Are You Goin' to Scarborough Fair?

I did--well I went to Scarborough last Thursday, but there was no fair. Scarborough sits on the Yorkshire coast and was another one of those seaside resort towns that began to blossom in the latter part of the 19th Century as leisure time became a reality for more of the emerging middle class. It is situated in a lovely bay that has actual sand beaches, unlike most seaside towns in England. That alone gave it some attraction, although the water is the North Sea, so it is basically freezing!

Here is a shot of the South Bay from the top of the bluff where the hotels are located.

 

 

And behind it my hotel

The whole point of coming up here was to rent a car the next day and travel on up the coast to Whitby, site of the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD and the showdown between the Irish Church which had survived for almost 300 years cut off from the rest of Christian Europe and the newly returned Roman Church. The issues ranged from how to date Easter to the structure of monasteries and the like, and in the end the Roman view won out and the Isles were re-connected with the continent again.

On the drive up to Whitby, stopped in at Robin Hood Bay--no nothing to do with the Sherwood Forest guy, just a name--for a spot of tea (well coffee really) at the Victoria Hotel.

The bay is gorgeous and very "out of the way." A great place to come if you wanted to get away from everyone for a few days, but understand that that is exactly what you would be doing, so don't whine about nothing to do but walk along the cliffs and sit by the fire in the pub.

Then it was on to Whitby. Now there have been abbeys at Whitby since the 7th century, including the home of Northumbrian poet Caedmon which was laid waste by the Vikings in the 9th century. The one that is there now lies in ruins as a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Henry VIII's time. So this is all that is left.

Unfortunately, from November til February the National Trust doesn't think that people should be visiting such places during the week only the weekend, so I was not able to get onto the grounds this being a Friday! So, I hopped back in the car and began a drive through the North Yorkshire moors back to Scarborough by way of Pickering. Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera had given out when I took the above photo, so  you will just have to take my word for it that it was a lovely drive. I am particularly fond of the kind of blasted landscapes that you find in this area, no trees except in the shallow valleys, and only sheep and heather on the flatland. Got back to Scarborough and thought I would check out the castle there, but again, closed this time of year except on the weekends.

So, moral of the story, don't plan to sightsee during the winter months on weekdays. Off to London on Friday for a school trip to St. Paul's Cathedral designed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of 1666 and whose dome is an icon of the London skyline.

In the Shadow of the Wars

Two events yesterday, Nov. 6, brought home how timeless the memories of wars past are in this country, one a harmless lark and the other more somber. First the fun one. A veteran from the Royal Engineers was on campus for the Remembrance Day service in Pegasus Courtyard, and he wanted to check out a relic from the Second World War found recently in a pasture just over the top of the ridge behind the Manor. It is an old Allan Williams turret used to mount a Bren Gun or a Lewis Gun, or whatever was at hand, in the dark days of 1940 when invasion by the Nazis was a real threat.

Manufactured quickly and in the thousands, these steel turrets were embedded across the countryside at airfields and other key installations, as well as important roadways and junctions. Manned by a crew of two, they could be fitted for anti-aircraft or anti-personnel firing. Gary Weight, late of the Royal Engineers and now head of Pegasus Normandy Tours in France, invited me to come along with him and get some pictures of the turret with a Bren mounted in it--which he conveniently happened to have, decommissioned of course--in situ as it were.

Anyway, off we went up Swine Hill and around to the back of the estate, pulling off to the side of the road at a small gate into a pasture. Then it was over the gate and under the electric fence to reach the turret, still sitting where it had been installed during the war. There was an emergency landing field there for damaged aircraft to use instead of crashing on the airfields in the area and putting them out of commission for a time, and this turret was situated to defend it.

And, this is the result. The first one shows how the gun would have been mounted for anti-aircraft fire.

This one would have been for covering anyone trying to approach the turret from the ground.

The turret could swivel about 180 degrees, but of course the tracks are all rusted now. The college is considering raising funds to have the thing removed from the pasture and brought onto the Manor proper or gaining access to it from the tree line in the background which marks the edge of the college's property.

