Southwell

A Minster, Some Apples and a Workhouse

Nottinghamshire

Southwell: Introduction

Today is my 66th birthday, which makes me very definitely an Old Git. I am unsure how this happened and I did try to stop it twice; at 25 and again at 60 I decided I was content where I was and resolved to stop aging. I failed.

So, accepting the inevitable, I celebrated my birthday by driving the 70 miles to Southwell for a day out.

Southwell sits in a rural triangle formed by the main roads connecting Mansfield, Newark-on-Trent and Nottingham. It is an old, pleasant and obviously prosperous town. Apparently all the money of north Nottinghamshire spins round this triangle before settling at the centre in Southwell and its surrounding villages.

I have always called the town Suh-thull – and as do most others, but Wikipedia claims that locals pronounce it as spelt. That may be right and there are several claimants for the site of the original south well, including in the Admiral Rodney pub.

King Street, Southwell with the Admiral Rodney 50m down on the right

A little further along is the 15th century Saracen’s Head. In May 1646 King Charles I spent his last night of freedom here (it was then, with macabre though unconscious irony, known as the King’s Head) before surrendering to the Scottish Army, who later sold him on to the Parliamentarians.

The Saracen's Head, Southwell

Southwell Minster

A short walk took us to Southwell Minster, the town’s largest and most important building. In the 7th century ‘minster’ designated a settlement of clergy living a communal life, it is now an honorific title historically attached to some cathedrals (notably York) and more recently granted to important parish churches.

Southwell Minster has been an important church for a millennium, but only became the Cathedral of the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham in 1884. Traditionally ‘cities’ were the sites of diocesan cathedrals but that link was broken in 1888. Although there are now many cities without cathedrals (like Nottingham*), almost all communities with cathedrals are cities. With 7,000 inhabitants Southwell would be a small city, though three times the size of the city of St David’s, but it remains, as it always has been, a town.

Southwell Minster, the unusual 'pepperpot' spires hide a stumpy tower over the crossing

Once a Roman villa occupied the site but legend tells that a church was established here in 627 by St Paulinus, the first Bishop of York who was visiting and baptising converts. A Victorian stained glass window shows John the Baptist baptising Christ in the Jordan and beneath Paulinus, holding a model of the church (unusual in the C of E but common in Eastern Orthodox churches) facing a group of converts across a somewhat schematic River Trent (apparently near its confluence with the Jordan!) The model (partly obscured by the bars) is of the mid-19th century church and lacks the pepperpot spires as they burned down after a lightning strike in 1771 and were not replaced until 1880.

John the Baptist, the Jordan, the Trent and St Paulinus - and a nativity scene thrown in for good measure
Southwell Minster

The Normans started building a new church in 1108 and finished around 1150, re-using much of the fabric of the Saxon church. A section of Saxon floor tiles – half a metre below the modern floor level – can be seen in the south transept and a Saxon tympanum remains in situ in the north transept.

Saxon tympanum, Southwell Minster

The nave is impressively Romanesque, though the barrel vaulted ceiling dates only from 1880 when it replaced a flat ceiling built after the 1771 fire.

The nave, Southwell Minster

The impressively carved pulpitum in the crossing dates from 1340.

Pulpitum, Southwell Minster

It was carved with humour and is full of detail.

Detail, pulpitum, Southwell Minster

In 1240, less than a hundred years after it was completed, the quire was demolished and replaced with a much enlarged English Gothic structure. It feels too big, and the change of style from the nave is so abrupt it is like walking into a different building. No doubt it all felt terribly modern at the time, 800 years later it looks (to me, at least) like a mistake.

The quire, Southwell Minster

Sculptues by Peter Eugene Ball and Jonathon Clarke

The minster is also home to some fine modern works. Peter Eugene Ball’s Christus Rex in the nave is the most prominently displayed.

Christus Rex, Peter Eugene Ball, Southwell Minster

An exhibition of Peter Eugene Ball’s sculptures filled the chapter house and the artist himself was there. He works with driftwood and assorted found objects, coating them in copper and other metals. If I had a couple of grand spare I might now be the owner of Waiting for Godot.

Waiting for Godot, Peter Eugene Ball, Chapter House, Southwell Minster

The Stations of the Cross in sand cast aluminium by Jonathan Clarke are impressive and you are encouraged to touch the sculptures as you admire them.

