Y’Got Mail
To be honest, Terroir has never given much thought to letter boxes and mail boxes. Red pillar boxes? Of course. Thank Rowland Hill and Anthony Trollope for the mass invasion of these red, metal, hollow, columns with a slot somewhere near the top. Very collectable, and now with knitted or crotcheted hats. Worthy of a blog in their own right, these ‘toppers’, bonnets (or berets as Terroir likes to think of them) have been appearing since at least the beginning of the decade.
Above: the traditional pillar box - the perfect shape for modelling 21st century woollen whimsy.
Other designs of street letter boxes are available:
But letter slots on doors? Just part of normal UK door design, surely?
Wikipedia describes this sort of letter box as ‘A slot in a wall or door through which mail is delivered’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_box). Succint and to the point. But we seldom take notice of these slots. Look again: they are a characterful, attractive and revealing feature of city, suburban and rural door design.
Although they seem to have been about for ever, letter slots are, of course, only as old as the postal delivery services themselves. Key dates appear to be:
1793 - first uniformed postmen hit the streets
1837 - invention of the adhesive postal stamp (Rowland Hill, of course)
1852 – first pillar boxes
https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/a-short-history-of-the-post-office/
So, one can assume that letter slots in doors became a ‘must have’ artefact around the middle of the 19th century.
But it’s not just about letter boxes in doors. How else does mail get to the appropriate person? Banks of mail boxes are now common in blocks of flats or at key points serving rural communities. Terroir finds it hard to get excited about these.
Right: the multi box - a key and underwhelming white fronted box per flat. The biggy on the bottom right is marked, rather ominously, ‘Management’
Poste Restante was once a romantic ingredient of overseas travel. Apparently it still exists. At home, the PO Box also offers an alternative to those who wish to collect their mail. None of these come free, of course, and involve a daily walk to the nearest facility but in Terroir’s experience, a chat with a friendly postal worker makes it worthwhile.
But there is another icon we must look at. To the British, the term ‘mail box’ probably conjures up images of the iconic American box-on-a-post at the edge of an enormous suburban garden or end of a rural road.
These seem to have become a standard part of the North American rural and urban streetscape in the early 20th century. Red flag up means ‘you got mail’. In some cases it could also mean that you had left mail there for the postie to collect. This functional box has spread around the world. Designs vary but most are basically a metal box, a curved roof and signal flag.
Until you get to Australia of course. On a recent trip, a corresponding member of Team Terroir sent the following photographs, taken while cycling across Tasmania.
Right: Courrier maritime?
You can see even more on the Wilmot Novelty Letter Box Trail. https://www.discovertasmania.com.au/things-to-do/heritage-and-history/wilmotnoveltyletterboxtrail/
Got more or better? Please send them to us via the comment box below (click on ‘read more’ at the end of the blog post).
Dear Fencing
As rural stock fencing goes, deer fencing is dear fencing.
Deer are intelligent animals, and very good at jumping over things. In Britain, if you really need to keep deer where you want them, then fences need to be at least 1.5m (c 5’) high or, for bigger beasts like Red deer, over 1.8 m (at least 6’). That’s a lot of wire and posts.
Cattle, on the other hand, can be corralled by a fence of not much more than a metre high (say just under 4‘); definitely cheaper.
Fences are built to keep things either in or out. This may seem self-evident but there is a difference between ‘in’ and ‘out’. Terroir particularly likes the American situation. Apparently, in America prior to the mid-20th century, the law required those living in most of the western, or ‘open range’, states to fence out their neighbours livestock, while land owners in eastern and mid-western states had to fence in their flocks and herds. It’s a subtle but important weighting of agricultural priorities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_fencing).
In Britain, most people are probably fencing to keep deer out - of gardens, allotments, motorways or young woodland planting. But the British love of hunting means that sometimes it is perceived as necessary to fence deer in.
Take the example of Penmon, a limestone promontory on the easternmost extremity of Anglesey, with views across the Menai Straits to Llanfairfechan, Penmaenmawr. Llandudno and (image right) to the Great Orme.
This historic landscape is full of stories and bears witness to a whole variety of communities and lifestyles. Many visitors come here, despite the continued existence of a toll on the access road to some of the best bits. Penmon was also the backdrop to a February reunion of Terroirs North and South. But using local knowledge, we walked over from the village, toll-free.
Let’s start with a little tour and work around to the deer issue. Penmon Lighthouse, one of five working lights around the coast of Angelsey, is a good place to start.
Image left: Penmon lighthouse with Puffin Island (left) and the Great Orme (behind)
As befits a hinterland of rocky limestone, the shore is stony but it’s a great place for dog walkers, big and little kids and beach combers. It’s a good place for watching seabirds, if only they would stay still long enough to be identified. We’ve also seen dolphins here but nothing doing today.
Far, far older than the lighthouse, however, and a little further down the coast, is the big draw at Penmon: the cluster of medieval ecclesiastical buildings around St Seiriol’s church.
Although there is earlier, archaeological, evidence of human activity here (from flint tools to Romano-British field banks), it is the tangible, stone, medieval solidity of the church and associated buildings which forms the historic core of this landscape. With an associate foundation on Puffin Island, the monastic centre at Penmon appears to once have been of great significance in the area. Two unusual 10th or 11th century decorated crosses now shelter in the church, and it is thought that there may once have been others. The church itself was rebuilt, in stone, in the 12th century, and included some very fine Romanesque detailing. In the 12th/13th centuries, monastic reform led to significant additional building as well as the transfer of the order to the Augustinians.
Inevitably, Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries ended the ecclesiastic tradition at Penmon and, by 1565, the estate was leased by one Sir Richard Bulkley. The church was retained as a parish church, and further buildings added, including the very splendid dovecote (see view pictured earlier) which is thought to date to around 1600.
The dovecot contains an unusual central, stepped pillar (below right), and someone has counted all those nesting holes: it’s reckoned to be around 930. Terroir has no wish to challenge that count.