Also, as mentioned above, a much more somber event yesterday as well when members of the local Parachute Regiment Association came to Harlaxton Manor to conduct a Remembrance Ceremony in the Pegasus Courtyard (see my post of Aug. 24). Ceremonies like this are conducted all over the country this week in the run-up to Remembrance Day, Nov. 11. Though it now honors the memory of all those who gave their lives in the wars of the 20th Century, it will always be particularly connected with the end of what is still called here simply The Great War, i.e. World War I. Members of the Paras were here because of this manor's connection with the British 1st Airbourne Division and its heroic failure at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in World War II. As my own uncle fought in that battle, trying desperately to open the road north to relieve the British Paras trapped at Arnhem, I was invited to meet some of the veterans before the ceremony began. Although none were in the actual Market operation, several were veterans of WWII and now in their late 80s.

The ceremony took place in the courtyard and included remarks by one of the paratroopers, the laying of a wreath of poppies on the memorial, and the playing of Last Post, the British equivalent of our Taps, by a lone trumpeter. Here is Dr. Gordon Kingsley, Principal (dean) of Harlaxton College offering a prayer during the ceremony.

 

And, here a member of the honor guard lays the wreath on the memorial



All in all, a very moving service attended by the great bulk of our students and college staff.

A Penny for the Old Guy

First, sorry to be so long in posting again, but my plans for this past weekend got derailed, so I didn't really have anything new to talk about. However the last couple of days have been chock full of great experiences, and I'll start with this one.

Yesterday was Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day here in England. In 1605, Fawkes and some co-conspirators hatched a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the king's annual address, wiping out most of the leadership of the country. Fawkes, you see, was a Catholic, and England was now fully and militantly Protestant. Elizabeth I had died in 1603 naming her cousin James VI of Scotland as her heir--she was the "Virgin Queen" remember. So James Stuart comes to London to become James I of England. The idea was that the plotters would stuff the basement of the Parliament with barrels of gunpowder (hence the name The Gunpowder Plot) and set them off when all the members, the lords, and the king were assembled. This would be the signal for a rising of Catholics and an attempt to restore England to Catholicism. It was foolish nonsense of course, and in any event the plot was discovered. Fawkes and several others were arrested, tried, and executed by being hanged, drawn, and quartered, the prescribed punishment for treason.

Shortly after that, there began a tradition that every year on Nov. 5,  huge bonfires would be lit and effigies of "The Old Guy" would be tossed into the flames while denouncing Catholicism and praising England's Protestant faith. Children would pass among the onlookers asking for "a penny for the Old Guy," and fireworks would be set off as well. The tradition has lasted into the present day, although its anti-Catholic sentiments have been pretty much expunged. Now it is more just a celebration than any kind of political or religious statement. And, these days it is rapidly being overtaken by Halloween as the trappings of that American holiday are more and more in evidence here.

Anyway, ever since my English major days when Guy Fawkes Day figured so prominently in several novels I was reading, I always wanted to attend a bonfire, and last night I got to do so.

I hope you can see it, but this was the bonfire--a right proper one--held on the football pitch below the Carriage House.

It made me feel like as though I was in a Thomas Hardy novel or something like that. Very satisfying indeed. Tomorrow I'll post again recounting the Remembrance Day ceremony here in the Pegasus Courtyard honoring the fallen and the veterans of England's wars, coupled with a unexpected treat not unrelated to that service.

Look Familiar?

Last Friday we went over to Stoke Rochford, a country house near Harlaxton and built at virtually the same time? It was designed by the same man who designed this manor, so guess what?

See anything that looks familiar? Indeed, the central entrance could almost pass for Harlaxton. The clock is in the same style as well although of a different color clock face. The house is a working hotel now with guest rooms going for about $500-$1000 a night. And, this house, too, served as headquarters for some of the British 1st Airborne in the days leading up to Operation Market Garden in September 1944, and a number of those "lads," now in their late 80s or 90s, were returning last weekend for a reunion.

This building was hit by a devastating fire in 2004 which gutted much of the center of the house, although the walls were left intact. Fortunately, their B&G director had been doing everything right (British Army veteran), and the insurance company had to fork over 12 million pounds for the reconstruction effort. You can barely tell where the surviving original decor ends and the reconstruction begins. A large Orangery survived without damage.

As did the only known marble sculpture work attributed to the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, the great marble fireplace in the what had been one of the drawing rooms and now serves as the bar. It is insured for 2 million pounds.