Staions of the Cross
No 7 Christ Falls for the Second Time, Jonathan Clarke, Southwell Minster

The Bishop’s Palace next door was largely destroyed by Cromwell’s soldiers, though Southwell generally escaped lightly. The Great Hall survived and is usually open to the public, but not today as it was booked for a wedding.

The Great Hall and the Prebendary Houses

The Bishop's Palace, Southwell

The 19 Prebends of Southwell were senior clergymen who lived around the cathedral in comfortable circumstances in ‘prebendal houses’. The Prebends have gone, but 10 of their houses survive including the house of the Prebend of Rampton. Rampton village, 20 miles north of Southwell is best known for its Secure Hospital.

The West Gate of the minster and the Rampton Prebendal House, Southwell

Southwell: The Home of Bramley apples

Church Street runs beside the minster. In 1809 Mary Ann Brailsford planted some apple pips in her Church Street garden. After Matthew Bramley bought the house in 1846 a local nurseryman asked if he could take cuttings from the tree and sell the apples. Bramley agreed as long as they were sold under his name. Bramleys, too tart to eat but perfect for cooking, now account for 95% of the cooking apple orchards in England and Wales. The original tree survives and still bears fruit.

Church Street, Southwell
I do not claim the house with the apple tree is necessarily in this picture

We had soup and a cup of tea in a café in King Street then drove to the northern edge of town to the workhouse.

Southwell Victorian Workshouse

It is ironic that amid such prosperity the workhouse should be a major tourist attraction. Poor houses had existed for many years but Southwell Workhouse, built in 1824, was widely praised and after the New Poor Law of 1834 became the template for the Victorian Workhouse.

The driving force behind its establishment was the Rev John Becher. He became one of Southwell’s prebendaries in 1818 and later vicar-general. He was an earnest social reformer and was instrumental in setting up a local Friendly Society into which poorer residents could make payments, as insurance should they fall on hard times.

Southwell Workhouse
What the Rev John Becher would have made of common people picnicking in the grounds we can only speculate

He then turned his attention to poor relief. At that time the parish, which was responsible for paupers, practised indoor relief – the payment of small sums to the needy in their homes. Becher was concerned that this encouraged idleness and championed ‘outdoor relief’ in which paupers were concentrated in one building, the workhouse, where they were not permitted to be idle.

‘Outdoor relief’ was initially more expensive, but he thought that by making workhouse conditions sufficiently unpleasant only those in genuine need would go there and thus idleness (which he regarded as the greatest of sins) among the general population would be discouraged. ‘A good workhouse,’ he said, ‘is an empty workhouse.'

Paupers could easily be divided into the ‘blameless and deserving,’….

The Blameless and Deserving
Note the straight back, the submissive half-smile and the way she keeps a firm grip on the handbag holding all her meagre wealth

…by which he meant those too old and infirm to work, and the ‘idle and profligate,’...

The idle and profligate
This man has not worked for several years. Note the way he slouches on the bench - and he cannot even be bothered to wear socks

...meaning any able bodied man or woman who was unemployed. Becher was dogmatic and inflexible and seemingly incapable of recognising ‘paupers’ as fellow human beings. I doubt I would have liked him, but I think he was well motivated, genuinely believing he was working to improve peoples’ lives and should be judged by the standards of his times. Some of his ideas, like ‘welfare dependency’ (not a phrase he would have used, but a concept he understood) have returned in modern Conservative thinking, indeed at times Ian Duncan Smith appeared to be channelling John Becher. He too should be judged by the standards of his times, and rather more harshly (in my pinko opinion).

By the 20th century residents were overwhelmingly the elderly and infirm. In 1929 workhouses were abolished and local authorities were encouraged to turn their infirmaries into municipal hospitals. Southwell Workhouse, Greet House as it became known, remained in use until the early 1990s, providing temporary shelter for mothers and children. It is now owned by the National Trust.

The workhouse had two wings, one for men, one for women who were rigidly segregated, even if they were married couples. Between the wings was the master’s office and accommodation. The wings were further subdivided into ‘infirm’ and ‘able bodied’ and again rigidly separated.

