A bullet from the blue at the British Museum

Last Saturday I was telling again at the British Museum. I wouldn't normally blog about a place I posted on before, but the museum is so big and so full of wonderful objects from all over the world that I set myself the task of finding something I'd never seen before. It led me to the Ancient Greece gallery and amidst all the urns and other classical antiquities I found these lead sling bullets which date from the 4th century BC....

Now this is a museum filled with priceless and sometimes unique objects, from the Anglo Saxon Sutton Hoo Helmet, to the Egyptian Rosetta Stone and the beautifully crafted Elgin Marbles, which I suppose stand out far more than these sling bullets. In fact they are quite common and can be found for sale on the Internet. But what appealed to me was the markings on one of them.. On one side is a winged thunderbolt and on the other the inscription "take that"!

It is that inscription that caught my eye, because it made me laugh and that's the point. It just confirms what I have found with stories and storytelling; that people in the past were not that different to us and I'm sure that the person who made the bullet over 2300 years ago enjoyed the sentiment just as much as I did last Saturday.

Thanks to Alice and her volunteers...

Fossilized Journeys at Thornborough Bridge

Last weekend (The 4th-6th June) I was telling at the Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham and on route I stopped at Thornborough bridge which I blogged about last year... For photos and blog click here.

Its a great stop off point for anyone going to or coming from Oxford from the east, for not only is there the history of the medieval bridge and much earlier Roman and pre-Roman archeology, but also its a real beauty spot and surprisingly relaxing when you take into account the roaring traffic on the nearby A421. But what caught my eye this time as I walked the length of the old bridge was the deep scoring that covers the two inside walls of the bridge and it seems to me that it can only have been made by many generations of carts that crossed the bridge long, long ago. Certainly the marks were made after the bridge was built, because many of them cross multiple stones and some must be fairly old because they are now encrusted with lichens.

Wavy scoring across the stones
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Some very deep grooves

Lichen covering the scoring, suggesting its been there some time

Some of the marks even follow a wavy pattern, up and down and suggest that the cart wheel was perhaps damaged and a bit wonky! That's' what really caught my imagination about these marks; they really are fossilized journeys. I'm used to looking for graffiti on old structures; words and pictures scratched on stone long, long ago, and sometimes we can tell a lot about the ideas and beliefs of the people who deliberately left these marks. But what of this accidental scoring, who knows? Perhaps some were caused by an unruly horse reacting to an overzealous whip. Maybe some represent a carters attempts to avoid a drunk stumbling across the bridge who didn't have the sense to stop in one of the 3 V shaped stopping places built into the medieval bridge for that purpose. Or perhaps some were simply caused by weary travellers whose overloaded carts were too big for the bridge or who were in a hurry to get home for their tea; we simply can't know for sure. It's fair to say that many of these marks were made by local traveller. Perhaps they were peddlers, merchants and farmers taking goods to and from the local market, but other than that we can only wonder about these journeys from long, long ago. We can only wonder about these travelers and their travels set in stone!

The Bishops Palace, Wells and Newark Castle

Last weekend was a busy one and I took itinerant storytelling to new extremes, by telling at both the Bishops Palace in Wells, Somerset and Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire on two successive days. It was six hundred miles of telling and traveling in all.

The Medieval Gatehouses
The Cathedral gate to the left, the Palace gate to the right
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Wells Bishop's Palace is like no other Cathedral complex I've ever been before, which is probably because of the moat that still surrounds the Palace.

The second defensive gate which passes over the moat

Its that moat which not only gives you a real sense of the past, but also gives the whole of the Palace a real sense of peace and isolation. Its ironic that I was telling there to draw in visitors, but there was just a little bit of me that wanted to keep it all to myself; the way it was when I was setting up.

The Medieval Moat

The back of the Palace

Obviously many of the Bishops who lived in the Palace adapted the building and rebuilt them to suit changing tastes and all put their individual stamp on the place - Men like Bishop Beckynton who built the late medieval well house and topped it off with a sculpture of his favourite hunting dog. The importance of the residence can be seen in the fact that the gate leading to the Palace from the market is larger and more ornate than the corresponding gate leading to the Cathedral.

