Posts Tagged ‘local history’

St Bees, Cumbria, UK

Posted: June 23, 2025 in Chat
Tags: , , , ,
1

St Bees is a small village on the Cumbrian coast.
It is also a part of my family history.
If we go back to the early decades of the 20th century… apart from being we’d be shocked and horrified, we’d see that social mobility was almost non-existent; that economic mobility was an important factor. It fell upon young unmarried women to travel out of the area for work, because the men were taken up in the unending drudgery of the local trades.
This travelling for work was called, for some, ‘going into service’, and entailed travelling to towns, cities, to work as maids.
Imagine the culture shock. Moving as a young woman from St Bees, alone, from a sea and agricultural lifestyle, to a busy, landlocked and industrial one.

https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article/women-and-domestic-service-in-victorian-society/
https://lifeinwords.blog/2024/09/11/what-it-meant-to-be-a-maid-in-the-regency/

One of these young women from St Bees was taken on in a small industrial town a great many miles from home, too far to travel daily.
And so my early family and hers met up, there was a marriage, and from this a lifetime of connections.

I remember as a small child visiting this far away place, further than I had ever gone at that age.

There are times we experience the alien ‘otherness’ of the world. That was one of those times, the sea appeared to me as a monstrous beast, whose attention was elsewhere for that moment, luckily. The beach was not fine sand, not even pebbles, but large boulders, all sea-lashed and rounded; the headland rock was beaten down and rolled about by some unaccountable force that was the sea.
What was that refrain Virginia Woolf wrote in The Waves? ‘The sea stamps on the shore like a chained beast’? It was as though this sea had never been chained, it appeared truly monstrous.

Another time when we went down to the shore beneath the headland and an old man was propped against a boulder playing a large button accordion. Was he playing to the sea – to calm its ‘savage breast’? Or practicing for a local music band? Or, heaven forbid! just for pleasure?

*

Wikipedia tells us that the name St Bees comes from ‘Kirkeby Becock,’ which is a corruption of ‘the church of Bega’, a twelfth-century saint. There is the story of an Irish princess escaping from a trapped marriage arrangement. She disavowed her life, and lived piously thereafter across the Irish Sea, in what was to become St Bees, a very small pre-Norman priory..
Wiki says ‘The most likely period for her journey would have been sometime in the thirty years after 850, when the Vikings were settling Ireland.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bees_Priory

But that wasn’t St Bees’ only brush with history:
‘It is known the priory suffered in 1315 from Scots raiders, when after the Battle of Bannockburn James Douglas came south and raided the priory and destroyed two of its mansions.[8] There is also an undated raid, possibly occurring in 1216, 1174, or further back in the reign of King Stephen.[4]‘

Then, when the local church/priory was being renovated in the twentieth century a local tomb was found to contain a relatively intact body – from the fourteenth century:

– ‘St Bees Man was the name given to the extremely well preserved body of a medieval man discovered in the grounds of St Bees Priory, Cumbria, in 1981.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bees_Man

‘The coffin and contents were examined forensically over the following week. The body was reported to exhibit pink skin and visible irises immediately after being exhumed. An autopsy performed on the body shortly after its discovery indicated that the cause of death was most likely a haemothorax caused by a direct blow to the torso.’

‘Although the body was about 600 years old, his nails, skin and stomach contents were found to be in near-perfect condition.[2] The lead sheet in which the body was wrapped excluded moisture whilst the pine pitch coating of the shroud excluded air.’

Researchers have argued over the man’s identity ever since. Such an internment carried with it status. The most plausible candidate is Anthony de Lucy:
‘His identity was subsequently established with a high degree of probability as Anthony de Lucy, 3rd Baron Lucy, who died in 1368, probably killed on crusade at New Kaunas, in what is now Lithuania.[1]‘

‘It is possible that Anthony de Lucy was sent on crusade… by Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick, who had been appointed to a supervisory role over the Wardens of the Marches in 1367, after de Lucy had caused trouble on the English-Scottish border (raiding Annandale, for example). Warwick had been on crusade to Lithuania previously and probably saw a way to re-direct the troublesome energies of de Lucy away from the Scottish Marches.’

Because, yes, the area was under Scottish rule for a short period under James Douglas. Then inevitably came the fight-backs, the to-and-fros of skirmishing. Which is where, the argument has it, young Anthony de Lucy came in.

And as for the ‘crusade’ bit, that’s a bit of unnecessary embellishment. The old adage has it hat Lithuania was one of the last places in Europe to be Christian.
Adventure was to be had, and along with that, money made, towns looted.