In the yards, men broke rocks or ground flour by hand. Women did domestic chores including the laundry. The pump in the yard still works.

Work Yard, Southwell Workhouse

Work was deliberately made tedious. Picking oakum, which could be done by children and involved shredding old ropes to be used to caulk new ships, had the added 'advantage' of damaging the pickers’ fingers.

Picking oakum, Southwell Workhouse
There would have been more old rope and more children - and less well dressed and well fed than these two

There are four segregated exercise yards at the back surrounded by high walls, though the master's windows were placed so he could spy on them all. In the tiny area by the front wall of the able bodied men’s yard, just out of his sight, a gaming board has been scratched in the brickwork.

Exercise yard overlooked by the Master's office

Little is known about workhouse furniture so the rooms are largely bare, though the master has a desk to sit at and a window to look out of. For everybody else walls were high and windows small so they could see little of the outside world. Workhouses were not prisons, inmates could discharge themselves any time they wished, but they could not come and go as they pleased. They could not take a country walk, or go into town, and as they wore workhouse uniform they would have been immediately spotted if they tried.

Master's Office, Southwell Workhouse

The style of the, not particularly comfortable, beds is guesswork, though marks on the floor show they are in the right places. There would have been another one in the space in front of Lynne.

Dormitory, Southwell Workhouse

The kitchen is probably accurate. The diet looked monotonous, with lots of gruel (wheat boiled in milk), porridge and bread. An allowance of 5oz of meat three days a week sounds generous by the standards of the time, though how much was bone and gristle is another matter. A large garden sits just outside the wall where today volunteers grow a huge variety of vegetables. The same garden was cultivated by inmates in the 19th century, but the only vegetables they ever saw were potatoes.

Kitchen Southwell Workhouse

There were children in the workhouse, segregated from their parents (if they had any) and a teacher and schoolroom were provided to ensure a basic education. One of the anomalies of the workhouse system was that children inside often received better education than poor children putside – and there was medical treatment for those needing it, which they would have been unable to afford outside.

Schoolteacher looks scary, Schoolroom, Southwell Workhouse

Despite these advantages, life in the workhouse was clearly grim.

That evening I sat in my armchair with a glass of champagne while Lynne toiled in the kitchen preparing a birthday meal of venison paté and breast of guinea fowl on a bed of spicy lentils with a macédoine of vegetables. Mine is not a life in the workhouse (though I have occasionally been in the doghouse). I was lucky in the age, location and situation of my birth, and I have ridden that wave of good fortune ever since. In different circumstances I could have found myself in the workhouse, or worse, so I sipped my champagne and remembered to be grateful for life’s bounty – I think that is better than being unbearably smug (though sometimes…..

* I was referring only to C of E Cathedrals - Nottingham does have a Roman Catholic Cathedral

Melton Mowbray and the Vale of Belvoir, Stilton Cheese and Pork Pies: The Tasting

A Melton Mowbray Pork Pie and a Comparative Tasting of Four Blue Stiltons

If you have read the previous post, you will know we returned from Melton Mowbray and the Vale of Belvoir with a pork pie and slabs of cheese from four of the five local creameries - four of the six current Blue Stilton producers.

So we had to eat them.

23-Jun-2016

Dickinson & Morris Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

The pork pie provided lunch on Thursday and Friday (it was a big pie).

Dickinson & Morris Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

The Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association gained Protected Geographical Indication status from the EU [Feb 2021: The post Brexit situation is currently unclear] The association has ten members and we have one pie, so this was not a comparative tasting.

Traditionally pork pies were agricultural workers’ lunch. They could be taken to the fields and the meat stayed safe and clean inside its pastry shell which was (until the 18th century) discarded not eaten.

Dickinson & Morris Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

From the late 17th century Melton Mowbray was the centre of three major fox hunts, the Quorn, the Cottesmore and the Belvoir*, each hunting several times a week throughout the autumn and winter fuelled by industrial quantities of Pork Pies. The season coincided with the annual pig slaughter, so fresh pork was used. The meat in Melton Mowbray pies is thus grey, the colour of roast pork, not the pink of processed pork used in other pies. The other two distinguishing features of Melton Mowbray pies is that the meat is chopped not minced and the pies are baked free standing so have a slightly bowed appearance.

