Help us find beaut. tiny English Village

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 - 04:40 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 - 04:53 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 - 04:54 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: 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: 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 - 05:06 PM

English snow!

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

Penny

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Mar 03 - 05:27 PM

Haddon, Cambridgeshire.