Help us find beaut. tiny English Village

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Mar 03 - 05:27 PM

Haddon, Cambridgeshire.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Little Robyn
Date: 28 Feb 03 - 11:06 PM

Jimmy you've reminded me of one of my favourite Pam Ayres poems:
I am a dry stone waller,
All day I dry stone wall.
Of all appalling callings
Dry stone walling's worst of all!

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 28 Feb 03 - 07:39 PM

Thank you sooooo much Penny. I'm SURE that's the place. And thanks to the rest of you good folk.

Rick

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 28 Feb 03 - 06:24 PM

The other day I was able to go up to the area, not, unfortunately, due to traffic reports, able to spend enough time there to be positive about a place fitting the description, as there have been rebuilding of roads, and I couldn't work out how to get to the most likely spot. I could see, from the A1, a small church with a bell-cote rather than a tower, and few buildings round it. Judging from my map, it was Haddon. It wasn't so easy to see coming south as going north, but between Stamford and Peterborough, none of the other churches looked likely to be called a chapel, or Norman, or were in small settlements.

Any use?

Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: GUEST,John Rouse
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 09:02 AM

If you go to the National Stone Centre near Cromford http://www.nationalstonecentre.org.uk/ you can see a display of all the different dry stone walling techniques that are used in these fair isles.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 03:29 PM

"a major tourist attraction!" - eyesore more like...

Dave Goulder, who wrote January Man, and a lot of other great songs. teaches dry-stone walling for a living up in Scotland, and he's written some good songs about the craft:

From Yorkshire's limestone dales
Through Derbyshire, to the coast of Wales
Or Shetland's salty rocks to Devon lanes
Just look and discover
Two walls that lean against each other
You'll never see them in quite the same way again

(Last verse of "These Dry Stone Walls")

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:49 PM

Not daft - I've attended a lecture by a dry stone waller, on the links between geology and the walls.

Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Sibelius
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 11:36 AM

North Americans "right daft"? You're probably right there, Jimmy, but we think a building more than 12 floors high is a major tourist attraction!

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: MMario
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 11:29 AM

*grumble* they'd be commonplace to you as well if you lived in New England! And I know there are other places in the states, and I am sure Canada where they occur a lot -

Not that our drystone walls can match the UK ones for age - though many in my home town are probably several hundred years old, the oldest up to 350 or so; though a good portion are probably less then fifty years old(zoning code iencourages their use in new landscaping)

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: jimmyt
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 11:22 AM

I stopped once while in the Cotswolds to watch 2 workmen repair an old wall. I talked to them for about an hour, watching how they selected stone for just the right purpose, and the wall just grew right before my eyes. There is really guite a lot of engineering that goes in to a well made drystone wall. In Cumbria and the surrounding borders area of Scotland, it is also amazing to see walls that go nowhere, not enclosing anything. I have heard that lots of these walls were just an effort to clear the fields of stone. I also have started taking photos of all the various stiles and steps and other means of crossing walls. Probably our UK friends think we North Americans are right daft to be so intrigued by something so commonplace to many of them

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 11:04 AM

Jimmy...I've been as fascinated as you. The first time I saw those walls for real, was very emotional.

Rick

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: jimmyt
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 10:36 AM

I know before I write this that it is major thread creep, but I have to write it anyway. I read once that 15 percent of the dry stone walls in Great Britain predate the Norman Invasion. Being a huge fan of drystone walls, I am constantly amazed that something created out in a field using the available materials with no morter could stand there doing its job for a thousand years.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 07:00 AM

Mayeb this link might be helpful - Find a Church

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: IanC
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 04:58 AM

Officially, a chapel is not consecrated. Just a building used for worship. Since it's Norman, though, this will be the Parish Church. It's an important clue because Norman churches aren't that common.