'Inside' the the remains of the great hall


My tent 'inside' the great hall

As new buildings were added older ones went out of use like the great hall which has now been given back to nature. My storytelling tent was pitched inside the remains of the great hall with a lone spiral staircase tower sticking out the ground immediately behind my tent and in front of me the remains of its huge walls, windows and first floor fire places that now hang in the air; now mere scars that hint at this buildings once lavish past.

Remains of the defensive moat wall

That said this building was not just about beauty, because many of the structures are still dominated by crenelations (battlements) and we should not forget that the medieval Bishops who dwelt here were landed magnates in their own right. Noble men who often imposed great burdens on the commoners and sometimes felt their wrath. In my home City of Norwich the Cathedral was sacked by the citizens in the thirteenth century and during Cade's Rebellion in 1450 the Bishop of Salisbury, Ayscough was murdered by the mob. At Wells it was Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury who was awarded a 'licence to crenelate' in 1329 and other defences included a portcullis in the inner gatehouse and also 'murder holes' used for casting down rocks and boiling water on attackers. Its a fact that many Bishop's Palaces and Cathedrals complexes were built with defense in mind, which says a lot about the medieval religious hierarchy.

The rebuilt well house
With Bishop Beckynton's favourite hunting hound on top


Looking into the well house

My tent inside the great hall with spiral staircase tower behind

The swarm (Look closely!)

That said I'm not going to overstate the defensive nature of the Bishops Palace. With its meandering moat of clear crisp water is really is a place of beauty and I recently came across a medieval poem which confirms that people long, long ago had a the same love of nature we do today....

Green turf amid silent trees and soft light airs
And a spring of running water in the grass
They freshen a jaded mind, they give me back to myself

They make me abide in myself

12th century French poem, Marbod of Rennes, Meditation Among Trees

I couldn't have put it better myself!

Thanks to Helen for booking me and Debbie and all the very friendly staff and volunteers who dealt so ably with a swarm of bees that engulfed my tent for a while and also looked after me so well.

Barton Turf bio diversity event

Last Sunday I was telling at an annual environmental event run at Barton Turf in Norfolk by the Broads Authority and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. It's an event that promotes not only the bio diversity of the Norfolk broads, but also local crafts and voluntary organisations who are committed to protecting the environment and wildlife. And on the advice of a friend in heritage I also suggest that you check out http://www.commonground.org.uk/ which celebrates both the heritage, the environment and local custom, which fits in very well with the subject of this post and many others!

There was plenty going on for both adults and kids, from tours of Barton Broad upon a state of the art solar powered catamaran/boat thingy (I know very little about boats!) Also pond dipping, ringing birds, making bat boxes, making wildlife sculptures out of recycled materials and one of my favourites; dissecting owl pellets. After the initial "uuuurgh" by some kids and the realisation that they were not dealing with poo, boys, girls and the occasional adult like me were more than happy to prod and poke about in the pellets to find all sorts of small animal bones. When I was a kid, I found a shrew's jawbone in a pellet. I took it into school, only to find that Jason Hatch who had been to Africa with his really rich parents, had brought in an elephant tooth. They made a great contrast to each other and our teacher's obvious pleasure in the comparison between shrew jaw and elephant tooth went a good way to alleviating my feelings of inadequacy and it didn't put me off owl pellets.

Dissecting owl pellets
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All of these very worthwhile activities were great, but to be honest the one that really caught my attention was the worm charming. It was a competition to see who could 'charm' or more precisely lure worms to the surface in allotted two meter square sections. Adults and kids alike spent 45 minutes using their own individual and sometimes bizarre techniques to encourage the worms upwards. Although most involved some kind of rhythmic banging and thumping which as one veteran worm charmer told me are meant to sound like rain, which encourages worms to the surface so that they don't drown! I'm not sure about that one, but one thing was for certain, every one had their work cut out because it was very hot and the ground was baked hard. None the less the final winners did manage a very respectable 27 worms, although last year the more moist conditions resulted in a winning amount of 50 worms. That's over one a minuet!