Dickinson & Morris Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

I have always liked a pork pie, it makes a fine lunch with salad and home-made chutney. I enjoyed the Dickinson & Morris pie and have eaten many before – they are widely available. It was good, but would I drive all the way to Melton Mowbray if it was the only place to buy it? Probably not. Would I pick one up in my local supermarket as I passed? Yes, I would.

25-Jun-2016

The Stiltons

The Pork Pie, whether Melton Mowbray or not, is a peculiarly British delicacy. Fine cheeses, however, can be found all over Europe and beyond, and Stilton is up there with the finest.

Colston Bassett Blue Stilton

Stilton received its EU Protected Designation of Origin status in 1996[ Feb 2021: Again, the post Brexit situation is currently unclear] , and all Blue Stiltons (about a million cheeses a year) are made the same way.

Clawson Blue Stilton

How Stilton is Made

(The following is a précis of the description on the Stilton Cheesemakers Association website). Rennet and penicillium roqueforti (blue mould spores) are added to pasteurised cow’s milk. Once the curds have formed, they are allowed to drain overnight. The following morning, the curd is cut into blocks to allow further drainage before being milled and salted. It is placed in cylindrical moulds which are turned daily to allow natural drainage and ensure an even distribution of moisture. The cheese is not pressed so it develops a flaky open texture.

Cropwell Bishop Blue Stilton

After 5 or 6 days, the cylinders are removed and the cheese is transferred to a temperature and humidity controlled store where it is turned regularly. At 5 weeks when the cheese is forming the traditional Stilton crust it is pierced with stainless steel needles allowing air to enter the body of the cheese, activate the penicillium roqueforti and create the blue veins.

Tuxford and Tebbutt Blue stilton

Tasting the Stiltons

Saturday lunch was a Stilton tasting, but of course you cannot eat Stilton all on its on, you also need crackers, bread, butter and, of course, a glass (preferably two) of Tawny Port.

Saturday lunchtime Stilton tasting

Remembering that the opinions are personal and apply only to our randomly bought samples, we thought the general standard was high and there was not much between them. We disagreed about two of the cheeses but overall achieved a measure of consensus.

We both liked Colston Bassett the best. It looked the picture of a piece of Stilton and was creamy, smooth and utterly delicious. Perhaps a little stronger than the others, it had a marked and pleasing 'blue' flavour.

Colston Bassett Blue Stilton

Second we placed the Clawson. It did not look as good, the blue being so smeared in the cutting (was it cut with a knife rather than a wire?) that the photograph looks out of focus, though it is not. Cutting inside it looked fine and the texture was gloriously creamy, the flavour mild with a flick of 'blueness' at the finish.

Clawson Blue Stilton

We disagreed over the last two. I thought the Tuxford and Tebbutt had a sheen like a factory produced cheese. I did not like the pasty texture, could detect no flavour of blue and rated it the weakest.

Tuxford and Tebbutt Blue Stilton

Lynne, on the other hand, found a flavour in the Cropwell Bishop that she did not like. I thought the blue was over-concentrated when it should be veined through the cheese but I liked its slight crumbliness and extra sharpness.

Cropwell Bishop Blue Stilton

Overall we were surprised how mild they were. I am sure Stilton used to be a strong cheese, but this may be the effect of age on our palates - or maybe we have become habituated to fiery curries on our Asian travels.

* Despite the 2004 hunting ban, all three hunts still operate and claim they do so within the law. Quite how they do that is a mystery to me.

Melton Mowbray and the Vale of Belvoir, Stilton Cheese and Pork Pies: The Journey

Searching for Stilton Cheese and Pork Pies in the Places they are Made

Leicestershire

Stilton cheese has six licensed producers, one in Melton Mowbray and four more in the Vale of Belvoir immediately to the north. We thought we might pay them a visit, so we drove the 60 miles to Melton Mowbray.

Melton Mowbray

With the rain just holding off we walked past Anne of Cleves’ house towards the market square. A much restored medieval building it once housed the priests of the town’s chantry chapels. After the dissolution of the monasteries Henry VIII gave the house to Thomas Cromwell who lived there in 1540 but fell from grace after recommending Anne of Cleves to be Henry’s 4th wife and was executed in 1541. Ironically, the house passed to Anne of Cleves as part of her divorce settlement but although it bears her name she probably never even visited. It is now a pub.

