A Wedding Anniversary Involving A Cotswold Town, a Jacobean House and Village whose Name Inspired a Poem
Gloucestershire |
Cotswold District |
Scary Photos
Lynne and I were married on this day in 1975.
It has taken us 40 years to get from this (were these two old enough to know what they were doing?)…
Wedding Day, July 1975 |
...to this. too late now.
Us in 2015 Is it time we talked about the elephant in the room? It seems to be creeping up on us. |
Moreton-in-Marsh
This year our annual wedding anniversary glimpse into the world of fine dining took us south into the Cotswolds.
Moreton-in-Marsh |
We stopped for a light lunch at a cold and rainy Moreton-in-Marsh. The town was called Moreton-in-the-Marsh until 1930 when the ‘the’ was unaccountably
removed - though even locals often re-insert it in conversation to make it
easier to say. With or without its article, the name suggests a grim sort of
place but, of course, it is not. It is a typical Cotswold small town, built entirely of the local stone which is routinely
(and a little tediously) described as ‘honey-coloured’ and ‘mellow’; there is even
a house called 'Mellow Stone Cottage'.
Curfew Tower, Moreton-in-Marsh |
It is full of square Georgian buildings occupied by banks, younger and older buildings (it is not always easy to tell) housing antique shops, cutesy tea houses, artisan butchers, serious cheese shops and solid-looking, dependable pubs, the sort that have been there for years and are
not likely to close down any time soon.
Tea House, Moreton-in-Marsh |
We had a half pint of Hobgoblin Gold and shared a ham
baguette in one such pub, the Redesdale Arms, built in 1650 of ‘mellow Cotswold
Stone’ (I quote their website).
The Redesdale Arms, Moreton-in-Marsh |
The 2nd Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale in the County of Northumberland, forsook the frozen north for the gentler climes of the
Cotswolds where he brought up his son and six daughters. Each of the daughters
achieved a measure of fame, eminence or notoriety under the family name of
Mitford. The Mitford sisters are all dead now. Diana, the last of them, died in 2014
and was the only one who did what the daughters of aristocrats are supposed to -
marry another aristocrat. As the Duchess of Devonshire she lived at Chatsworth House
in Derbyshire (where else?).
Chastleton House
Oxfordshire |
Vale of the White Horse |
Chastleton House |
Their finances took a serious hit when Arthur Jones, Walter’s grandson backed the wrong side in the civil war. He escaped with his life, due
to the quick thinking of his wife when parliamentarian soldiers came to arrest
him after the battle of Worcester, and went into exile. He was able to return only
after payment of a substantial fine and when the restored monarchy failed to
show its gratitude by refunding the money, the descent into penury amid grand
surroundings began. It was slow, inexorable and extraordinarily long drawn out,
the family finally relinquishing ownership to the National Trust in 1991.
The Great Parlour, Chastleton House |
As they never had the money to extend or remodel the house, or even afford much in the way of new furniture, the National Trust inherited a time capsule of Jacobean life. They decided not to attempt to restore the house to a former glory it never had but to conserve it as it was. It is thus a somewhat down-at-heal time capsule (insofar as a capsule can wear out footwear).
The Long Gallery, Chastleton House, At 22m the longest barrel vaulted room in England |
Photography is permitted inside, though flash is not, so taking pictures in focus required a steady hand.
The Fettiplace Room, high status bedroom, Chastleton House |
The distance from the basement kitchen to the dining room on
the far side of the house is striking - they could never have eaten hot food. The
large high-ceilinged rooms must have made it almost impossible to heat the
house never mind the food, and with oak panelling round so many of the walls,
winters must have been cold and dark.
Kitchen, Chastleton House |
Outside in the stable yard is a second hand bookshop with a somewhat cursory Wolf Hall exhibition. I have read the book but not seen the television series in which Chastleton played the title role, as well as Thomas Cromwell’s childhood home in Putney. Hilary Mantel’s historical research was meticulous but the television producers were more cavalier as the house was not built until 65 years after Thomas Cromwell was executed.
Stableyard, Chastleton House |
Adlestrop
Gloucestershire |
Cotswold District |
I do not know when I first encountered Edward Thomas's poem,
but it was longer ago than I care to remember. It probably stuck in my memory
because of the name, Adlestrop which, at first I believed to be made up.
It took me longer to appreciate the poem as more than a piece of pastoral
fluff, but I have gradually come to see the point - except for that clunky last
line. Adlestrop is right on the boundary of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire
(and Warwickshire for that matter) but did he have to crowbar in this
geographical factoid?
Adlestrop
Yes. I remember Adlestrop
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat, the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire
Adlestrop, pop 120, is real enough - a line of Cotswold stone cottages, all beautifully kept with cottage gardens and hanging baskets
full of flowers - but the station, a victim of the Beeching axe in the 1960s, no
longer exists. The station sign and one of the benches were saved and now sit
in a bus shelter on the edge of the village.
Adlestrop station sign. The plaque by my left elbow is a copy of the poem |
Thomas’ train stopped in Adlestrop on June the 24th 1914. The date the poem was written is unknown, but it was published in 1917, the
year Edward Thomas was killed in action in the Battle of Arras. The contrast
between the rural idyll of Adlestrop and the hell of northern France is
extraordinarily poignant.
Edward Thomas was there on a very different day from us. His
sunshine was our rain, on a day which was colder than any July day I can
remember.
We drove on through Stow-on-the-Wold and towards Bourton-on-the-Water, turning off towards Lower and then Upper Slaughter, two more Cotswold gems, the
latter the home of the Lords of the Manor Hotel and Restaurant, our destination
for the wedding anniversary meal, and the subject of the next post.
Thank you, David. Now I go off to my 32 year old journals to check up on these observations!
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