Worm Charmers charming

That's impressive, but not the reason I enjoyed it so much. For me it was the fact that everyone got involved and that for once health and safety was not top of the agenda. Kids were swinging garden forks about like no bodies business. I watched one girl stabbing the ground very close to her dad's hand, whilst at the same time gazing over her shoulder to her mum. Her dad didn't notice for he was just far too busy gently drumming the ground with his fingers. A different approach to worm charming and one I think that deserved a mention, but alas far to subtle when all about were jumping up and down and beating the earth with bits of two by two!

Worm Charmers using the traditional fork method...

The other reason I enjoyed it was because it fits in well with many of the other events and activities I stumble upon, from the Town Crier competition, to black faced boarder Morris Dancers. I can't help feeling that only in England could you find such an unusual mix of the silly and bizarre. It's a fact made all the more apparent by the bus load of Chinese tourists to Barton who couldn't quite understand what was going on. They certainly enjoyed the spectacle, although one of the organisers who tried to explain what was happening got the distinct feeling that they thought the worms were going to be eaten!

A combination of fork and drumming techniques

Thanks to Holly and the rest of the team who kept me in cold drinks on what was a very hot day...

Hear ye, hear ye...Town Crier competition at Ely Eel Day

After a great day of May Day storytelling at this years Ely Eel day festival I was happily ensconced in my tent taking down my bits and pieces and thinking about the various sights and sounds I had seen and heard that day. Sights like the dancing of the eel, which was like a Chinese dragon, but an eel propelled by schoolchildren in seventeenth century dress (Presumably in honour of Oliver Cromwell who had a house in the town, and which now houses a museum) There was also a local man still making traditional eel nets just like a roman one found in the fens near Ely. It should be hardly surprising really as it was of course eel day and so a celebration of Ely's link with the slippery fish (At least I think its a fish) Even the name Ely is said to derive from the words meaning island and eel. The importance of Eels to Ely is shown in the fact that even the monks of the City were said to have used eels to pay their taxes.

There was however much more going on than the worship of the eel and I was also remembering the fantastic and very loud local samba drumming group and the obligatory reenactment group, although I was a bit disappointed that they had come as Saracens and not not the local folk hero Hereward the Wake and his loyal band of Saxon Rebels. Not that it bothered most people and everyone seemed to have a good time. As did I, although now I was looking forward to packing up and getting home, when all of a sudden I heard a the ring of many a bell and the crisp, clear and loud cry of "Oyez, Oyez" coming from just outside my tent. As I peered out through a gap in the opening I saw that I had been surrounded by a a great mass of Town Criers. I suppose you might call them a 'Cry' or perhaps a 'Shout' of Criers and all were in there finest liveries. Some were accompanied by equally well dressed escorts, although women were not just present as mere window dressing, for there were at least three female Criers amongst the group.

The first of many town criers and his escort
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It turns out that I was trapped by the annual Ely Town crier competition, one of many that take place all over Britain at fairs, festivals and fetes. But don't get me wrong I was honored to have them doing their Crier thing outside my tent, for as one of them told me the first Town Crier competitions were held in Greece in 396 BC. to find the person who could best announce winners of the games. If its good enough for the Greeks, then its good enough for me!

That's what I like about what I do, for you never know quite what you are going to see and what unusual characters you will meet as you go about your business, telling tales. And certainly although like many I knew that there were the odd town crier doing their thing up and down the country, I didn't realise that there were so many of them and that they competed for titles. They had traveled from all over the UK and I'm told that in other competitions they come from as far a field as Australia and America and many of them although attracted by tradition are also happy to give some very modern performances.