The peninsula which is Penmon is nothing if not varied in landuse, so the widespread and long term occurrence of limestone quarrying comes as no surprise. Although those sheep do look a little puzzled, as though someone removed the rest of their field only yesterday.
The quarries were once extensive and the stone was shipped out by boat; the infrastructure of quarry buildings, inclined planes, a steam powered mill and a pier, is still visible. The stone was used to produce, amongst other things, lime, flux for steel production and ‘Anglesey Marble’ (as witnessed by the image below left). Quoi? Some basic internet research reveals that the latter is, yes, made from polished Anglesey limestone, and produces a decorative leopard skin pattern. Thanks to https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=former-limestone-quarries-penmon for explaining that little conundrum.
But not all the limestone was exported.
What do you do if you have recently acquired an estate made available thanks to King Henry’s views on religion? You enjoy your new acquisition. You probably show off a little and have extravagant social gatherings. These would probably include hunting parties and the creation of a new deer park. The park is big, probably more than 400 acres (over 160 ha). But you need to ensure that there are plenty of deer present at all times (can’t have them wandering off your land, or swimming over to Puffin island just as all your influential friends turn up). So, yes, you need to fence it.
We rounded a corner, and this is what we saw: the most monumental deer fence/wall that Terroir South has ever seen. Even if you have your own limestone quarry, you have to wonder how much that cost to erect. No surprise that, today, much of it is in a poor state of repair.
Six foot of post and wire just doesn’t have the same cachet.
With thanks to http://www.heneb.co.uk/hlc/penmon/penmon4.html for such an informative Historic Landscape Characterisation report.
Brunel’s Mid Point
Part 2 - A Place to Work
January’s Swindon story was interrupted by a trip to Swansea, the discovery of another purpose-built workers’ village and Terroir succumbing to the cliché of celebrating 100 blogs.
But now, as promised, we return to Wiltshire, and Brunel’s Great Western Railway, to take a look at where the inhabitants of Swindon’s ‘new town’ actually worked.
I K Brunel and Daniel Gooch (Brunel’s Superintendent of Locomotive Engines) were responsible for a mixed bag of broad gauge (7 ft ¼ inch) steam locomotives. Many of these early locos do not appear to have been particularly reliable, and a very necessary repair and maintenance depot, which Brunel sited at his perceived ‘mid-point’ between London and Bristol, opened in 1843 - vital to keep the project on the rails.
The works swiftly moved on, with GWR’s first purpose-built locomotive completed in 1846 and first standard gauge (4 ft 8 ½ inch) engine in 1855. Production of rails followed in 1861 and a carriage and wagon works was opened in 1867. 1892 saw the final conversion from broad to standard gauge and a massive engineering frenzy of line laying and rolling-stock conversion (or sidings full of wagons waiting for destruction). By 1900, the Swindon works employed 20,000 people and, at its peak in the 1930s, covered 120 ha (300 acres).
Following WWII and nationalisation, the works declined and finally closed in 1986. The site was purchased by a developer and redeveloped for commercial and residential uses. The extraordinary land use changes which have occurred since are illustrated by the two maps below.
Above: the Swindon railway works at their height.
Below: the site today.
Imagery © 2023 CNES/Airbus, Getmapping plc. Infoterra Ltd & Bluesky, Maxar Technologies,
Terroir’s straw poll on ‘three words associated with Swindon’ gave interesting results on the ‘Swindon today’ topic. The railway museum (outlined in red on the plan) did get quite a few mentions but only two responses saw fit to note the presence of the National Trust HQ and archive. Nobody mentioned English Heritage/Historic England’s appearance in the mix and – unsurprisingly - nobody highlighted the car parks and 20th /21st century residential housing development. But to our amazement only one person came up with the Designer Outlet which, with the railway museum, now dominates the southern part of the works area.
The actual popularity of the ‘outlet’ is reflected by its enormous car park and the need to arrive early if you don’t want to spend hours queueing to get in. The alternative popularity of the ‘outlet’, for a perhaps small minority, is based on the fact that the shopping element is encased in a number of the other sort of ‘shops’ (ie work-shops) which once made up the engineering heart of the Swindon Railway works.
We walked round twice and did do some shopping on the second cicuit. But, the first time, we thought we were going for a quick stroll, probably just looking at the ceiling, to search out any remnants of the industrial heritage. We discovered that the conversion to retail heaven has, in fact, left a surprising number of features which are of great interest to those who have a penchant for heritage, engineering, railways and architecture. Yes, you definitely need to look up, but there is also plenty at ground level too, which was a great relief to our aching necks.
There is also some interesting interpretation and information, if you care to look for it. We hope that the following photographic tour can give you a flavour of how retail and heavy engineering have been blended to create an unusual shopping venue with a - very sanitised - hint at what went on here in earlier years.
Staring at the ceiling did reveal a lot, particularly of the technology required to support - and lift - heavy engineering. Or support Christmas wreaths.
There was also lifting gear at ground level. The walking crane, now fenced in like some inoffensive animal in a zoo, it’s dignity further diminished by an ill-placed litter bin, was a novelty to non-engineering types such as Terroir.
Staring at the ceiling also made us realise that staring at the walls was a worthwhile exercise as well. The variety of brick types and detail created constant variety in the shopping environment. The arch was the basic element, with the exception of the huge rectangular openings (bottom right) which enabled locomotives and rolling stock to be brought right into the works.
A variety of individual artefacts, although now bereft of their original environment, do add variety and a serendipty element to the shopping experience. And they probably keep the kids going for just that little bit longer.
The most sobering element of the Outlet experience is the number of WWI war memorials, dedicated to the workers in individual shops, who left to fight the Great War but did not return. These - extremely varied - plaques are also witness to the enormous workforce which was required to make this giant engineering facility function.
Of course two key elements of the engineering environment, which were an integral part of working here, are impossibe to recreate (although the adjacent museum works hard to hint at these). The first is the noise, the heat, the dirt and the danger of employment here. The second is the human elements of a large workforce: the camaraderie, the petty rivalries, the pride in skilled work, the need for unions and for welfare, and the benefits and irritations of being part of a huge community. The images below are very alien to the work force of the 21st century.