The rooms on the other side of this wall (almost two feet thick) were destroyed. The brass hardware on the inner doors melted completely, but the fire did not penetrate. However, thousands of gallons of water poured into the room during the fight against the flames. The plaster ceiling was saturated and on the verge of collapse. Scaffolding was quickly erected in the room up to within about a foot of the ceiling and then sheep skins were shoved in between the scaffolding and the ceiling to draw off the water. It took 18 months before the ceiling was dry, but it was saved. The company that directed the restoration work was the same one that worked on Windsor Castle after its fire in 1992. The external scaffolding alone cost over a million pounds to erect and maintain for three years while work went on.

 After a lovely cream tea in the main hallway--sorry, my flash was disabled so those didn't come out very well--we returned to Harlaxton.

Today is Halloween and there is a trick and a treat for the students. They second exam in the British Studies course is this afternoon from 2-4, and then there is a costume party in the Bistro tonight.

The True Navel of the Universe

Well, this morning we travelled to the true "Navel of the Universe." The ancient Greeks foolishly believed that it is at Delphi, the Incas believed it to be Cuzco, but in truth it is in the heart of a little farm town in Leicestershire, Melton Mowbray at this very spot.

Seriously. They have been making pork pies here since the middle of the 19th century, and there are NONE in the world better. It is part of Dickinson and Morris Sausage shop which is next door.

Their recipe is so treasured that it is registered as a Protected Geographical Indicator which means that they and a couple of other pie shops in town are the only ones in the WORLD who can call their product Melton Mowbray Pork Pies. Those of you who know us know that we make a pork pie every year for Christmas, and they are pretty darn good if we do say so ourselves, but they are nothing compared to these. And, they will ship anywhere in the world--for a fee.

Melton Mowbray's most famous "resident"--as opposed to food item--was undoubtedly Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth "wife," whom Henry had married in absentia and upon first seeing her labeled a "Flanders mare," i.e. a Clydesdale. Now, by this time, Henry was no longer the dashing young thing he'd been and was at least as rotund as she was and reportedly had a huge running sore on his leg that refused to heal. So it is probably no surprise that she jumped at the chance to escape from Henry and settle in to a property he gave her along with the title of the King's Good Sister after divorcing her. The place had been Thomas Cromwell's until he fell out with the king for having arranged the marriage to Anne in the first place. Henry thought it would be funny, I guess, to give Cromwell's old place to her.

 

No one knows whether she ever actually lived there or not, her main residence being Sussex, but she certainly got possession of the place as part of the divorce settlement.

After that, back to the Gregory in Harlaxton for a well deserved pint on a spectacular autumn day. We had snow flurries last night, and the temperature today stayed at below 40, but with absolutely gorgeous sunshine--and a pretty stiff breeze with gusts up to 20 mph or so, which made sitting by the fire at the Greg the perfect end.

I'll make another post soon about a country house near here that we visited yesterday.

What Goes Up. . .?

. . . Must come down. This afternoon, I tagged along with an engineering class and a calculus class both taught by Dr. David Unger from the University of Evansville for a visit to

All together now. . .the birthplace and childhood home of Sir Isaac Newton, he of the laws of motion and gravity, the spectrum of light, and the inventor of fluxions which we now call the Calculus--and yes I know that Leibniz is also credited with this discovery, but I wasn't visiting his birthplace, I was at little Isaac's, so cool it.

It was in this house that Newton was born on Christmas Day, 1642, (OS) in the room at the upper left of the house.

For anyone who has taken my Origins III class in the last 15 years or so, you have seen this house at the beginning of Bronowski's The Majestic Clockwork. I've stolen so much from that film over the years for my lectures on the Scientific Revolution that I feel like I should be paying royalties to the late Dr. B's estate. But, if you are going to steal, might as well be from the best.

And, of course, here is THE TREE, seriously, this is the apple tree in the field in front of the manor. It was blown down in a storm in the early 19th century, but the root system was undamaged and it has regrown. Cuttings from it have been taken to Cambridge (both England and Massachusetts) and several other spots around the world.

As you can see from the foliage, autumn is coming on strong here, and I confess I miss the leaves falling across campus in Bethany now. The weather has turned rather dreary this week. Haven't seen the sun for three days, only endless fog. Hard to get a picture of, but this is a pretty good example.