A town crier in Early Police mans livery

Town crier in typical civic livery

Town crier and escort being judged by the great and the good of Ely

It was this that caught my interest, because on one level the criers simply look to be harking back to a now lost past, but that's not the case. Certainly all had a passion for history, not just for town criers. One contestant was an ex policeman and so had created a crier's livery based on the uniform of one of Robert Peel's early 'peelers'. Another had a passion for steam railways and so based his costume on the livery of one of the early railway companies. And even the more traditional Criers costumes of tricorne hat, frock coat etc were open to some very colorful interpretation!

There was also a great deal of variation in the performances. In the morning they had to 'cry' a message from their own town or city, but in the afternoon and outside my tent they could perform a 'cry' about a set theme, which at Ely was 'their perfect day'. As such all were judged on volume, diction, clarity etc and also on the content, which resulted in some of the criers being very creative. One of the female criers, who has been a carer for many years was waiting for the day when the government would care for carers. For another it was being out immersed in nature, whilst the winner, the town crier from Alnwick, 'cried' that any day was perfect when at the end of it he got to climb under the duvet with his wife. I liked that one best!

Town crier in early railway livery

The winning crier from Alnwick and his escort

Spot the criers relaxing with a pint!

It was good to see that such a traditional pursuit had been brought up to date and that these town criers were much like modern storytellers; willing to grow new corn from old fields. It was also good to see how much the audience enjoyed the performances especially when you consider that long ago and more often than not criers were not very popular, because they were of course in the pay of the civic elites and so often the bearers of bad news for the common people. But that was then and this is now and if I wasn't busy storytelling I'd probably have a go myself!

A 'shout' of criers and escorts giving a good 'bells-up'

Thanks to Aileen and her assistants for inviting me back!

Ickworth House-Below Stairs

On Good Friday I was telling again at Ickworth House in Suffolk. Its the third time I have told there and normally I wouldn't have written about it again, except that due to the poor weather I was forced to tell in an area where the public don't normally get to go. An area which for me is far more interesting than the main house.

I was put down in the servants tunnel that runs the full length of the building with stairs going up at certain points so that maids and footmen etc could suddenly appear as if by magic and very conveniently for the local posh types and also disappear as quickly from view when not needed! My photos taken from a mobile phone do not do this great tunnel justice, but it is vast and apparently the servants nicknamed it the 'bakerloo line' because of its resemblance to the London underground tunnel!

A very blurry 'bakerloo line'!
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Also coming off the tunnel are various storage rooms and many of the servants quarters including their dining room which I have to say with the heating range, rows of oak tables and benches feels very warm and convivial, although there are still a row of bells fixed just outside this room, which lead to the upper house. Fixed there to ensure that the servants didn't get too relaxed!

Entrance off the servants tunnel to one of the storage rooms



Inside the storage room

For me these rooms are far more interesting than the frilly, overblown and very uncomfortable spaces above stairs. although that's probably in part because many of my mothers family were in service. Her mother and father, my grandmother and grandfather both worked for a family out in the wilds of west Norfolk and prior to the great war they were supposed to go with the family to India. I think that it was a time when many of these families realised that the old traditional cap doffing days were on their way out over here. Thankfully for me my grandmother's mother wouldn't let her go, and if she had I would of course not be here!

The servants dining room

More of the servants dining room showing original tables and benches


The range in the servants dining room


The bells outside the servants dining room


More bells to keep the servants in their place!

I don't think that I would would have enjoyed being a servant in a house like Ickworth, bowing and scraping to others who were no better then me. But then again given the choice between the servants quarters and the rest of Ickworth house I know where I would have been. My pictures don't do it justice, but just imagine long ago at some Edwardian house party...

Above all was dull and formal. Refined with civility being the order of the day (At least in public anyway) But below stairs all would have been hustle and bustle. There were the house servants and also the maids and valets etc. brought along to serve their masters and mistresses every whim. The servants I think would have been kept very busy, but probably having a better time of it below ground, gossiping and singing and generally having a good laugh when time allowed!