Swindon railway works. From this:
To this:
Centenary Serendipity
By the time you read this, Terroir will have posted 100 blogs on landscape, townscape and environmental matters.
Why do we love to celebrate anniversaries which end in zero? To anyone born into a metric system of measurement, based on the magic number ‘10’, it may seem obvious. But there are many of us who still understand UK imperial measurements. Yet, in our pre-decimal school tests we aimed at getting ’10 out of 10’ or, in exams, as near as we possibly could to 100%. There are 10 years to the decade and 100 years to the century. Presumably the Romans did do something for us after all.
The British Imperial system seems to love the number four (16 ounces to the pound, 12 inches to the foot, 4 quarts to a gallon) but is delightfully inconsistent (3 feet to the yard!) It does, however, probably reflect our post Roman history. Take the furlong for example (combination of furrow and long according to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/furlong ). Now standardised as 22 yards long, it once delineated a rather variable agricultural acre which, we were always told, was the area that an ox team could plough in a day (no doubt influenced by soil, topography, latitude, breed of ox, skill of driver and many other factors relating to Terroir).
So, we are celebrating a Roman 100 but we should point out that it is also divisible by 4.
The ‘serendipity’ angle is a feature of Terroir which we know appeals to many of you. In the last 15 months we have visited, and blogged about, France, Albania and Kyrgyzstan. We have been to Wales many times and Scotland twice. In England we have frequently featured Surrey and London but also looked at the terroir of the Cotswolds, the Peak District, Offa’s Dyke and the South Downs Way. We have offered you Sussex, Shropshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Wiltshire and Cornwall.
You have probably noticed us beating the sustainability and climate change drum, but we have also looked at habitat conservation, protected species, rural architecture, hedges, wheelie bins, walls as habitat and walls as art, signal boxes, orchards, vineyards, landscape paintings, the impact of mining, the passing of the seasons, and support for Ukraine.
But to finish this 100th blog we will take you on a short trip to South Wales, now in a northern suburb of Swansea but which was once an industrial village in rural Glamorgan. The location is a new one for Terroir, but the topic is the third in an accidental series on workers’ villages. We’ve been to Saltaire and to Swindon, so now it’s the turn of Swansea or, to be more accurate but lacking alliteration, the little known village of Morriston, about three miles to the north of Swansea centre.
The Lower Swansea Valley was once one of the most heavily industrialised places on the planet. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morriston#). In the 18th century, copper and tinplate industries were established close to the River Tawe, and the Swansea Canal was constructed in the late 1790s to carry coal, limestone, tin and copper, amongst other goods, down to Swansea Port. Life was, inevitably, tough for the working population and, in the early part of the 19th century, Sir John Morris Bt laid out an industrial village to house the workers. It was called Morris Town in English and Treforys in Welsh (tre = town and forys = morris), but the English speakers quickly shortened it to Morriston.
Morriston was designed by one William Edwards, a stonemason, architect, bridge engineer – and Methodist Minister. Unsurprisingly he adopted a grid pattern layout, which you can still see today. The 19th century maps below illustrate the basic grid, laid out very close to the industrial works, the River Tawe, the canal and the railway.
Above: Morriston in 1876/7. Below Morriston in 1897.
Both images reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
Today, there are perhaps four or five key landmarks which make Moriston an interesting place for a visit.
Here’s a sample of the early 19th century workers cottages, now struggling with cars and parking on their neary straight grid pattern streets.
But the really big thing about Morriston, both literally and metaphorically, are its churches and chapels. The one below, known unsurprisingly as the ‘church in the middle of the road’ as it stands on a roundabout (you can see it’s location on the maps above) is now closed (love those slate roofs) …
… but the real stunner is the Grade 1 listed Tabernacle Chapel, described as the ‘non-conformist Cathedral of Wales’ or, by Anthony Jones in his 1996 book ‘Welsh Chapels’, as ‘The largest, grandest and most expensive chapel built in Wales". Its size makes it pretty hard to photograph.
Number 4 landmark is Danbert House, built in the 1880’s as a magnificent, ‘statement’, town house by Daniel Edwards, a steel and tinplate magnate, but now a spooky, Dickensian ruin. Grade II* listed but on the ‘at risk’ register, and no one seems willing to take it on.
Our final landmarks are associated with satisfying the inner blogger. The Crown has long since stopped serving but the Rane Bengal, further down the street, gave us an excellent Indian meal - just buy your alcohol at the convenince store next door.
Here’s to the next 100 blogs.
Brunel’s Mid Point
Part 1 - A Place to Live
Back in the 20teens, it was fashionable to talk of ‘pre-Christmas pressures’ and the need to ‘escape’ to some continental city’s Christmas market for a weekend break. The lights seemed brighter, the Christmas trees more original, the glühwein more authentic, and the snow genuine. Although the Christmas trees often came up with the goods (see, for instance, ‘Season’s Greetings’ Blog 9), the rest quickly began to pall and merge into one pan European collection of little wooden huts selling woolly mittens and candles. By the end of the decade, Terroir’s pre-Christmas travels had changed focus completely and consisted of Australia (2018) and Portugal (2019). Breakfasts featuring avocado or custard tarts provided welcome alternative entertainment.
We all know what happened next but by winter 2021 we felt the need to take a break – this time from the, by now over-familiar, domestic environment. We chose Bradford. Our friends looked puzzled, and thought we were mad. I guess cabin fever is a kind of madness but the resulting blog (‘Briefly Bradford’ Blog 60) went down OK.
Below: Bradford old and new
This year, we chose Swindon. Friends just laughed. We really had lost the plot this time. Why on earth would you choose to go there? So one of us asked 21 contacts which three words came to mind when ‘Swindon’ was mentioned. The results (below) were not always predictable but, as you can probably imagine, neither was the sample particularly random! Thank you so much to all who took part. Numbers refer to the frequency of mentions.