Visibility is at best about 300-400 yards at the height of the day, much less in the morning and toward darkness which is creeping in earlier and earlier these days. We go back to standard time on Sunday which will mean darkness before 5 p.m. We're much farther north than Bethany, so the hours of daylight will shrink to about 8-4 by the time I'm ready to leave in early December. Anyway, that was our visit to Newton's home. Very glad I got to do this and my thanks to Dr. Unger.

Two Very Dear Old Friends

Slipped into London on Saturday to visit two very dear old friends. Trip was a bit trying as in addition to the usual Saturday football match traffic on the train, there was a huge demonstration scheduled by public and private sector unions in the heart of London. 150,000 workers from all over the country converged on the capital to remind the Tory government that there are limits to what working people will endure before they say "no" to more austerity and more foolishness, such as the Tory Chief Whip's notorious slur toward police officers guarding No. 10 as "#$%&* Plebs" who need to remember their place. He has resigned. Also, the Victoria Line was completely shut down for the weekend for maintenance which dumped everyone onto the Northern and Bakerloo lines which made for a very crowded underground ride to Lambeth North near my first old friend.

And here she is.

Yes, the Imperial War Museum, one of the best museums dedicated to this sort of thing in the world. The guns you see are 15-inch naval guns from the Queen Elizabeth class of battleships that first entered service in 1916. Below is the breach end of the gun on the right, taken from HMS Ramillies (look it up--although surprisingly not a naval battle!).

And these guns could fire a shell that weighed as much as a Volkswagen up to 30,000 yards, so far that you had to correct for the curvature of the earth when aiming them. This is one of those shells--mother and child are actual scale.

Then it was into the great hall at the center of the building where there were such wonderful things as a M4 Sherman, a Churchill, a Jagdpanther tank destroyer, a T-34, and a Mark V British tank from the First World War. Overhead flew a Spitfire (on the left), a P-51 Mustang (center) and a FW-190 (right).

And if you look closely just below the Mustang, you will see the most feared weapon of the war, the German 88mm dual purpose flak/anti-tank gun.

Could have spent much more time there, but had a date with  another dear old friend just up the street toward Waterloo station, The Old Vic.

As you can see from the marquis, I went there to see a production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler adapted by Brian Friel. A wonderful afternoon in the theatre. Ibsen's plays are considered one of the earliest forceful statements of feminism, although he denied this himself. He saw the struggle for women to break free of male dominated late 19th century society as an issue of humanity in general. Whatever, it made for some incredibly powerful theatre.

And the Old Vic is one of the classic theatre houses in London, although located on the South Bank rather than the West End. Built in 1818. It had a checkered career in the 19th century including several ownership changes, and a false fire alarm in 1856 which led to the deaths of 16 people in the Upper Circle (demonstrating Justice Holmes' remark that freedom of speech does not include the right falsely to shout fire in a crowded theatre). In the early 20th Century it settled into its modern form under the leadership of Lilian Baylis, and became popular as the "Old Vic" in the 1920s. The stream of England's finest actors in the 20th century has flowed mightily through the resident company including  Olivier, Richardson, Redgrave, Guinness, Dench, Jacobi, and on and on. Guest artists such as Smith, O'Toole, Finney, Hopkins, Burton, and on and on. The current Artistic Director is Kevin Spacey. It is one of my favorite venues to watch plays.

After the play, I foolishly thought I would slip back up to the Euston Flyer near King's Cross station for dinner and a pint before my train back to Grantham. However, when I got out of Euston Station and on the way down Euston Road toward King's Cross,  every pub in the area, including the Flyer was jammed packed with either the remnants of the demonstrations earlier in the day or football fans glued to the big screen TVs showing the Arsenal-Norwich match. So, I settled for a quick pint standing outside and then on to the station. Had a few lads on the train who had had a few too many, but they settled fairly in quickly as we left the station. At Grantham station ran into another couple teaching here this fall, Dan and Peggy Harris from Baker University, who were on the same train in another carriage, and we shared a cab back to the manor. Dan retired a couple of years ago after 27 years as football coach, baseball coach, and Athletic Director. Peggy is the Dean of the School of Education and Dean of the School of Professional and Graduate Studies.