That's why I like the 'bakerloo line' so much and soon every one will, for there are plans to renovate many of the servants rooms and open them up to the public. I know where I'll be!

Thanks again to Claire and all the volunteers at Ickworth.

The King of Hearts Arts Centre, Norwich

The King of Hearts Art Centre

Last Friday week I was telling the various tales of Agnes Leaman and others who were punished in Tudor Norwich in a renovated Tudor house; the King of Hearts Cafe and Centre for the Arts. The building stands next to Fye bridge where Agnes and many other women were ducked upon the cucking stool in the late fifteen and early sixteen hundreds. But when first you look at the outside facade of the King of Hearts you would think it no more than a nice example of a Georgian shop front like many others to be seen along the historic Magdalen street.

Original Tudor mullioned widow taken from inner courtyard

But as you can see from the photos, beneath the facade is hidden a fantastic example of a late medieval and early Tudor merchants house. One of many built at this time. For some Norwich is now a bit of a jokey place, a bit of a backwater, but in Tudor times it was second city in the kingdom whose wealth was built on textiles and reflected in the large number of merchant's houses built in the 15th and 16th centuries. Although many of these were lost in two great fires during the 1500s and later 'improvements' to the city. That's why the King of Hearts is so important, because there are so few buildings like it left in the City. And like the other still remaining it has been home to Sheriffs and Mayors whose own fortunes and in some cases misfortunes reflected the turbulent history of Tudor times. These include Edmund Wood, a wealthy merchant grocer who became Sheriff, then Mayor of Norwich in 1548. His son Robert was also Mayor and in 1578 he received Queen Elizabeth I when she visited Norwich, entertaining her with "a Loyal Latin Oration", for which she knighted him. Also Thomas Toft who was also a grocer and Mayor (1654) and a man of extreme Puritan views who took an active part in the destruction of statues and "superstitious pictures and reliques of idolatry" in churches and in the Bishop's palace.

In truth I'm really into history from below, the history of everyday people like Agnes Leaman, but the fortunes and misfortunes of one group impacted on the other, especially when it came to the ideas and beliefs of extremists like Thomas Toft, for in his times the punishments for all sorts of petty crimes became all the more frequent and harsh. No more than you'd expect from any kind of intolerant regime!

The house does also has another link to the ordinary citizens of Norwich, for like a lot of large houses in Norwich as the City grew in population it rapidly became overcrowded and it was subdivided up into tenements and shops, whilst the 'great and the good' got fed up with living cheek by jowl with the rest of us and moved out to the grand houses on the outskirts of Norwich. And so it was by the the last quarter of the 20th century the street frontage was occupied by 3 shops, the upper level by small flats and the whole was described as being in a "dilapidated condition".

The Music Room
where many a storytelling performance also takes place

It was however completely renovated over a ten year period into the 1990s and transformed into the arts centre and cafe and I suspect that now it is a much more relaxed place than ever it was in Toft's day! It also includes a Contemporary Art Gallery, a Music Room, Craft Shop and four Meeting Rooms. And its one of the few venues regularly putting on storytelling performances in the city. Although sadly its underused by the locals and tends to be another of those hidden gems I've mentioned before.

Doorway into cafe from inner courtyard

Hidden both in terms of local community involvement, but also with regard to its history. For much was found during the renovation including many original mullioned windows. And in the Music Room where I was telling a painted ceiling with moulded beams was revealed that had been long hidden beneath a Georgian plaster ceiling. There was also a door from the inner courtyard blocked up long ago but now reopened for all to see. A doorway with a fine painted carving set over it. On one side are the initials TTS and on the other side a portrait of a lady. I'm assuming that the initials are linked to Thomas Toft, although the I can't be sure, for the lady on the other side with her long flowing and very loose locks looks far to racy for any self respecting puritan!

Rediscovered carving on top right of courtyard doorway

Many thanks to Anita and all the staff at the King of Hearts for a great evening...