‘Ay up lad’ or ‘Ooh aaar m’dear’?

Jul5

Watching the first stage of the Tour de France travelling through Yorkshire today reminded me of what I had always thought of as one of the most ‘Yorkshire’ television ads of all time: a young lad pushes his bike up a cobbled hill, on his way to deliver a basket full of Hovis bread loaves, while a brass band plays Dvořák’s New World Symphony (Symphony No. 9). The advert was directed by Ridley Scott in 1973. A few years later he went on to start his movie directing career with The Duellists and then Alien. The advert was voted the nation’s favourite in a poll a few years ago (albeit in a poll of just 1,000 people!).

However, my memory has failed me—I had always remembered it as being voiced by a man with a Yorkshire accent. I think the brass band would certainly have added to the general impression of ‘Northern-ness’. On re-watching it the voiceover is by a man with a West Country accent, and so is perfectly fitting for the location: Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset.

We live in the south-west corner of Wiltshire, so we spend a lot of time in the neighbouring counties of Somerset and Dorset. One of our nearest shopping towns is the Saxon hilltop town of Shaftesbury. 41 years on, Gold Hill is still known as ‘where they filmed that Hovis ad’, and a giant Hovis loaf stands outside the Town Hall, a collecting box for money to go towards the restoration of the Hill. Many of the older buildings in Shaftesbury are built with the green-coloured and well-named greensand stone.

Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, overlooking the Blackmore Vale. 15 June 2014.

The Hovis bread loaf collecting box, outside Shaftesbury Town Hall near the top of Gold Hill.

Shaftesbury Town Hall (right) and St Peter’s Church (left), on Shaftesbury High Street.

There were two other Hovis ads using the same music and a Yorkshireman doing the voiceover, which might help to explain my confusion:

and the first one in this sequence, with a boy walking up a cobbled hill (with his Mum):

Hovis do a nice line in ‘nostalgia’ advertising, and in 2008 they made a fantastic and very moving ad, celebrating 122 years of Hovis and British history:

They get an extra ‘yay’ from me for including the fight for Women’s Suffrage and the miner’s strike, as well as the brave men and women of both World Wars. Four years later Danny Boyle did something similar, but on a far grander scale—but that’s for another blog post!

Sturminster Newton Mill

Jun20

Last Sunday Chap and I headed south into Dorset. We wanted to visit the Fippenny Fair at Okeford Fitzpaine, but as that didn’t start until 2 we decided to take an amble en route. We stopped at Sturminster Newton Mill on the River Stour, with a view to doing a riverside walk, but to our delight found that the Mill was open, and not only that, it was one of its milling days. So in we went, paying our very reasonable entrance fee of £2.50 each.

Sturminster Newton Mill. Photo by Mike Searle.

The history of the Mill can be traced back for nearly 1,000 years, as it is almost certainly one of the four mentioned at Sturminster Newton in the Domesday Book of 1086. There may well have been a Saxon or even a Romano-British mill on the site before this. For most of its life the Mill was powered by two undershot water wheels working side by side; in 1904 these were replaced by a single water turbine, mounted horizontally under the water, which drove three pairs of stones. The Mill produced both flour and animal feed. It is owned by the Pitt-Rivers Estate, and was in constant use until 1970, when the last miller left and the Mill was boarded up and left abandoned for ten years. In the 1980s a Mill Trust was formed and several tenant millers worked there over the next decade. In 1994 it was decided to run the Mill as a visitor attraction, managed by the Sturminster Newton Museum and Mill Society, a volunteer-run organisation.

Sturminster Newton Mill on the River Stour. South wing (flour mill) to the left and north wing (originally a separate fulling mill) to the right.

We were taken on a guided tour of the entire building, and all the while the turbine was powering various machines and of course the millstones. The whole building gently shook, and the air thrummed to the regular pulse of the machinery. Canvas drive belts span, flour was pouring down shutes made of old-fashioned ticking and hessian, and chaff floated lightly about in the air, like drifting snowflakes. The homely smell of freshly-ground corn (grain such as wheat, rye, and barley to transatlantic readers) was all-pervasive. It is a magical place, and a real time warp—just as if the last hundred years had never happened. On the ground floor is the meal floor; above that is the stone floor where the grinding was done, and on the top floor is the bin loft where the grain was stored prior to grinding.