:-)

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 08:54 PM

Well Helpston is in the right sort of area - but I doubt if that's it. But it's worth knowing about, because the poet John Clare lived there for a time, and collected a partial text of a Mummers Play - "a Moris Dance Drama" back in 1825

Here's the text:

Text:
{The Moris Dance}

{A Popular Village Drama}

{Dramatis personie}

{1 King of Egypt}

{Prologue}

[Prologue]

Here comes I that never came before
With three merry actors standing at the door
They can both dance & likewise sing
& if you please they shall step in
Gentlemen & or ladys all Im glad to see you here
Im come to let you know it wont be long before my actors doth appear
Tho my company is but small
All do the best we can to please you all
To get your love & gain your favour
Well do the best of our endeavour
Now at this time Ive done my doom
I must turn back with speed & give my actors room

King of Egypt

Room room brave guards make room
& let the king of Egypt in
I am the king of Egypt as plainly doth appear
Im come to seek my son my son is only here
& if you dont consent to what I say
Step in prince George & clear the way

Prince George

Here comes I prince George a champion bold
& with my bloody spear I won three crowns of gold
I fit the firey dragon & brought him to a slaughter
& by that means I won the king of Egypts daughter
I kickt him & I smackt him as small as any flies
& sent him to Jamaica to make much pies

[Swish Swash & Swagger]

Here come I with my swish swash & swagger
With my cockt hat & glittering dagger
Ive come to court a damsel.

And that link has more about the play, and Clare writing about Morris Dancing too.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 06:19 PM

Here's a link to a list of all the parishes in England and Wales. Hope it helps!

parishes

LFF

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 05:38 PM

Great Harrow! Little Harrow! All these Harrows!

Well anyway Heather says it was on the WAY to Peterborough (going south) and on the right hand side.

All the info (that we remember) is back at the beginning of the thread, but a little church and a little chapel (It's Norman, by the way) are the same to me, I don't have a clue about the STYLE of the inside, but it was pretty plain, and the lady said there had be only minor changes.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 05:22 PM

We're all doomed ...

Great Harrowden: - painted wall


Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 05:06 PM

English snow!

Deep and crisp and even.....not!

Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 05:06 PM

Penny

Very interesting - I just followed your link to Little Harrowden. The parish church on top of Harrow Hill is St Mary's too, and it celebrated its 1000th anniversary a few years ago!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 04:57 PM

Sounds as if you've been at the same sources as I have. I'm a bit bothered about a Cornish site with a Saxon shrine name, though. Do a search on Little Harrowden - there's a site claiming to show it under deep snow.... our American cousins would just fall about at it!


Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 04:54 PM

This one, though a bigger church, is in a much smaller settlement, only a little way away. It has a medieval Doom painting.

Great Harrowden


Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 04:53 PM

Penny

There's a Harrow Green in Suffolk, and a Harrowbarrow in Cornwall. Which sound pretty old to me.

Harrow on the Hill is also quite old (I think Boadicea/ Boudicca fought the Romans round here), and in American terms not all that far from the A1. The top of the hill is quite quaint (mostly Harrow School) and with good views on a clear day, but most of modern Harrow at the bottom of the hill is not beaut.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 04:40 PM

What about this one, then, near Kettering.

Little Harrowden

My book says hearg, hearga, or hearh


Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 04:24 PM

Penny

Herga denotes a place of worship, and gave its name to Harrow on the Hill, and is why the folk club is called Herga, even though the club has met in a pub in Wealdstone for 40 years. And I'm hoping we're going to see Rick some time, because he had to cancel his visit last year.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 04:06 PM

Jimmyt, there was a big divide between Church and Chapel - and lots of Dissenters all over Britain. Among whom should perhaps be listed the Catholics, who were new building in the eighteenth century, using a classic architecture not unlike large Nonconformist chapels. In Victorian times, the Catholics became much more imaginative in design. Town Chapels have their own distinctive architecture, shared in some places by synagogues.

In the village where my sister lived, there were many pubs, and no places of worship. Villagers had to walk to a nearby village, where there was a medieval church. The Baptists built a large classical Chapel, to the horror of the Anglicans, of a Puseyite, High sort, and they built a small chapel of ease, so the villagers would not be tempted to the Nonconformists. this is now the parish church. Outwardly, it looks like a small chapel of the dissenting sort. In the parts of England I know, there are small weatherboard chapels, tin chapels, etc, all over the place, often of very small, local denominations. I suspect (from some family history) that many of these were supported by just a few families, who had some reason for not worshipping with the other chapel along the road. Some of them are no longer used.

Which doesn't help Rick, because I don't think he wandered into the Particularly Strict Peculiar Elim Tabernacle Separation Chapel. (And I do hope there isn't one of those...)

It does sound as if he found one of the little churches that are found on very old estates going back to Saxon times, associated with either a large farm or a "Big House", where a Saxon thane once had his private shrine which became a church. So I would expect an old English place name.

Harrow isn't just an implement, it's a place name denoting a place of worship. And there's more than one of them.

Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 03:58 PM

In some places the word implies Catholic. It can get very confusing.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: jimmyt
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 03:34 PM

well, I just learned something. I had no idea that the word chapel denoted something other than Anglican. I am like lots of folks in thinking it meant more a small church.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 03:16 PM

When you say chapel, do you mean that it was small, or was it actually "Chapel" as in Methodist, Congregational, Baptist etc? There are parts of the country where people built these on their own land. They tend not to be really old, though. Did it have a chancel with altar, or was the pulpit central and dominant? If Anglican, the parish church, did it have any notable architectural features, painting, carving etc? Box pews. Fancy font? Any clues of this sort could find the church in something like Betjeman, or the 100 best churches.

(One of my favourite discoveries, another farmyard church, is West Hampnett near Cirencester. Tiny, and decorated in Arts and Craft medieval style by the Victorian rector. Beautiful angels over the altar, in the style of an Anglo-Saxon manuscript. And in the joint parish children's guide in another church, the question, "Do you think this style is really suited to worship in the 21st century?" There is a name for a rhetorical question demanding the answer no, isn't there? Sorry for the thread creep, but until I placed it on the map, I thought it might be your church.)

Penny

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 12:59 PM

Do you remember if you had passed Peterborough, or were you just coming up to it, or going round it?

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 18 Feb 03 - 12:56 PM

Damn it, maybe the village only appears once every hundred years!!

Well, OK, one more try.

Yes we were goin South. Heather says it was near Peterborough

It seemed like a really tiny Church (CAPACITY: twenty folks or so)

Plus a couple of farmhouse buildings.

Real old.

You know it just occurred to me that maybe it WAS a private house....but I DO remember a village sign.

Cheers

Thanks

Rick

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 02:38 PM

The chances are there's someone around Peterborough Cathedral who'd be able to help.

"One tiny Chapel from a LONG time ago....with a lady putting in fresh flowers. A couple of farm type buildings, within about twenty yards." For someone who knew the place that would could very well identify it.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: IanC
Date: 17 Feb 03 - 12:40 PM

Rick

Here's my take on villages starting with H local to the A1 near Peterborough (I'm assuming you were travelling South and have looked at places after Peterborough).

You'd have to take a turn or two to get to Hemington, and its church is absolutely massive.

Hamerton might be OK, with a population of just over 100, though the church isn't that small.

Haddon doesn't fit too well either, the church is quite large and the arrangement of the buildings around it just wouldn't be right.

Holme doesn't really fit. Population nearly 500 and the church isn't that small either.

John Clare was born in Helpston, so you might have gone there on purpose. The village has an old Market Cross, which you might have been expected to have seen, but it also has a Methodist chapel which could fit the bill.

Harringworth has an enormous railway viaduct which I don't think you could have missed.

Hail Weston might fit the bill, though it's a little further South. The church is fairly small, with only 3 bells (I'm the Tower Captain though there's no regular bellringing band). The village doesn't really match your description though.

If you're willing to take other than H's then Lutton, Glatton, Upton, Buckworth, Barham or Grafham might be possibilities ... any more memories?

:-)

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 12:26 PM

It depends on the size issue really.

You could possibly thinking of the beautiful old town of Stamford which is near Peterborough. This is a stunning Georgian town on the old A1 road. It's main claim to fame is Burleigh House and the Burleigh Horse Trials.

It has a georgeous bridge next to an old coaching inn called The George (great food). As to the chapel, well Stamford at one time boasted the largest number of churches and chapels per head in the UK. It is a cute small market town, jammed packed with history. Used for the outdoor scenes in Middlemarch on TV.

I got married in a little chapel in Stamford, The United Reformed in Star Lane. A cute chapel, but not very small.

There is also the possibility of Wansborough (beautiful bridge and cute village) or maybe Ryhill or Sibson. Then of course there are all the Fenland villages ...

Rhiannon
>^..^<

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 12:05 PM

Harrow is an agricultural implement, and a pub name too, but also the name of the place (in Middlesex) where I live. It has a nice parish church on top of Harrow Hill, but it's not near enough the A1 or Peterborough - and it's not really a beaut tiny English village. Good luck with the search.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 11:36 AM

Now THAT'S an idea Susan! Anyone feel like goin' on a 'chapel hunt" near Peterborough? (we can't afford it)

"Harrow" seems like the right name, so it's possible we just saw about one twentieth of it, and didn't notice. We thought the three buildings were the WHOLE town.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 11:15 PM

Hey Rick, obiviously you must return and wander/wonder to it all over again. Unless PTH has played in the Chapel and reckanizes it from your description, and can tell you where it wasn't.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 10:33 PM

Ha ha!