Swine 1
Railways, trains, steam, works, Great Western Railway, railway junction, railway town, railway museum, locomotive, Brunel, Michael Portillo 12
National Trust Archives/HQ 2
Wiltshire 1
Avebury 1
Betjeman 1
Outlet 1
Swindon Town Football Club 1
Travelodge 1
Helen&Mike 1
Avoid, never been there, sounds boring, good bypass 1 each
The railway village 0, nil, nowt
Why did we go there? Railway and architectural heritage. Railway, yes, I hear you say, but architectual heritage? Where we disappointed? Read on.
It seems that people have been pottering on and around Swindon Hill - farming and quarrying, making things and loosing things - since prehistoric times.
Image right: view of Swindon Old Town from Lydiard Park
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Swindon) suggests that the earliest archaeological finds are Bronze Age and Iron Age, but it must have been quite a jolt to the local inhabitants to find themselves at the cross roads of two Roman highways.
Anglo Saxons took over from the Romans and may have been responsible for naming the hill top settlement and, as one of our correspondents surmised, many think the name is connected in some way with pigs. Swindon pops up in the Domesday Book, but you get the feeling that nothing much happened beyond agriculture, quarrying and trading for a very long time.
The next big thing was the 19th century technology and transport boom. The Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal was built in 1810, but before you could say ‘narrow boat’, railways arrived and the waterways were fighting for survival. Isambard K Brunel discovered that Swindon was about halfway between London and Bristol and, therefore, the perfect place to locate his new railway’s maintenance depot. The Great Western Railway (aka the GWR or God’s Wonderful Railway) arrived at the foot of the town’s hill in 1840 and the adjacent maintenance works opened 1843. The new town had arrived. A new world had arrived. Swindon was on the map.
The railway maintenance depot was initially designed to repair GWR’s motley collection of steam locomotives. Swindon’s tiny agricultural and quarrying workforce was not skilled in the trades required for this type of engineering and workers had to be attracted from other areas. The initial work force was measured in the low hundreds but they still needed somewhere to live. The railway was at the bottom of Swindon Hill, nearly a mile from the hill top town centre. The station and the works had to be near the railway, of course, and so the people hired to work there needed to be there too.
Thus, as early as 1842, the construction of a small railway workers’ village was commenced, located beside the railway line, at the bottom of the hill. It was completed around 1847, and made good use of Swindon’s Purbeck stone quarries. As the number of workers grew, so construction of accommodation continued in neighbouring areas, but it was this original workers’ village which Terroir had come to see.
The Railway Village predates other, perhaps better known, Victorian workers’ villages, such as Saltaire near Bradford, (see blog 60), Port Sunlight on the Wirral and Cadbury’s Bourneville estate in Birmingham. As with all these villages, intentions were good, although the company’s needs may have been at least as important as those of the tenants.
The pioneer status of the Swindon village may, perhaps, account for some of the initial problems. Today, the houses are sought after, well cared for and provided with modern amenities. In the early days, at least, this was not the case. The nearest shops were a muddy walk away, up the hillside to Swindon Old Town. Initially, the houses had no kitchens, forcing the women to attempt cooking meals on the fire in the back room. Houses were often overcrowded, as the work force increased faster than accommoddation provision, and the lack of fresh water created serious health problems.
Houses were typically two up/two down. The back room was the main living room and opened onto the paved back yard which contained the privy and basic washing facilities. The front door opened into the what would have been the ‘best room’ or parlour. Perfect for special celebrations or courting couples. The central picture above shows how two front doors were squeezed into the available space in a pair of these small terraced cottages with no internal hallways.
A small number of the houses were bigger; these were the foremans’ cottages. The front door led into a narrow hall which also gave access to the staircase. Upstairs were three bedrooms, the third often occupied by a lodger. Single men were offered accommodation in a lodging house, nicknamed the Barracks. Life here did not appeal to many, and the men missed the company and cooking of family life. It was the norm, therefore, for those with a spare room to take in lodgers and boost the family income.
One foreman’s house has been preserved by the Mechanics’ Trust and was open for a special Christmas weekend when we were there. Check their website for open days (https://mechanics-trust.org.uk/railway-village-museum/) as it’s well worth a visit.
As time progressed, many amenities were provided. Lean-to kitchens were built on the backs of the cottages, fresh water was piped in, shops were opened, a school provided (with reduced fees for GWR employees), a Mechanics’ Institute constructed and a new church (St Mark’s) consecrated. By 1851, there were even two pubs.
Non-existent health provision was quickly tackled by residents through creation of a ‘sick club’, with members’ contributions paying for their medical bills. By 1847, management was successfully petitioned to fund a doctor via a regular contribution to be taken from wages. The GWR Medical Fund Society went on to establish a village hospital (above right), dispensary and baths.
In 1844, additional land was purchased to extend the village but also to provide other amenities, including a cricket ground. By 1871, the sports ground was being transformed into a public park with all the necessary Victorian accessories: a park keeper’s lodge, glass houses, fountains and formal gardens. Sufficient space was retained to support not just cricket, but rugby, athletics and cycling. Perhaps with a touch of jingoism, a drill hall was also constructed for the 11th (Wilts) New Swindon Rifle Corps. A pavilion and later a bandstand were also added.
Sadly, the park was neglected after WWII, but is now being rejuvenated and refreshed with a new Masterplan.
How could we write a whole blog on the Great Western Railway with hardly a mention of Brunel and the mighty Swindon Railway Works? Fear not; the next blog will concentrate on the architecture of railway engineering and on ‘STEAM’ – The Museum of the Great Western Railway. For readers who are less passionate about railways in general, and steam engines in particular, don’t worry, the experience turmed out to be really rather good.
On the Edge
Happy New Year to all our readers, from Terroir North and South!
Our Christmas blog (no. 97 on Christmas landscapes) gave thanks to our forebears for creating a mid-winter festival which broke the monotony of cold and darkness and created hope by welcoming the return of the sun. But why, for much of the world, does the first day of the New Year follow so closely on Christmas celebrations?