The mill is an L-shaped building. The south wing is the flour mill, and the present building was rebuilt c. 1650, presumably on the site of/incorporating parts of an earlier building. We were told that one of the trusses in the roof has recently and tentatively been dated by architectural historians to c. 1350! The north wing was ‘originally a completely separate fulling mill, built in 1611, then demolished in the late 18th century and rebuilt in brick on its original stone base to join with and extend the grain mill’, so the Mill’s website explains.

Machinery on the meal floor of the Mill: ground corn in the form of flour arriving from the floor above.

Machinery on the stone floor of the Mill. The pair of millstones are protected under the wooden vat or tun on the left.

Winnower in action on the stone floor.

Bag of grain arrived via the hoist through a well-worn trapdoor. Miller visible on the floor below.

Bag of grain (on its way to the bin loft) arrived on the stone floor via the hoist through a well-worn trapdoor. Miller visible on the meal floor below.

Millstone with tools to dress it when it had worn down too much.

Bins for grain in the bin loft at the top of the Mill. The roof truss that possibly dates from c. 1350 is visible up against the gable wall.

Miller's workshop in the other wing of the Mill.

Miller’s workshop in the other (north) wing of the Mill.

We were able to buy some of the flour that had been ground that day and I’m really looking forward to baking with it. (Update: you can see how I got on with a recipe for wholemeal bread made with this flour here).

Flour from the Mill.

The Mill is open until 29 September on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 am—5 pm. Admission for adults is £2.50 and for children is £1.00.

According to the leaflet we picked up, the special milling weekends this year are on

12 and 13 July, 11 am—5 pm

9 and 10 August, 11 am—5 pm

13 and 14 September, 11 am—5 pm

and the same entrance fees are charged. It’s well worth a visit. The stairs are very steep, so only the ground floor is suitable for those with limited mobility. There is a picnic area at the back of the Mill where you can sit and watch the river.

A big ‘thank-you’ to the great volunteers who work there and who made our visit such a joy. It really is a very special place indeed.

I have looked to see if the Mill has been used as a location for films or television programmes, but can’t find anything. It certainly would make an exceptional location for a period production as it is so untouched by the 21st century (and barely by the 20th!).

Sturminster Newton Museum and Mill Society website link. Also used as a source: Sturminster Newton Mill, by Peter Loosmore and Roy Clarke, 2010 (2nd edition), published by Sturminster Newton Museum and Mill Society.

The Crazy Dorset World of Arthur Brown

Jun14

Do you ever have those moments when you start poking about on the internet to find out one thing, and end up learning something completely different, and new, and unexpected? Chap and I had one of those moments the other day. It all started with a car advert on the telly (Toyota Auris Hybrid, fact fans). The music playing was ‘A Horse With No Name‘, written by Dewey Bunnell of the band America, and released in the UK and parts of Europe in late 1971, and in January 1972 in the US. I loved that song so much when it was released, and still do. I wanted to know more about it, and a quick google told me that although the band members were American, the song was written and demoed while they were staying at Arthur Brown‘s recording studio at Puddletown in Dorset.

What? What? Puddletown? Puddletown? Double take, re-read to check, then scratch head in incredulity at the incongruity: a song that is about as all-American as can be, and conjuring up a harsh, arid, desert world, was written in bucolic, lush, green and very English Dorset. Puddletown is a village 8 km to the east of Dorchester. It’s grown a lot with housing developments in recent years, but in the early 1970s was a small, out-of-the-way place.

At this point Chap (who lived in Dorchester for much of his youth) got very excited. He’d heard an urban legend that Arthur Brown (he of ‘Fire‘ and flaming headgear fame) had lived there, but had never had confirmation. More internet snooping was in order.