Anne of Cleves' House, Melton Mowbray

The Butter Cross

Tuesdays and Saturdays are market days, so on Wednesday only a couple of forlorn looking stalls sat alongside the restored Butter Cross. Once there were four market crosses, today they would have outnumbered the stalls. We retreated to a coffee house and watched the rain splattering onto the flagstones.

Butter Cross, Melton Mowbray Market

Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe

Conveniently the shower stopped as we finished our coffee so we made our way up the High Street to ‘Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe’ (sic and yugh!) where we bought a Melton Mowbray pork pie. Dickinson Morris have been artisan pie-makers since 1851 but are no longer a family business and in 1992 were acquired by Samway Brothers, whose food empire stretches from Leicester to Cornwall (Ginsters Pasties). It is well laid out, but an artisan shop should have enthusiastic and knowledgeable employees and the staff gave the impression they would just as happily be selling baked beans or footwear.

Dickinson & Morris, Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe, Melton Mowbray

The Carnegie Museum

Back past the market square….

Market Square, Melton Mowbray

We continued towards the Tuxford and Tebbutt creamery. The Carnegie Museum is next door….

Carnegie Museum, Melton Mowbray

…and as it is free we dropped in. There is a display of foxhunting which in its modern (and now illegal) form was developed locally. The rest of the small space was aimed at school groups, which visit regularly. It feels strange to see items from our own childhood in museums (are we that old⁈) but it was well presented and I did like the chemist’s shop.

Chemist's shop, Carnegie Museum, Melton Mowbray

Tuxford and Tebbutt, Stilton Producers

Tuxford and Tebbutt, established 1780, also give the impression they are a family company but are wholly owned by Arla – the dairy farmers co-operative. Next to this quaint building is the forbidding modern creamery and there did not seem to be any factory shop. Morrison’s was across the road so we decided to peruse their Stilton. It was ‘own label’ and gave no clue to the manufacturer, though I know Tuxford and Tebbutt supply a lot of own label Stilton. Down the road a butcher was advertising Tuxford and Tebbutt Stilton so we bought some there.

Tuxford and Tebbutt, Melton Mowbray

In 1923 the winemakers of Châteauneuf du Pape, fed up with others cashing in on their reputation, sought legal protection for their name. Ten years later, after carefully defining the area and method of production, they succeeded and the appellation contrôlée system was born. The idea spread throughout the wine world, and then to other drinks and foods like olive oil, honey and ham.

In England, where food is considered a commodity rather than a cultural asset, the idea hardly caught on, though Stilton cheesemakers bucked the trend by forming an association to protect the origin and quality of their product in 1933. In 1966 it became the only British cheese to be protected by a trademark and 1996 they applied for and received Protected Designation of Origin status from the EU, so Stilton now stands alongside such delights as Parma Ham, Camembert and the Almonds of the Douro. In 2009 Melton Mowbray Pork Pies joined the EU’s elite band of protected geographical designations.[Update: Now that we have blundered out of the EU I am not sure what the situation is]

With two such products Melton Mowbray might appear justified in styling itself ‘Rural Capital of Food’, but with one pie shop and no visible effort put into promoting Stilton, it feels an overblown claim. It is worth taking another look at the picture of the market square, zooming in on the van in the centre. ‘Classic Cuisine - Cheeseburgers, Fries.’ I say no more.

Classic Cuisine, Melton Mowbray

Colston Bassett

Nottinghamshire

We headed north through lush countryside towards Cropwell Bishop, home of the northernmost of the five Stilton dairies. Melton Mowbray may have looked down at heel but the rural villages were full of prosperous well-kept homes and flowery lanes.

We paused for lunch in Colston Bassett, which also has a dairy, but one we would leave until a little later. The Martins Arms was a delight…

Martins Arms, Colston Bassett

… and the weather had perked up enough for us to have lunch in the carefully tended garden. The staff were attentive and friendly, the Black Sheep well kept and the Colston Bassett Stilton sandwich substantial enough to share. But, and it seemed an important ‘but’, the chutney in the sandwich overwhelmed the cheese

 

Martin Arms, Colston Bassett

Only when I paid the bill and read that the Martins Arms had been voted Nottinghamshire’s Best Dining Pub did I realise we had crossed the border from Leicestershire.