OK, once again, here's what we saw.

One tiny Chapel from a LONG time ago....with a lady putting in fresh flowers.

A couple of farm type buildings, within about twenty yards.

If there was a main house (there might have been) we didn't see it. We looked in the chapel, talked to the lady, said "we must come back one day" and forgot the bloody name of it!

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: jimmyt
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 08:44 PM

Rick! Hu9ll! Tha9t coul9d be it!

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: greg stephens
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 06:20 PM

Rick I think it would have been Hull, a tiny and quaint medieval village not all that far from Peterborough, and quite possibly en route from north to south. There's a nice guy called John there who'll show you round.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Sibelius
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 05:41 PM

West-pond-side perceptions of size as well as distance differ from ours. Tiny village, simple name beginning with 'H', not far from the main north south road? Rick, you were in Harlow!

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 08:28 PM

The English think 100 miles is a long way: the Americans think 100 years is a long time.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 06:04 PM

I remeber going to a lovely village called Lustly, which had the greatest sweet shop I had ever been, and I discovered the treat that is horribly named by American standards, "Clotted Cream" (very rich whipped cream).

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 04:09 PM

(And remember, bellringing could be under threat in the new Licensing Bill. Especially when they aren't practicing or part of a service, but ringing some kind of full peal.

Here's a link to the "Peterborough Evening Telegraph". This is the kind of hunt that local papers love. (And a few words or emails with a knowledgeable vicar in the area could very likely come up with the goods.)

The great thing about hunting for anything is that, even if you don't find what you are looking for, you find other stuff you wouldn't otherwise. That's why it's a mistake to give up on a hunt while it's still got some life in it.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: SussexCarole
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 03:05 PM

Hey Jimmy   -   I ring church bells & yes I understand those complicated methods (music) etc. Have had the pleasure of ringing at Leigh. Very unusual - ringing on an open balcony at the back of the church.       Carole

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: jimmyt
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:45 AM

I think Bishop Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII, would have been at the very beginning of the 16th C

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: jimmyt
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:42 AM

I went to the museum of Torture and Punishment in Rothenburg, Germany a few years ago, and if that won't shatter your enchanted image of the pastoral life in the middle ages, nothing will. They have cases and cased of humiliating and painful devices to treat miscreants of any number of offences, several of which I have been guilty of myself. I think walking around with a neck fiddle on for a few hours for some minor offence would make you think twice. They have a contraption called a shame flute. Fit around your head with a metal strap that was tightened up, forcing the mouthpiece in your mouth, then your fingers were attached to the body of the instrument by screws, and you had to go around with this contraption of for a designated amount of time for your infraction..........bad music playing!

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: harvey andrews
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:40 AM

Lot to be said for Cromwell, Rick...a lot against too! But he wasn't medieval. That I think is 5th to 15th centuries.

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Peg
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:36 AM

I first thought of Alnwick, since it is in the borders area...I went through on a bus to Aberdeen last summer. Gorgeous area; the town itself is built around a big old castle. I certainly want to go back when I can actually spend some time there.

I hope you find it; but I agree with what others have said about other villages in England being absolutely charming!!!

There's Dorchester-on-Thames (nine miles from Oxford, with its old Abbey and many thatched cottages).
There's Wells (five miles from Glastonbury, with its medieval cathedral).
There's Avebury (which isn't much as villages go but it's got the best stone circle in England!)
There's Long Compton (a few miles from Banbury and very near the Rollrights Circle, also worth a visit).

Anyway enjoy your trip!

Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:34 AM

Wow! Great stuff! Wish I DID have a picture.....just a memory though.

OK, I think there's a difference between a very tiny CHURCH, and a very tiny CHAPEL!!! T'was the Chapel we were in.

I'm a Medieval fantasiest....so I can just drift off for an hour thinkin' about the "good ol' days". I completely ignore the atrocious hygiene, the plague, Friggin' Cromwell (both of them) Henry and his nasty little daughters.....and just sit and dream about pastoral scenes in the English countryside.

Keep in mind....where I live, a house built in 1890 is really old!

Cheers

Rick