Details came. Arthur Brown and his Crazy World lived in a farmhouse in or near Puddletown, and had a recording studio there called Jabberwocky Studios. Various musicians pitched up and stayed, and as people came and went bands were formed and evolved into others, including Puddletown Express, Brown’s backing band. By 1970 Brown had left, and Puddletown Express developed into another short-lived band called Rustic Hinge and the Provincial Swimmers (May—August 1970). John Peel visited Jabberwocky Studios, to talk to Rustic Hinge about signing them to his record label. In August 1970 a BBC camera crew arrived, to film the farmhouse for a documentary on Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy—apparently the farmhouse was Hardy’s model for one in which Tess stayed. The programme was produced by documentary maker Michael Croucher. He was amused by the musical anarchy going on around him, and filmed a performance of ‘Lychee’ by Rustic Hinge for the programme.

But no name given for the farmhouse. Where was it? we wondered. Cue more googling. And then we hit paydirt: a thread on a board about Rustic Hinge. With the very footage of ‘Lychee’ shot by the BBC, with the house in the background.

And someone in the thread identified the farmhouse as Ilsington Farmhouse, near Tincleton. Here was another ‘what?!’ moment—we know Ilsington Farm as both Chap and I worked quite a few years ago in one of the offices in the converted farm outbuildings there: Terrain Archaeology’s headquarters. Small world!

Ilsington Farmhouse.

Tincleton is a small village about 2.5 km south of Puddletown, and Ilsington Farmhouse is a Grade II listed building dating from the 17th century. Yet more internet truffling and we learned that you too can rent the seven-bedroom farmhouse from a mere £2,000—£2,950 a week, and have a go at recreating those crazy days of 40 years ago. We also learned that Ilsington Farm has had a swallow hole incident (also known as a sink hole) a few years back. I’m fascinated by sink holes, so all this was too much excitement for one evening!

Caveat: a lot of the details here about Arthur Brown and his fellow musicians might well be wrong, as the various sites I’ve looked at seem to have accounts with conflicting details, chronology, etc. Considering the amount of drugs that were no doubt consumed back in the late 60s and early 70s there, it’s not surprising—I wonder that anyone could remember anything at all from back then in much detail!

September 2015 update: Nick Churchill has commented with a link to an article he wrote for Dorset Life in June this year, with masses of detail about the house and the recording studio – apparently Led Zeppelin recorded there too! Do give it a look – it’s a great read with fascinating information.

Filming locations: Mompesson House

Jun11

Mompesson House. Photo by Tony Hisgett.

Mompesson House is a beautiful Queen Anne house, completed in 1701 and owned by the National Trust. It is located in the glorious Cathedral Close in Salisbury. It is the sort of house I can imagine living in: not too impossibly grand and high-ceilinged and museum-like, with cosy rooms full of interesting and lovely things, and with a pretty walled garden at the back. And of course, that view of the Cathedral to the front! It houses a fantastic collection of 18th century drinking glasses.

Salisbury Cathedral viewed from the front gate of Mompesson House, 11 June 2014. Peregrines nesting on the spire just out of shot!

In the summer of 1995 I was working on an archaeological project in the storerooms of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, which is also situated in the Cathedral Close. If the weather was good I would eat my lunch sitting out on the Close, enjoying the fabulous surroundings and watching the world go by. One lunchtime I noticed a gaggle of people and equipment outside Mompesson House, and so wandered over. Some sort of filming was in progress, but I didn’t know for what. Lots of people were sitting on the grass and watching the goings-on, so I plonked myself down among them. We were very close to the filming set-up, and I was pleasantly surprised that we were allowed to be so close and were not asked to move back. There were lights and reflectors and cameras and cables and endless crew busying around.

Mompesson House. I was sitting a little to the left of where this photo was taken from. Photo by Derek Voller.

Mompesson House. Photo by Derek Voller.

And then as I munched on my lunch, filming started, and Alan Rickman rides up to the house and dismounts. Alan Rickman. In breeches. My sandwich hung half way to my mouth, and my mouth hung open. Alan Rickman. Alan Bloody Rickman. In breeches. Right in front of me. There were other scenes filmed too, with a carriage, but all I could think of was Alan Rickman. In breeches. Right in front of me.

