 sj |
||
|
||
Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
|
|
|
Subject: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Rick Fielding Date: 12 Feb 03 - 07:22 PM Hi folks. I've left the "BS" designation off this 'cause it may be one of the remaining folk music people who helps us find this little gem. While Heather and I were on our honeymoon 14 years ago and driving from Scotland down to the South of England, we stopped for a couple of hours in an absolutely GORGEOUS tiny village. You'd think I could remember more than this but I can't!! Perhaps near Peterborough. Not far from the main "North-South" road. The tiniest little church I've ever seen. A lady still puts flowers in it everyday. A couple of farmhouse buildings. The lady said it was built by a Crusader shortly after the Norman Conquest. A very simple name (possibly starting with 'H') We wondered aroud for a while and promised ourselves we'd return sometime......BUT....I simply can't FIND it on any map, and I don't have any more information!! Is this too much of a needle in a haystack? Does anyone have a clue? Thanks so much Rick |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: BanjoRay Date: 12 Feb 03 - 07:31 PM Was it on a river? Any pub names? Was it Wansford? Ray |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: GUEST,Dagenham Doc Date: 12 Feb 03 - 07:35 PM Sadly it's underneath some urban/industrial sprawl by now. Hey nonny!! Doc |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: vindelis Date: 12 Feb 03 - 07:44 PM have you tried http://www.eng-villages.co.uk/ ? sorry blue clicky things are not my strong point. The blickie fairy has struck. |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Snuffy Date: 12 Feb 03 - 08:03 PM Wansford was my first thought too, but if it begins with H what about Haddon? That's even closer to Peterborough (but I've never been there) |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Gareth Date: 12 Feb 03 - 08:20 PM A caution - the defenitions of near by US of A standards, and UK standards differ, by several hundred miles. Just a thought. Gareth |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 12 Feb 03 - 08:25 PM From what you said it might be Hamerton, Hemington, Holme, Haddon, Helpston or Harringworth. Assuming the "H" is correct. Searching through Google might come up with the goods - seveal have links. Here's a link to of them Holme, with a drawing of the church, which looks smallish. And a link to a page about a Flower Festival in the church. |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Rick Fielding Date: 12 Feb 03 - 08:28 PM Haddon!!!! That just may be it! I'll check. Hi Gareth. Well I'm certainly not American....but Canadian distances are even LONGER! I'll get on the case. Thanks Rick |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Joe Offer Date: 12 Feb 03 - 08:46 PM Well, Rick, IanC lives in Ashwell in Hertfordshire, and it's about as perfect a village as I can imagine. -Joe Offer- |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Rick Fielding Date: 12 Feb 03 - 08:51 PM Well it MIGHT be Haddon. I just checked out Haddon Hall and it seems a bit fancy for the place we stopped at. The chapel SEEMS bigger as well...it was VERRRY tiny. I'll keep checking. Rick |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 12 Feb 03 - 09:18 PM Try that link I gave to Holme - it's got pictures of their parish church, St Giles. And even if its not the place, it's well worth payingte site a visit -it has a fascinating load of stuff about a floating church the parish used to have, on a narrow-boat in the Fens. |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Jim Dixon Date: 12 Feb 03 - 10:58 PM There are LOTS of beautiful villages in England. You might be better off forgetting the one you can't identify and look for different ones instead. Here are some of my favorites: Kirkby Lonsdale. Burford. Stow-on-the-Wold. I've seen other lovely ones whose names don't come to mind right now. (OK, those might be towns, not villages, but what does it matter?) I've always had my best times in places I didn't really plan to travel to, but just happened to run across. |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 13 Feb 03 - 04:43 AM As Jim said, almost all our villages have a medieval church, still lovingly tended by parishoners. I never tire of exploring country churches and churchyards. Likewise pubs. Have a great stay, Keith. |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: IanC Date: 13 Feb 03 - 04:49 AM Rick How far from Peterborough would you say it was (in miles or in muntes)? Also how far from the main N-S road (the A1)? I know most of the villages up that way, so might be able to trace some more possibilities. :-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Gareth Date: 13 Feb 03 - 07:18 AM Sorry Rick - of course your a Canadian. Gareth |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Dave Bryant Date: 13 Feb 03 - 07:28 AM Rick - you'll just have to come over and make the trip again - stopping off to see all us UK catters at the same time ! |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Ringer Date: 13 Feb 03 - 09:12 AM Isn't Haddon Hall in Derbyshire? (Nr Bakewell?) 