And this is where I came in also.
I am currently dipping into some of the Studies in European History series, published by Palgrave.
My current reading is Brandenburg-Prussia 1466-1806, by Karin Friedrich.
The examination of the period begins with the role of the Teutonic Knights, and how they gradually lost status, allies, and had to capitulate to Sigismund, king of Poland. Many of the Teutonic Knights, before the evolved into mostly regional administrators, were in fact fighters like Anthony de Lucy, people looking to make enough money to live on, or running away from trouble, responsibilities.
Anthony de Lucy did not last long in his new role, he received a mortal injury – was his body returned, or did he return by himself? He had no issue, and was buried alone, later joined by his sister.

*

That family base in their later isolation held a few surprising family memories: what an outsider sees, that the insiders hide and work at forgetting, perhaps.

For all the town’s remoteness, a former WW11 armaments factory a few miles down the coast had been refining uranium since before I was born. It became known as Windscale, and suffered a blow-out in 1957 which contaminated huge areas of local land. Farmers had to pour whole yields of milk away for months on end; all agricultural products from the area were proscribed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
Another name change, Sellafield, and the main business now is storage of used nuclear material.

The 1957 accident contaminated much of northern England, and also parts of Europe.

For such a small area, it certainly has had a wide reach, taking in northern Ireland, Scotland, and the whole way across Europe.

Cinema-Themed Well Dressing, 2017

Posted: July 1, 2017 in Chat
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Starting from July 1st, my local town unveils its new Well Dressing  displays. The theme for 2017 is Cinema.
With the one exception.

For more on Well Dressing, see the link: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/25353303/posts/3197

And here is another link, a behind-the scenes view of Well Dressing:

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/237280/posts/1512962951

We start, and the route always starts here, at Greg Fountain, Flash Lane, with a lively display capturing the vivacity of the classic film, Dancing In The Rain, 1952.
You cannot see the detail from the overall shot, but the display features three central characters from the film: Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, flanking  Debbie Reynolds, all in yellow-petal raincoats.

100_1040
As always, with this display, there is a separate side panel for the Mount Hall nursing home. Here we have the ubiquitous American pop-corn, and cinema tickets.

100_1041

Next stop on the route is the Ash Brook display. This is usually the venue for a local school to contribute. This year is another delightfully produced piece, based on Fantasia. We see Mickey Mouse as Sorceror’s Apprentice – remember that scene?

100_1043
For inside pictures follow the link:
http://www.bollingtonstjohns.co.uk/news/well-dressing-2017/26667

There is a long walk now until the next one in the Memorial Gardens. This one has a much darker theme, in keeping with its position, among commemorations for those who died in the two World Wars.
This display gives us a scene from Passchendaele, that terrible, drawn-out massacre. One hundred years ago, this year.

100_1047

Within the same vicinity is another display, back on the cinema theme, but linked to the Passchendaele display: the Clarence Mill display gives us The War Horse film. In close up, the tree trunks/bushes in the background are formed from pasta twists:

100_1045

Breathtaking blues.

We then have another and this time up-hill walk to the Cow Lane display. This is situated above a stone basin that collects the constantly running water.
This year they have chosen a meticulously executed 007, James Bond franchise theme. Again it is a double board, angled over the basin.

100_1050

Then the long trek down hill to the last display of all: Pool Bank Well.
Again this is a triple-board display, and the subject a very elaborately produced cinema bill/poster  of Laurel and Hardy.
They cannot stand alone as champions of the cinema, though. And so, they are flanked by Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton.

100_1049

 

And here, under a large parasol, are tables, seats and benches. Here are sandwiches, cakes, tea and coffee.
Here is the sense of repletion and completion for all who have trod the miles and hills, and have appreciated the displays that have been these past few months in the making.

A very high level of expertise, and imagination, have gone into these displays.
Come and see.
You have until July 9th.

For directions, route, and background, see:
http://www.welldressing.com/venue.php?id=13

THE BLACK PRINCE

Posted: July 26, 2014 in Chat
Tags: , , , ,
3

 

There is a farmhouse in my village, with a plaque dating its construction to 1365. It was supposedly visited by Edward of Woodstock, The Black Prince. It that was so, it must have been in those last furious years before he died, in June 1376, aged 45.