For the western world it seems that we can blame the pre-Christian Romans when they overhauled their ten month calendar to be more in tune with the 12 lunar cycles in the solar year. January and February were added and the former, of course, was named after Janus (right), the god of doorways and beginnings. It must have seemed apt, therefore, to move the start of their new calendar year from the vernal equinox in March, to the beginning of January, a portal which was under Janus’ bi-directional supervision.
Less than a thousand years later, the Romans converted to Christianity and December 25th became a significant religious festival. Some Christian countries reverted back to a March New Year, which seems eminently sensible, but many continued with the big winter combo.
As a child, Terroir remembers a clear separation between the excitement of Christmas and the start of the new year. This slack period was a time when fathers went back to work and mothers did their best to entertain offspring before school re-started in early January. Banished to bed long before midnight, the line between the years was something we crossed in our sleep. We went to bed in one year and woke up in another; that was about as exciting as it got. New Year’s Day in England and Wales wasn’t even promoted to bank holiday status until 1974. But today, many Brits consider Christmas-and-New-Year as one extended mid-winter break.
As we manoeuvred ourselves through that colourful, expensive, highly-decorated, time-consuming, alcohol-fuelled, exciting, exhausting and anticipatory period which is known as ‘the-run-up-to-Christmas’ (aka Advent), Terroir started thinking about the very different festival geography of New Year’s Eve. This has a much shorter lead time and is over in the pop of a prosecco bottle as we all cross the temporal line from one year to the next in a geographical sequence westwards from the Pacific Ocean.
Time takes us to the edge of one year and pushes us over to the edge of the next. But, while the seasons march on, the world is full of other lines, edges and boundaries.
Here are some of the edges we spotted over the last 12 months.
And, at the far edge between an extraordinary 2022, we wish you a happy, healthy, stimulating and fulfilling 2023.
Christmas Landscape Design: Landscapes of Hope
Will Christmas 2022 be the death knell of the Christmas card? We – Terroir - discuss this every year and so far we have always received a satisfying number of cheerful, picturesque and, occasionally, totally tasteless greetings which warm our hearts and decorate our living room. But we wouldn’t like you to think that the demise of the cardboard Christmas greeting is the only topic of discussion chez nous.
2022 has been an extraordinary year. We hoped that 2022 would see the significant diminution of Covid. Wrong. The vaccine seems to reduce many of the symptoms, but the infection rate is still high. We hoped that 2022 would see the start of overseas travel again. It has, but many of us have come back with Covid. We hoped for the 2021 Christmas wishes of ‘peace to all’ would be realised, but didn’t take into account Russian ambition. We hoped that 2022 would improve conditions in many other countries but the flow of migrants around the world, seeking physical shelter and intellectual freedom, continues. We hoped that this year would bring political stability. We were so wrong on that one that you couldn’t make it up. We hoped that action on climate change and the impact of Cop 27 would be significantly increased. Again we were disappointed. We also failed to anticipate inflation, fuel and food poverty and a multitude of strikes expressing widespread concern over quality of life and infrastructure.
So, our social, political, economic and physical landscape looks pretty grim. Thankfully our forebears created the concept of a mid-winter festival, to banish the gloom of the cold and dark and to welcome back hope, with the return of the sun.
It is with enthusiasm, therefore, that we can report that the Christmas card may be reduced in numbers but it is far from dead.
How does the Christmas card cheer us up? What landscape does it portray? What does it say about symbolism and society? Here is Terroir’s take on the cardboard landscape of Christmas.
Although the Christmas holidays are celebrated by all religions and none, an obvious theme for Christmas cards is the birth of Christ and the hope that that event has brought to many over the centuries. Cribs, stables, star(s), the holy family, candles, angels, shepherds and wise men have all been portrayed over the centuries in a variety of settings, landscapes and climate conditions. Christmas cards have reproduced these art works, or enthusiastically reinterpreted these symbols in more modern designs. Snow is not usually a feature.
Thanks to various 19th century developments, including the invention of the Christmas card itself (see, for instance, the Postal Museum for further information https://www.postalmuseum.org/collections/first-christmas-card/ ), alternative themes began to develop. Snow became a compulsory feature, architecture sometimes took on a northern or central European look and conifer trees, including the Christmas tree itself, became more frequent. No, the British Forestry Commission wasn’t founded until 1919, but yes, we did have a heavily German-influenced royal family and travel abroad was also much easier for the moneyed classes and their servants.
Certain secular symbols have become particularly representative of Christmas cheer. The Christmas tree of course, is a popular theme but the highly visible robin-in-winter is a clear favourite for decorating Christmas greetings.
More recently, other animals have become symbolic of a merry Yuletide. The blackbird can sometime be seen to replace or reinforce the robin, but mammals have really taken the card designers’ world by storm. Fox, deer, and domestic dogs and cats are frequently portrayed.
But the big Christmas motif is now the hare, for reasons which escape Terroir. Perhaps you know better? Why not stoats in their ermine glory? It’s good enough for the House of Lords. But then the House of Lords may no longer be good enough for us.
These days the cute/humourous Christmas card is also very popular. This genre has adopted new icons and symbols. Penguins, bears, sheep and Christmas puddings are now firm favourites. Even that mythical creature, the hare-rabbit, has gone cute.
But, whatever your taste in Christmas greetings, digital or hard copy, wordy or pictorial, a round robin letter or a phone call on Christmas day (if you can get through, of course) or just a ‘Bah, Humbug’ silence, Terroir wishes you all
a Happy Christmas
and a New Year which is slightly more tolerable than 2022.
Watch out for those hares!