PDO rules allow Stilton to be made in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire from locally sourced cow’s milk. The method of production is defined and the quality protected by a taste test. Perhaps uniquely the village which gave the PDO its name is not included within the designated area. Stilton, in Cambridgeshire, is another 50mins drive east. It was the coach stop on the road north where cheese was marketed, not where it was produced, though this has been disputed.[Update: I suspect the rules are, for the moment at least, unchanged, though no longer backed by the EU]

Cropwell Bishop, Stilton Producer

Cropwell Bishop, also in Nottinghamshire, is a large village on the northern edge of the Vale of Belvoir. The Skailes family founded Somerset Creameries in 1941. They originally owned creameries in Somerset and Melton Mowbray but bought Cropwell Bishop in 1973 when they closed the West Country operation. Major investments were made here in the 1980s and the Melton Mowbray dairy was closed. The ‘Somerset Creameries’ name lingered until 2005 when the company, still run by the Skailes family, became Cropwell Bishop Creamery.

Cropwell Bishop Creamery

There is no access to the creamery, but they do have a proper shop, which offers a proper tasting. They let us loose on their fine classic Stilton, Shropshire Blue, harder, yellower and less interesting than Stilton, a rather ho-hum mature cheddar and the excellent Beauvale, a soft blue cheese reminiscent of Dolcelatte.

Lynne attacks classic Stilton, Cropwell Bishop Creamery

The shop stocks their full range including white Stilton (to my mind, Stilton with something missing) and Stilton with fruit inclusions, cranberries, apricots etc, for those who fail to realise that what white Stilton is actually missing is the blue veins.

Cropwell Bishop shop

Colston Bassett, Stilton Producer

We drove back to Colston Bassett….

Colston Bassett, definitely in Nottinghamshire

…..where the creamery shop only offered one cheese, but at least it was the right one. The company was started in 1913 when the local doctor persuaded farmers and others to invest in starting a creamery. The enterprise has thriven.

Colston Bassett Creamery and shop

The wide Vale of Belvoir is top quality agricultural country, though we saw no cattle despite cheese being its most famous product.

The Vale of Belvoir (pronounced Beaver - don't ask me why)

Long Clawson, Stilton Producer

Leicestershire

Long Clawson (back in Leicestershire) lives up to its name, being an extraordinarily long thin village. The dairy, right at one end, is not set up for visitors, but there is a fridge by reception from which sales are made.

Clawson Creamery reception (there's a fridge for sales in there)

Another home-grown enterprise, it was founded in 1911 by local farmers and now employs 200 people who make almost 7,000 tonnes of cheese yearly from the milk of 40 farms.

Clawson Creamery, Long Clawson

Saxelby, Alleged Stilton Producer

Websters, in the hamlet of Saxelby, is the fifth local producer. It is a family concern run by two sisters who, according to their website, welcome visitors. Unfortunately we could not find it, though we drove up, then down the main street. Looking at Google street view I can see where it should be, but if they had a sign, I could not see it.[Update: in 2016 I wondered if they had gone out of business. But not so - or at least not then. In December 2020 the Melton Times reported that the pandemic had produced a 16% drop in Stilton sales and as a result Websters had closed. There is no indication as to whether it will ever reopen.]

And so, with four pieces of Stilton and a Melton Mowbray pork pie we set off home. Apparently neither Melton Mowbray nor the Stilton industry are very interested in marketing themselves to visitors (though Cropwell Bishop is trying), so although it was a good day out, it was not a great one. Quality food and tourism have much to offer each other, if this was France there would undoubtedly be ‘route de fromage’, so why not here?

Hartington, Stilton Producer

Derbyshire

For completeness I will also mention the sixth Blue Stilton producer based in the Derbyshire Village of Hartington – rather a long way from the other five. Once owned and then closed by Clawson, the creamery reopened in 2012 and has been making Stilton since 2014. I should also add there are other producers of White Stilton, but I have made my opinion on that clear already.

My friends and walking companions Brian and Francis in the Peak District village of Hartington (Feb 2012)

So that is the tourist bit, now on to the tasting - it is the next post.