BPplaque (2)

What was he doing around here, on the edge of the Peak District? It must have been all to do with Royal Forests – the local town was based on one, and we have this:

 “On his deathbed, Edward did an extraordinary thing,” says Booth, honorary senior research fellow at Keele University. “He issued a charter disafforesting Wirral in Cheshire, which had been under his rule as earl of Chester. The inhabitants were subjected to hardship and corruption under the forest system, and the pressures of war meant Edward often turned a blind eye to these excesses.

But still, what was he doing so far from the coast?

When we look at the farmhouse in the village we can see it was in those days quite a large size – these obviously were not your regular farmers. The village is almost equidistant between two other long settled communities.

BPplaque (1)

The photo is off-centre – that is because the house is still very much lived-in, and I did not want to intrude too obviously onto their property!

In Prestbury, now an affluent commuter town, we have a Norman chapel; in fact Domesday records do not show a community existed there: there were no living inhabitants. Pre-Christian pottery has been found in the vicinity, though. Speculation has it that that the community must have resisted the new Norman overlords, and paid the price: death. By the 14th Century the community was once again well-established around the chapel and new church of St Stephen. Prestbury, the name has been suggested derived from ‘priest’s enclosure’.

At the other side of this farmhouse is the village of Pott Shrigley, now an isolated community. It does have an old established church, and Shrigley Hall, once owned by the Downes family for 500 years until early 19th Century. Another interesting aspect of Pott Shrigley, and to give some indication of its importance to the region is that when Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army entered the local town, his army swollen with volunteers from Manchester, the Mayor of the town could not do his duty to the King and give them hospitality. Rather than confront them, he left the town to them – they were, records show, very courteous and well behaved. Their return journey was a different story. Shrigley Hall became a Salesian college for a period. Here we have perhaps indication of an old and long-standing Catholic family surviving in private and out-of-the-way parts of Cheshire.

So, where did the Mayor go? Pott Shrigley, of course. The church is the sister church of St Stephen’s in Prestbury.

It could well have been Pott Shrigley that Edward was on his way to visit from the local Royal Forest. From there possibly on to Stockport; Stockport is supposed to be the home of the author of both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Pearl poem around this period. By the time of authorship though it is speculated the writer was most likely part of the royal or county retinue. Sir Gawain was part of the alliterative revival of Chaucer’s period, which coincided with the period of the Black Prince. Edward of Woodstock died before Chaucer had got fully into his stride as a writer. The Green Chapel itself is generally said to be based on Lud’s Church:

LudChch

a few miles south of the main town and on the edge of the Royal Forest.

2

Edward of Woodstock was the eldest son of English King Edward III. He married his cousin Joan, ‘the fair maid of Kent’, with the Pope’s dispensation. His legitimate child Richard became king Richard II, following Edward III’s death. The Black Prince died the year before; missed out completely.

Why the ‘Black’ Prince? It seems we have Froissart to thank for that. In his Chronicles he relates the tale of the massacre of Limoges in 1370:

In late summer 1370, the Bishop of Limoges, Johan de Cross – a friend of Edward’s and godfather to his son – betrayed the prince and defected to the French. He welcomed a garrison into part of the town, and held it against the English.

According to the chronicler Jean Froissart, Edward was incensed at the news and stormed it. A massacre followed, says Froissart.

“It was a most melancholy business – for all ranks, ages and sexes cast themselves on their knees before the prince, begging for mercy; but he was so inflamed with passion and revenge that he listened to none, but all were put to the sword. Upwards of 3,000 men, women and children were put to death that day.”

Like most things, events, people in history there is always leeway for other interpretations.

“Edward of Woodstock was probably not virtue personified, but based on the testimonies I’ve seen, I would say he was probably more virtuous than the average princes of his time,” says Pepin.

Edward was struck down with diseases from his Spanish campaign in 1369. His health just got worse and worse, so much so that he had to be carried into Limoges in 1770 on a litter.

He never got better. He returned to England, his home base at Berkhamsted. In 1371 he attempted another foray into France but it was a failure; both he and the King his father were forced to call it off by bad weather.

This leaves a narrow window of time for us to plot this journey to the farmhouse.

It could well be, times coinciding, that this journey that took in the farmhouse, was one his few in the area and also his last. His destination, in all probability was Peveril Castle, Castleton in Derbyshire. Peveril Castle was his younger brother’s acquistion: it belonged to John of Gaunt.

He could not have been a good house-guest – his temper, never pleasant was made worse by illness. It could well be he and his retinue called in the farmhouse due to illness.

Was this journey, that took in this farmhouse, a journey of self-discovery of how his neglect of the Royal Forests caused much misery and poverty amongst the populace of these regions?