Needless to say, I took a rather longer than usual lunch break and didn’t concentrate too well on my work that afternoon.

I asked around and it turned out that I had witnessed some of the filming for the Ang Lee version of Sense and Sensibility, with Alan Rickman playing Colonel Brandon, and Mompesson House standing in for Mrs Jennings’ London townhouse.

I can’t find any online photos of Alan Rickman in this scene. In 1995 not many (if any?) mobile phones had cameras—in this day and age everybody would be snapping away like crazy. I must rewatch the film and get a screengrab.

Alan Rickman during filming of Sense and Sensibility (not at Mompesson House, from the looks of it).

Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (not at Mompesson House: this scene was filmed at Trafalgar House near Salisbury, standing in for Barton Park, Sir John Middleton’s estate).

Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon in sense and Sensibility. Again, not photographed at Mompesson House.

Alan Rickman in Sense and Sensibility. Again, not photographed at Mompesson House: this scene was at the Dashwood’s cottage in Devon, actually a house on the Flete Estate in Devon.

Alan Rickman and emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility. Mompesson House in the background. I didn't see this scene being filmed.

Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility. Mompesson House in the background. I didn’t see this scene being filmed. I was probably back in the storeroom, having a fit of the vapours.

I was in Salisbury today so snapped the photo above of the view of the Cathedral from the front of Mompesson House. I wandered over to see if I could see the peregrines—I asked a stonemason working on the east front and he said the nest was on the south face of the spire. I stood by the cloisters entrance and watched for ten minutes or so, but didn’t see anything. I could certainly hear one though, squawking away on the spire. So exciting!

Update 10 August 2014: I’ve just watched the film again and the scene is a blink and you’ll miss it one: it’s when Colonel Brandon is leaving Mrs Jennings’ townhouse to take the Dashwood girls back to Devon: he’s on horseback accompanying their carriage:

Colonel Brandon leaving Mrs Jennings' house with the Dashwoods. The scene I watched being filmed.

Colonel Brandon on horseback leaving Mrs Jennings’ house with the Dashwoods in the coach. The scene I watched being filmed outside Mompesson House.

A mess of pottage

Jun9

For Sunday lunch yesterday we had a roast chicken (most unusual for us to have a Sunday roast—that happens about twice a year), and in the evening I stripped the carcass and made a stock with the bones and skin and the onion that I had stuffed into the bird’s cavity.

Not a chicken: a house at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

Today I was looking in the fridge, thinking about what kind of leftovers supper I could make, and suddenly I had a brainwave—pottage! A few years ago Chap and I visited the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, and in the Tudor kitchen there we watched a lady cooking pottage on an open fire, using just leeks, carrots, pearl barley and stock. She gave us some to try, and it was scrummy—a pleasant surprise as it looked none too appetising. This morning I realised we had the makings of the pottage we had tried: some nice leeks and some rather sad-looking carrots in the vegetable drawer, a packet of pearl barley, the chicken stock and a small jugful of leftover gravy from yesterday’s chicken. Hurrah!

I had a quick google around for pointers, and came across this video recipe—filmed in the very same kitchen at the Museum.

The video recipe has onions, leeks, parsnips, spinach, oats and herbs, and no carrots or pearl barley, but I gather that a pottage was a thick vegetabley stew using up whatever grain or pulse was to hand and whatever fresh produce was in season: no refrigerators or imported fresh foodstuffs in those days. Anything goes seemed to be the rule of the day.

So I winged it. Here’s how I made it:

Slice two leeks and four carrots, and sweat in a dollop of butter in a big saucepan over a medium heat. Season with salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste, then add 100g (3.5 oz) of pearl barley. Stir around, then add the stock (I had about a litre of stock, I think, and I also added about 0.25 litre of leftover gravy (made with the chicken juices from the roasting pan, a tiny bit of cornflour, and water).

Pottage ingredients (from top to bottom): fresh homemade chicken stock, leftover homemade gravy, carrots, leeks, pearl barley.

Sweating the leeks and carrots in butter, with salt and freshly-ground black pepper.

Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for about an hour to an hour and a quarter (75 minutes), until the pearl barley is soft and has absorbed a lot of the liquid. Serve with crusty bread.

Supper, medieval stylee.

This recipe could easily be made into a vegetarian one by substituting vegetable stock for the chicken stock (and missing out the chicken gravy). As all the ingredients are pretty bland, flavour-wise, it stands or falls according to the quality (tastiness) of your stock.

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum website link.

Making space for nature: peregrine falcons at Salisbury Cathedral

Jun9

Here’s a story that warmed the cockles of my heart: peregrine falcons have successfully nested for the first time in 61 years at Salisbury Cathedral, in a nest box placed half way up the spire. The breeding pair have produced three chicks, and even better: there’s a webcam on which you can watch their progress.

Peregrine falcon and chicks on Salisbury Cathedral spire, 2014.

The 800-year-old Salisbury Cathedral is truly stunning. Its spire is the tallest in the UK, standing at 123 metres (404 feet) high. In 1995 I was very lucky to work on an archaeological project in the storerooms of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, opposite the magnificent west front of the Cathedral. At the time the west front and spire were being restored and I would watch the tiny ant-like stonemasons way up on the scaffolding, and admire their skill and nerve. It’s wonderful to think that peregrines are now flying around that same spire. Lovely news (perhaps not so lovely for the pigeons, mind …)

Salisbury Cathedral, showing the spire and the West front. Photo by Hugh Chevallier, June 2013.

I can heartily endorse the wise words of Gary Price, the clerk of works at the Cathedral: “I feel privileged to have played a small part in securing the peregrines’ presence here at Salisbury Cathedral for many years to come. It’s reassuring to know that a few small steps by various people can make all the difference to the local wildlife.”

This is such exciting news, and next time I go shopping in Salisbury I’m going to sit in the Cathedral Close until I see a peregrine. 🙂

Salisbury Cathedral website link.

Filming locations: Montacute House

May29

The news that the National Trust’s Montacute House and Barrington Court, both in Somerset, will be closed over the next month or so for the filming of a BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has given me an idea for a series of posts here on my blog: local places that have been used as filming locations for movies and television programmes.

Montacute House, the east front.

Barrington Court.

Montacute House is a stunning Elizabethan house and estate near Yeovil in Somerset, not too far from us and always a favourite to visit. I remember going there a few years ago with Chap and a friend from Canada who was staying with us. We went in April, I think it was—the first day it was open for the season, after its winter closure. The stewards (all of whom seemed to be middle-aged ladies) were all of a tizzy: it turned out that The Libertine had only just finished filming there in the previous few days, and the highlight for the stewards, who were preparing the house for its opening alongside the filming, was seeing the film’s star Johnny Depp. And even better than that, said one, was seeing him wandering around in the nude. I think he made a lot of ladies there very happy!

While walking in the grounds on that visit we noticed a small sign next to the trunk of a large spreading tree. We went over to see what it said—the tree species, maybe?—and as it was so small we had to get right up to the sign to read it. And so, standing almost under the centre of the canopy, we were amused to read something along the lines of ‘Please do not stand under this tree as it may shed its branches suddenly’. Priceless!

Montacute House was also used in the 1995 film of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, standing in for Cleveland House, the country estate of Mr and Mrs Palmer. (I was lucky enough to witness some of the filming for Sense and Sensibility at Mompesson House in Salisbury – but that’s for another blog post!)

I’m looking forward to Wolf Hall very much – I thought the books on which it is based (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies) were terrific, and it has a cracking cast, including Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, Joanne Whalley, David Bradley, Jessica Raine, Mark Gatiss, Claire Foy, Jonathan Pryce, Anton Lesser and Saskia Reeves, among others.

If you were planning a visit, Montacute House is closed until 11 June and Barrington Court from 18 June – 2 July. More details on the National Trust website pages: Montacute Estate; Barrington Court.