60 miles from Peterborough. |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: jimmyt Date: 13 Feb 03 - 09:32 AM This reminds me of the Thomas Wolfe "You can't go home again" idea. I have tried to repeat magical experiences frequently in tiny English villages, and somehow they are never quite the same as when you first discover them. Being a lover of English villages,though, I would recommend the Cotswolds with literally hundreds of villages within a few mile span in the corner of Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Such places as Upper and Lower Slaughter, Bourton on the Water, Stanton, Stanway and Snowshill, Bibury, Broadway,Great Rissingtooon, Little Rissington, well, as you can see thee list is endless. My wife and I just get in the car and drive for hours, stopping at whatever we fancy. Still have just scratched the surface. For thatched villages, I think Hampshire and WIltshire and Somerset seem to have a lot of quaint villages, and who could leave out the beautiful Devon, Cornwall and Dorset Villages? Well, I have to go plan a trip, see you later! |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 13 Feb 03 - 09:41 AM I agree on the Cotswolds, and you seldom find a church locked. Likewise Cornwall and Devon. Keith. |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: jimmyt Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:06 AM after reading my own post and that of Keith's I am sure I would be remiss to not mention that Winterton-on-sea in Norfolk is one of my favorites as well as Leigh in Surrey a few miles from Gatwick!, LLangollen in north Wales, Grassmere in Cumbria (I think it is Cumbria, at any rate it is in the Lake District) Well, you get the point, pretty much near wherever you are in England, in my experience, there is a very quaint little village just waiting on being discovered and explored. Wales and Scotland too. Aberfoyle and Callendar come to mind in Scotland, along with Ruthin in Wales, Oh dear, I need to get on a plane! |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Rick Fielding Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:07 AM Wish I knew how far it was from the main North South road. Not far....that's for sure (cuz I think we saw somthing from the hiway.) I'm checking ALL these little villages out now.....BEAUTIFUL!! I know that the Church was the smallest I'd ever been in. Doubt if it would have held 20 people. Thanks a ton! Rick |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: nutty Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:09 AM Have you got a picture you could post Rick????? That might help |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Lepus Rex Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:14 AM There seem to be lots of small English churches claiming to be the "smallest church in England," if that helps. :) ---Lepus Rex
|
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: Lepus Rex Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:14 AM Oops... |
|
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village From: jimmyt Date: 13 Feb 03 - 10:23 AM Sorry about the thread creep,but this just jogged one of my favorite English village memories. We were eating dinner at a pub called the Plough in Leigh, Surrey, about 10 miles and 300 years from Gatwick Airport. The church bells started ringing and continued for about the entire meal. I asked the publican what was going on with the bells. "It's Thursday," he replied, as if this cleared up the matter. Upon seeing the confusion on my face, he said "Bell practice" We walked over to the little parish church after paying at the pub, and when the bellringers saw us come in, they insisted that we come up in the belfrey to observe the bells , how they worked, showed us the rather odd music, and them told us proudly that these bells had been hanging in the church when the Armada had come up the channel, had been buried during the civil war to prevent Cromwell's men from melting them down and making cannon out of them, then were lovingly returned to the church. One of our outstanding memories of an English Village experience. |
|
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 |
|
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: jimmyt Date: 14 Feb 03 - 08:44 PM Rick! Hu9ll! Tha9t coul9d be it! |
|
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 |
| Share Thread: |