Life and Death on the Fringe
The concept of the favourite aunt or uncle has always seemed a tad too sentimental for the likes of Terroir. We had no shortage of appropriate relatives. Between us we can muster seven uncles (of which four share our DNA) and twelve aunts (of which a mere five are genetically connected). The arithmetic is interesting, I agree, but multiple marriages (in sequence, we are not aware of any bigamy), plus an extra family lurking in the shadows, make for the usual complicated familial links. Some we never met, or even knew about as children. The known uncles and aunts were loved and appreciated but never promoted to ‘favourite’ status.
One set of relatives, however, has always generated an irresistible magic (one of Scary Great Granny’s daughters married into the clan – see Booth map blogs) and some years ago, I promoted a first-cousin-once-removed clan member to Favourite Cousin. No one could accuse Meg of being saccharine or a cliché. I first consciously met her when I was maybe six or seven years old, she in her early 30s, a tall figure in a beautiful summer dress. She knew how to engage with children - and also how to buy them presents. I still have that wooden jigsaw puzzle of the United States of America. I rated her as special from then on and was never disappointed. I hope she will forgive me for promoting her to ‘favoured’ status.
Last month, Meg died at the age of 92. I was uncharacteristically upset. The funeral was a Covid 19 limited edition, but with space for Terroir amongst the congregation of 30 max. The location was the Cotswold village of Ilmington, where Meg had previously lived for many years.
Why had Meg chosen Ilmington as her favoured terroir? It turned out that Ilmington had chosen her. A cousin (obviously not on the Terroir side, to whom such things do not happen) had left Meg a house in the village (a joint inheritance with someone else). Possibly scenting internecine warfare, the house was put up for sale, but the transaction later fell through. Realising the house was rather special, Meg and husband upped sticks, left the south east and moved in. They were right about the house and, fortunately, right about the village too.
Ilmington depicted on an Ordnance Survey map of 1897
The contours to the south west of the village rise inexorable up Campden Hill to the top of Ebrington Hill (731 feet above sea level). The gardens of Hidcote and Kiftsgate lie on the lower, western slopes of the hill.
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
Ilmington is described as a Cotswold Fringe Village. This seems to be an established typology, relating partly to geography (Ilmington is on the very northern fringes of the Cotswolds) rather than a derogatory comment on village character. It is also noted as the highest village in the Cotswolds and lies at the base of Ebrington Hill, the highest point in Warwickshire. I can bear witness to a certain draughtiness which becomes apparent when the sun goes in on an otherwise fine March morning.
Apart from its immediate attraction as a honey-coloured Cotswold village (however fringe), two specific things strike me about Ilmington. One is related to food and drink, and the other to architecture and buildings, both an integral part of any discourse on terroir.
Farmers have probably been cultivating the Cotswolds since the Neolithic period (from about 6,000 years ago) but Terroir’s sources of information stem from a slightly more recent era. Go to http://www.fabulous-50s.com/memories/oral-histories.html and you will find a rich seam of oral history called ‘Ilmington Remembers the 1950s’, inspired by celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1977. The stories are captivating, and revealing about post-war Ilmington life, which very much revolved around agriculture and its supporting trades and activities.
Two things stand out. During a time of continued food rationing, when other communities were still struggling to find a sufficiency and variety of nourishment, it appears that the village had plenty to eat. Gardens and allotments were the norm, obviously well tended and productive, even to the level of providing a suplus for sale (there is a mention of one family producing over a ton of potatoes in a year). Blackberries were foraged for eating or selling on. Meat was avalable - often in the form of rabbit, but a more traditonal Sunday roast did not seem uncommon and there was a butcher in the village as well as a grocer. Local farmers had dairy herds and there is mention of milk available as well as fruit for making puddings. No one seems to mention hunger, and many comment on having enough to eat.
The other recurring theme relates to orchards. Lots of orchards. There is mention of plums grown locally, but the product of the apple orchards seems to have made the biggest impact, with many farm workers reported as receiving considerable quantities of cider as part remuneration for their daily labours!
The maps below show that orchards were significant thoughout the late 19C and though to the interwar years of the 20C. Both oral history and mapping confirm the importance of the orchards in the early 1950s, but by the end of that decade, surveys show the bginning of reduction in area. The orchards today are sad remnants of their former glory, more so perhaps than even in Kent or Herefordhire. Some of Ilmington’s orchards are extant but derelict, others converted to alternative uses including housing.