Harvest Home
The ‘Apple People’, aka Terroir North, have splendid ideas on using apples:
Inevitably in most years we end up with rather a lot of fruit and that means swinging into gathering, storing and using modes. Generally the fruit harvest breaks down into five end uses; pies and cakes, stewing and freezing, juice, family and friends and birds. The first is obvious but uses relatively little fruit, the second uses a bit more fruit but is limited to space in the freezers, juicing uses large numbers of apples of which more anon, distribution to family and friends is self explanatory and many apples end up as bird food for distribution throughout the winter. Redwings, fieldfares and blackbirds pile in through the autumn and winter months to peck happily at the remnants of the harvest. And when the windfalls and reject apples finally disappear there is a large bin containing their rations for later in the season when several apples will be put out each day.
Despite the many end uses (and users) the largest part of the crop goes into making juice. Not the anaemic looking and often tasteless stuff found in supermarkets but a full bodied, rich and seriously strong juice. Juicing is a brilliant way of utilising lots of the smaller, mis-shapen and slightly damaged apples. It’s a simple process, though but can be a tad time consuming.
What you need is a fruit chopper, a sharp knife, several buckets, a large pan, a rolling pin with one handle missing (be patient and the purpose of this little oddity will become clear), a crusher, a moderate amount of strength, a sieve and plenty of (mainly plastic) bottles. Oh and space in a freezer is pretty essential too. Thus suitably armed here is what you do to get that brilliant fresh apple juice that will ensure you never buy the shop stuff again!
Once gathered it’s wise to get on with the juicing as soon as possible. Apples bruise easily and the decay spreads rapidly. We would recommend giving the apples a good wash to remove things like mud, cobwebs, bits of grass and any invertebrates that might still want to claim the fruit as their home.
Carry said apples to the chopper, which, as you can see from the photo (below left) is basically a hopper box with chunky teeth at the base and a big wheel which rotates and chops the loaded apples into a pulpy pile. Here’s the slow bit. Each apple needs to be cut into two or three chunks and any rotten or bruised bits cut out and thrown away (below right, bruised bits waiting to become bird food). That way they will happily go through the chopper whereas whole apples will not (they just bounce about annoyingly). That’s where the sharp knife comes in.
Gather the pulp in a bucket until more or less filled. Grab the single handled rolling pin and boldly and unhesitatingly pulverise the pulp in the bucket. This may seem a bit drastic but what it actually achieves is a further breakdown of the pulp and a greater release of the juice. At last we come to the actual crushing process. We use a relatively small crusher which is ideal for home use. Larger ones are available and one can get electric choppers. But this suits us.
The pulverised mush is dropped into the crusher and an assortment of wooden bits are assembled on top and a solid iron block is wound down the central spindle. The more this bears down on the fruit the greater the flow of juice out through the sides of the closely spaced oak slats and the greater the satisfying sound of apple juice pouring into your pan placed below. As the pulp compacts the pressure required to extract the maximum juice increases until such time as you concede defeat and stop for a breather (hence the moderate strength in the list of requirements!).
By now you should have a pan full of lovely apple juice and all that remains (and this really is the most satisfying and rewarding bit) is to sieve the juice to remove any bits of pulp that might have fallen in, and decant into bottles. For immediate use, glass bottles filled to the top are fine. In the fridge they will stay fresh for a few days. To freeze, decant into plastic bottles to about two thirds full (allow for expansion of course) and pop in the freezer. They will keep for ages that way and what a delight to bring out a bottle or two at Christmas, or whenever else you feel like it. Once defrosted, we find they keep chilled for at least two weeks.
One question we get asked frequently is ‘do you make cider?’ Well, we love cider very much and yes we did try, but despite our best endeavours and a promising start, it eventually went horribly wrong and a lot of effort and apple juice ended up down the drain. We would never discourage would-be cider makers but would caution that great care and not a little skill is needed. Maybe it’s not quite as easy as the books suggest.
One other thing about the fruit trees is the beauty of the blossom in spring. Each variety and fruit type flowers at a slightly different time. We so much look forward to blossom time which spans several weeks in the spring and then, of course to autumn to harvest and enjoying all the tasty produce which derives from the plums, damsons, pears and, most of all, the apples in all their shapes, sizes and colours. And to conclude with a couple of lines from Keats again:
‘To bend with apples the moss’d cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;’
All images © T Thompson
Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
Dispatches from the North West
“Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness”: so goes the well known first line of John Keats’ poem ‘To Autumn’. A little over 200 years since that poem was written we still marvel at the wonders and beauty of the season. Here in the Vale of Clwyd in the far north of Wales mists are rarely seen – in fact Team Terroir Gogledd Cymru/North Wales find it difficult to recall the last time it was truly misty or foggy in the Vale. To the east over the mountain range where north east Wales meets the Cheshire Plain the towns, villages and countryside are frequently shrouded in mist at this time of year but the fresh winds blowing across the Vale from the moors and mountains to the west ensure that any would-be mists are rapidly dispersed.
But fruitfulness we have in abundance. And not just fruit but also seeds and berries in profusion. It can be said that the autumn of 2022 has been truly bountiful, more so than for many years. The hedgerows are filled with blackberries, sloes, bullace (the latter two excellent for fruit gin connoisseurs), hips and haws. The trees are laden with acorns, rowan berries, crabapples, beech mast and chestnuts. Similarly the trees in our orchard have produced most plentifully and the fruit harvest has kept this part of Team Terroir fully occupied throughout much of October.
Orchards are not a dominant feature of the landscape of north Wales (unlike the vast areas of fruit trees in some English counties) but they do, in a quiet and discrete way, occur frequently in association with many farms and smallholdings. Small is beautiful as they say. Typically an orchard here can range from just five or six trees up to maybe a dozen or more but rarely larger. The small vernacular cottages may only have the space for one tree but growing fruit for self-sufficiency rather than any commercial reason is very much the tradition here. This is reflected in the fairly frequent occurrence of the Welsh word Perllan, often mutated to Berllan, in local farm and other place names. Examples include Ty’n y Berllan (house in the orchard), Cae Berllan (orchard field) or even Berllan Surgery in Denbigh suggesting it’s on an old orchard site.