Mr Turner

May26

Massive congratulations to one of my favourite actors, Timothy Spall, who has just won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of one of my favourite artists, J M W Turner (c.1775—1851), in the film Mr Turner. I can’t wait to see this film. It’s directed by Mike Leigh, and will be released here in the UK on 31 October, and in the US on 19 December. It looks ravishing:

It’s had some great reviews, including this one in Variety, and this one in Vanity Fair. I could look at Spall’s rumpled, crumpled face for hours: to see him portray Turner is almost too exciting for words!

Some examples of Turner’s towering genius:

‘Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway’, by J M W Turner, 1844.

800px-Turner,_J._M._W._-_The_Fighting_Téméraire_tugged_to_her_last_Berth_to_be_broken

‘The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up’, by J M W Turner, 1838.

‘Wreckers — Coast of Northumberland, with a Steam-Boat Assisting a Ship off Shore’, by J M W Turner, between 1833-4.

and here he is in my neck of the woods:

‘Stonehenge’ by J M W Turner, c. 1827.

‘Fonthill Abbey from the south west’, by J M W Turner, 1799.

I love to think I have walked in Turner’s footsteps!

Sunday stroll: Fonthill Lake

May25

Chap (my better half) and I went for a walk this afternoon around Fonthill Lake, in south Wiltshire, near the small village of Fonthill Bishop. Here the eccentric and phenomenally rich William Beckford (1760—1844) built his famous (or perhaps that should be infamous) Fonthill Abbey—while it still stood one of the great tourist attractions of the country. Construction on the Abbey, which despite its name was never a religious house, was started in 1796 and after its 300-foot high tower fell for the third time in 1825, the Abbey was demolished. The Fonthill Estate is now owned by Lord Margadale.

Fonthill Abbey, before it fell down. A modest little pile, wasn’t it?

As well as building the Abbey, Beckford landscaped the estate grounds. He dammed a small stream to form the long, sinuous Fonthill Lake, and built an impressive gateway into his estate on the Fonthill Bishop to Hindon road. He scattered grottoes and statuary around the estate. Money was no object.

We parked up near the village cricket ground, where a match was in progress. Neither Chap nor I follow cricket so we had no idea what was going on. It looked very picturesque though.

Sunday cricket match at Fonthill Bishop.

We walked past sheep and lambs grazing on the lush green pastures to the gateway with its fabulous green men keystones—talk about making an entrance!

Fonthill Estate gateway near Fonthill Bishop

Green men on both sides of the two archway keystones.

View from the other side. They look a bit grumpy, don’t they?

The lake might look familiar—all the river scenes in the Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche film Chocolat were filmed here.

Fonthill Lake.

The estate parkland is beautifully planted, with some wonderful mature trees, including pink-flowered horse chestnuts. I love this time of year—the green of the grass is almost unreal it’s so zingy. May is definitely my favourite month.

Parkland in Fonthill Estate.

The may blossom (hawthorn) is just starting to go over, and the cow parsley is too—together they make such a beautiful white froth of blossom.

Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris).

Looking northwards up the lake.

At the head of the lake by the dam is a hydropower unit installed in 2011 that generates enough electricity from the dam outflow to power 11 typical houses. Yay for green power!

Beyond the dam once stood a massive woollen mill, long-since demolished.

Where the little building is now, in 1820 stood a 105-foot long, six storey woollen mill, powered by three water wheels and employing 200 people. It wasn’t a financial success and so was removed in 1830 by the new owner (Beckford had sold up by then) to restore the aesthetics of the lake.

Yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus)

Pretty yellow flag irises grow around the lake edge.

On the way back we saw a fresh, newly-hatched lacewing fluttering about, and it settled on Chap for a bit. They have the most beautiful coppery coloured eyes.

Lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea) on Chap’s finger. (For the benefit of readers of a nervous disposition, I’ve cropped out his hairy knuckles!)

We stopped to investigate one of the grottoes—this one was built out of tufa blocks and had the most massive ivy plant (more like a tree, really) growing atop it. Someone had been having a fun evening there: there were the remains of a bonfire and an empty glass perched on the grotto (bonus points if you can spot it!)

One of the many grottoes at Fonthill Estate. This is a wee one compared to most of them!

As we walked back to the car the cricket match was finishing to the sound of clapping—and then tea and cakes in the pavilion, no doubt.

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