

Robin Butler and trainee blacksmiths

Ryedale Folk Museum has lots to offer: visit

www.ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk

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Christmas presents

January 1, 2010

I’ve enjoyed a quiet Christmas with my family.  Most of the time, we were snowed in, and slept, ate, relaxed, and sometimes donned hats, coats and boots to go for an invigorating walk in the snow.

I’ve noticed that lots of media  commentators have been speaking about receiving ‘crap’ presents.  This is rubbish -  the value of a present is not the money spent on it: it’s the love that has gone to the trouble to give a gift: it’s a token of affection.

I can only consider that people who fail to appreciate this are either:

a) in the pay of big business, pushing people to spend money they can’t afford,

or

b) spoiled, self-centred brats,

or

c) haven’t invested enough time with their family and friends, so that the people who care about them know them well enough to select a gift they’d like.

I have been blessed: I have received gifts that I  enjoy, and I treasure them, year after year, because of who gave them to me.

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We have our Christmas Tree 16 Dec 09

December 16, 2009

We have our Christmas tree!

Off we went, on a murky, mizzling afternoon, to the Christmas Tree farm.  We always go to the same farm – and every year, there seem to be more people there, good-naturedly battling to fetch their trees home.

As usual, we took far too long choosing.   From hundreds of perfectly good trees, we had to find the one that was just right for us.  It had to be the right height, the right bushiness, have the right smell – and just be right.

As usual, the farm yard  looked, and smelled, magical.  Coloured lights strung up in the big trees cast a warm glow over a veritable forest of fresh, spicy-sharp smelling Christmas trees.  The barn was festooned with wreaths and garlands, and happy families cheerfully struggled to compress their slightly-too big trees into family cars.

Everyone was smiling and happy.  Mud, sharp needles, queues, dark, cold, recession?  No-one cared.  We were all getting our Christmas trees, ready to celebrate a festival as old as time.  A festival that has lived through countless generations, outlasted wars, Governments, economic crises, famine and plague.

Really, if Christmas didn’t already exist, we’d have to invent it.

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