Sadly many of these orchards are in serious decline with numerous dead and dying trees. Their contribution to biodiversity has been recognised for some time and traditional orchards were given priority Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) status in 2007. Much more information can be found in the Traditional Orchard Habitat Inventory of Wales produced by Natural Resources Wales (https://cdn.cyfoethnaturiol.cymru/media/685908/eng-report-018-traditional-orchard-habitat-inventory-of-wales-2014.pdf).
Our original orchard (see images above), which we think dates from around 1900, contained five apples, three pears and two plums. A typical mixture. What is of particular interest, of course, is the composition of types. Two of the apples are straight forward gnarled old Bramleys. One consistently crops heavily whilst it’s equally healthy immediate neighbour normally refuses to produce a single apple – this year being no exception. Very occasionally it concedes and yields maybe 10 or so fruits and then reverts to its intransigent state of fruitlessness. One apple tree succumbed to Armillaria (honey fungus) at an early stage and two of the remaining apples are of unknown varieties. Very productive they are too but we can only guess at their origin. With that in mind and aware of the need to conserve heritage varieties we have taken cuttings and grafted them onto rootstock. The other trees are a couple of pear varieties, a yellow plum which died recently and a Denbigh plum which is slowly disintegrating with each successive storm. The latter is of great interest though as it is the only plum variety native to Wales and now enjoys Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status. It therefore stands alongside such wonders as Cornish Clotted Cream, Jersey Royal Potatoes and West Wales Coracle-caught Salmon! (https://businesswales.gov.wales/foodanddrink/how-we-can-help/new-uk-geographical-indication-gi-schemes-0/vale-clwyd-denbigh-plum-pdo). There are now a number of projects the length and breadth of Wales aimed at identifying and propagating heritage varieties of all fruit trees and encouraging the establishment and restoration of orchards.
To these trees we have added a couple of damsons and two more Denbigh plums as our original tree is in rapid decline. Anxious to ensure long term continuity we found a small area in the old paddock to plant more fruit trees.So the ‘new orchard’ was born (images above). Starting in 2008 with around 15 trees, mainly apple (including Worcester Permain, Cox, Red Falstaff, Russetts, and James Grieve) but also a plum and three Morello cherries (the latter having been disappointingly unsuccessful) the growth rate was phenomenal and most started to yield within a couple of years.
Above left and centre: Red Falstaff - small tree but consistently big crop Above right: Russett - all round versatile favourite
Two trees are of special note being North Wales heritage varieties. The first is the Enlli or Bardsey apple originating from a single tree on Ynys Enlli/Bardsey Island off the extreme North West tip of the Welsh mainland. More on this at www.bardsey.org which describes how the apple came to be ‘found’ as well as lots about this fascinating but remote island. The other tree of note is the Anglesey Pig’s Snout/Trwyn Mochyn Ynys Mon. So called because of its tapered and angular shape broadly reminiscent of a pig’s snout albeit rather greener! There is more on this at https://treborth.bangor.ac.uk/welsh-orchard.php.en along with descriptions of other Welsh heritage varieties growing at the Bangor University botanic gardens.
Above left: a cluster of Enlli/Bardesy apples Above right: the distinctively shaped Trwyn Mochyn Ynys Mon/Anglesea Pig’s Snout - crops late, keeps well, excellent baked or in pies
Fast forward nine years and the North Wales Wildlife Trust have embarked on a project to propagate and establish heritage fruit trees. We referred earlier to the typical farm orchard so often in decline. This project attempts to reduce that decline and foster better care and management of orchards and the attendant biodiversity value.
The Trust collected cuttings from unusual, maybe unique, varieties and grew them on. In many cases they didn’t know the names of the varieties so developed their own nomenclature. This consisted of a series of traditional Welsh girls’ names. Then, with the Trust overburdened with little trees needing secure homes, we were duly offered a number of young plants. So we acquired Myfanwy, Catrin, Angharad, another Enlli, several Denbigh plums and, slightly bizarrely, a Warner’s King (right) whose origins are in Kent. www.gardenappleid.co.uk
The importance of fruit trees and orchards for their wildlife value cannot be over-stated. Not just the trees themselves but their flowers for early pollinators, buds for finches, fruit for birds and butterflies (red admirals love fallen fruit) and the tall vegetation beneath. One tree or many trees – they all contribute significantly to biodiversity.
Next week is all about consuming fruit!
All images © T Thompson
Creel House Tribulations
Two weeks ago, we were reunited with artist and vernacular architect, Rob Thompson. Terroir first spoke to him in his native North Wales (see Cynefin, Blog 18, February 2021) but last summer we discovered him in Glencoe, having been working on the construction of a historic form of dwelling, called a Creel or Turf House. During our last blog, we quizzed Rob on Creel House basics – the ‘what is it’ and the ‘why on earth build one’ sort of question. Today we’re getting in much, much deeper to the practicalities, and uncovering some surprising stories.
Terroir: Rob – you said that this sort of vernacular architecture used local materials. So where did you get your timber, turf and heather?
RT: on the whole the timber was sourced locally from within Glencoe.
Turf is more tricky, however. It comes in many different types, usually clay, silt, or peat based. Clay and silt rich turf shrink back the least, and are the best choice when building a structure that would suffer if a turf with high shrinkage was to be used.
Peat based turfs are lighter in weight and hold more air. They are used where a high level of insulation is required, as is the case in Glencoe. They do however shrink back the most and this can be a problem if the building’s design does not allow for this to happen.
The turf for the walls at Glencoe was sourced from directly next to the site. The blocks were produced with a diagonal cut, and carried over to the site. I think it is an especially important aspect of the build that the walls, which are unlikely to outlive other parts of the structure, have come from, and can be returned back to, the ground in close proximity to the building.
The walls are up to a metre deep in places and of solid turf block laid in herringbone course.
As the peat rich turf slowly shrinks as it dries out, the joints should close up. Additional height was added to the walls, to compensate for the loss of height due to the shrinkage of the turf. The walls are angled with a batter. This allows the load to spread, reducing the risk of collapse. The batter has also caused some issues, though, as its projection acts as an extended area for rain to hit.