Terroir has, however, just ordered some refreshment from a renewed interest in the apple harvest resulting from remaining trees, and we will report back on the apple brandy and dry gin in due course.
All map images reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
Satelite image of Ilmington today.
A new tree-scape now characterises Ilmington but it is still possible to pick out where the orchards used to be.
© Google Maps 2021
Railway gricer alert: check out the route of the Morton-in-Marsh to Stratford Tramway, a horse drawn system authorised in 1821 to supplement the canal system, and visible on both maps of eastern Ilmington and on the satellite image.
Terroir is in possession of another document relating to food, this time a substantial cookery book, produced in 1982 to raise funds for the Ilmington Church Roof Fund. I can still remember Meg flogging us a copy in a determined effort to do her bit.
We can’t find a single recipe with her name on it, but it is obvious that diets have changed a lot since the Cider with Rosie era of the 1950s. Bacon Jack, Back-bone Pie and Soldiers Cake are now heavily outnumbered by Tonille aux Pêches, Bermudian Banana Fritters and Sole à L’Indienne. I leave you to draw your own conclusions on the changes in lifestyle and demographic.
But I also mentioned architecture and housing, and those honey-coloured, marlstone Cotswold buildings. Unsurprisingly, Ilmington is a very attractive village (excepting the draughts). Unsurprisingly it is also heavily regulated. The Cotswolds were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) (aka be innovative and outstanding before you even think about trying to build a house) in 1966. It was the 14th AONB to be designated and I’ve not begun to work out why it took them so long.
In 1969, nearly the entire village was designated a Conservation Area (apply for permission before you do nearly anything). When this designation was reviewed in 1995, there were 41 listed buildings or structures in the village (check your bank balance before contemplating modifications). Today, there are no less than 61 such listings!
An analysis of these buildings offers a fascinating insight into the agricultural heritage of ilmington and also to the extraordinary level of change which has occurred in the village since the 1950s. Out of the 61 listings, 58 are Grade II. Of these, I would suggest that over a third relate to the village’s agricultural heritage. No less than ten are described as ‘Farmhouse’ and the remainder are barns, outbuildings or cart sheds. Structures related to the religious life of the parish mop up another 10 listings, leaving less than 50% for other forms of residential buildings (which seem to range from cottage to Dower House) and the Chalybeate well head (see below). What a heritage. And, in case you are wondering, Wikipedia tells me that ‘Chalybeate means mineral spring waters containing salts of iron’.
As an aside, it is no surprise that this area comes very low in the England deprivation indices, with the main exception of ‘physical and financial accessibility of housing and local services’ (http://dclgapps.communities.gov.uk). Even in the 1950s, the oral history accounts often mention the wait for council housing, although it also records that such did exist in village. Today, private house prices in Ilmington are only slightly below typical prices in the south east commuter belt.
Only two buildings manage grade II*: the grandiose early 18C Manor House (think Doric Columns and a pediment on top to attic height) and the earlier 16C ‘Ilmington Manor with attached Barn’. The latter is much more to my taste, particularly because of the down-to-earth and very functional attachment.
Which leaves us with a single grade I listing, the Norman parish church of St Mary. This deserves a blog in its own right, but a mention of the embroidered apple map is essential. Created by resident June Hobson, the map is a copy of a 1922 plan which identified the locations of all the orchards in the village (https://www.cotswolds.info/places/ilmington.shtml). The church is also famous for its wood carvings by Robert Thompson (no known relation to Rob Thompson, the artist/architect, featured in the Cynefin blog, last month). Not only did he create the pulpit and pews, but carved his signature mice in eleven places throughout the church (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmington)
I sat in one of Robert Thompson’s pews last week, saying goodby to favourite-cousin Meg. Although she had temporarily left Ilmington (a decade in a life of 92 years counts as temporary in my book) to live closer to essential amenities in Stratford upon Avon, she had chosen to return to Ilmington for her final farewells and for her ashes to be interred next to her husband, in the church yard. It has been a great privilege, not only to have known Meg, but to have actually been related to her. A Grade I human being resting beside a Grade I Norman Church.