Image above: the turf house steams gently in a brief sunny interval
Terroir: did you say there was turf on the roof as well?
RT: yes, it’s called a turf divot, a layer of thin turf used as an insulation layer. It sits on the cabers (the roof timbers) allowing a levelled off area for the heather thatch to sit on. The thatch is then attached to the divots using hazel staples and spars. The divot also absorbs moisture so acts as a second line of defence against wind and rain.
Above: turf divots being covered by heather thatch
Although we managed to source the wall turf locally, there was not enough left to line the roof as well. This is where the 21st century began to impact on the build. A turf cutting area of sufficient size could not be found in Glencoe due to the glen’s protected status as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Eventually the turf was cut from the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) site at Kintail approximately two hours north of Glencoe. The cutting site was a flat meadow field close to the road. The cutting process was a difficult thing to get right.
A day was spent attempting to cut turf with a double width machine, the Turfaway 600, which looked an impressive lump of an American machine. It proved to be useless for this work, however, as the blades were unable to stay in the ground long enough to cut any decent turf. A replacement, older and heavier machine arrived several days later together with a mechanical wheelbarrow to pull it!
The turf was cut and stacked ready for the collection. The staff at the National Trust and the crafts people used a trailer and Land Rover to take it back to the creel house site - some 8 trips were needed.
Terroir: no local sourcing there, then. What about the heather for the roof? No shortage presumably?
RT: hah!
Terroir: pardon?
RT: you would think it would be easy, wouldn’t you?
The heather required for thatching is the common native heather (Calluna vulgaris) which thrives on poor acid soil found in the highlands of Scotland. The original intention was to gather heather from the NTS’s Mar Lodge estate, but due to nesting birds, it was not feasible and in the end, it was gathered from the neighbouring Invercauld estate.
The picking of heather suggests the idea of walking through an open field, picking flowers with ease. Heather picking is far from this, requiring the plant to be physically pulled out of the ground, roots and all. It’s hard manual labour with wildlife hazards: adders, clegs (horse flies), midges and ticks all need to be dodged, swatted or removed.
Once pulled, heather is bundled. A bundle size is a tight, ‘oversize hug’ ie a ‘hug’ plus about a foot between each hand. The material is pulled in, and when no more can be hugged it is ready to be stringed together. The twine is tied tightly around each end straightening the bundle out. This process often involves a bit of wrestling with the heather to get it compressed to a point where it is feasible to tie the string around. A length of string is about one stretch of an arm.
For the purposes of the project, 1,000 bundles of heather had to be transported from Braemar to Glencoe - carried by a huge articulated lorry.
15 people took part in the heather gather over 10 days. There was one afternoon off, one visit to the pub, three swims in a river, and one end of gather party! The accommodation was a bunkhouse in Braemar.
Image © Mark Thacker
Terroir: and you still haven’t started thatching!
RT: thank goodness the traditional craft of thatching is still alive and well. Working from the base of the roof, around three layers of heather were fixed with a spar, then another three layers and so on to the roof ridge. The intention was to thatch the ridge but suitable lengths of heather were limited. A decision was made to do a turf ridge instead which is seen on many examples of heather roofs, including the township at the Highland Folk Museum.
A daub coating was added to seal the heather on the final layer. It was a hot period and the daub baked dry in the sun. Turf divots were then used to form the ridge, one layer pegged grass side down, and a second layer, overlapping the joints in the lower layer, placed and pegged grass side up. It is thought that this will last up to two years before it will require replacement. Maintaining this will involve very little; if it required a trim a rabbit on a lead could be used!
Image left: the daubing process Image right: the creel house with the ridge sporting a neat, turf mohican
Terroir: it all sounds a bit short term. Does it really work as a form of dwelling?
RT: I know what you mean. I have always associated turf wall construction with that of the Ty Unnos tradition in Wales. Here it was often used as a quick temporary building method, before a more long term method would be applied to replace it at a later date, such as stone or Clom (compressed earth similar to Cob in England).
Turf has a relatively short life expectancy before it breaks down. Roots that bind the turf slowly rot, and the turf degrades. It is interesting when looking at accounts of the creel/turf houses of Scotland that they were rebuilt very often. There would often be two sites that a dweller would rotate between, taking the valuable parts of the building with them, and allow the walls, and roof to rot away back into the ground. Often the building would become a cattle shed, then as it collapsed, a Kale yard. It is evident that the building went through a variety of uses before finally returning to the earth again. It seems like a very sustainable way of building!
The life-cycle of a creel house
All images © R J Thompson unless otherwise stated
The Creel House
No, not the name of a pub, nor a seaside shed for storing fishermen’s baskets. The Creel House in question is located in Glencoe, some 35 miles from the Port of Oban (the ‘seafood capital of Scotland’) and well over a mile from the nearest Inn.
But before we explain, let Terroir take you back to February 2021, when we posted a blog (entitled ‘Cynefin’) featuring Rob Thompson, a young Welsh vernacular architect and artist. At the time he was firmly located in his Welsh homeland, sketching and painting traditional Welsh cottages, houses and barns, all constructed from local material.
Derelict crog loft cottage, Anglesey © R J Thompson
In the summer of 2022, we tracked him down again, now living in Glencoe, and finishing off the construction of a Scottish Creel House, located at the National Trust for Scotland’s Glencoe Visitor Centre.
So, what is a creel house?
RT: The Creel house, sometimes also called a turf house, is basically a very large basket, like a coracle, or log basket. A timber cruck frame holds up the main structure and roof, with basket (creel) panels between the frame. The one at Glencoe is a rather over-engineered version, and the originals would have relied more on the creel aspect with a much skinnier timber frame.
The non-load bearing turf walls form a wind brake around the perimeter. A creel house would have been an especially common structure in the west of Britain where there was plenty of hazel in the warm damp conditions of the western seaboard.
Above left: the cruck frame, creel walls and timber roof lining
Above right: herringbone turf outer walls, with tiny window, under turf and heather thatched roof
Terroir: Who lived in them?
RT: Creel houses would have been the homes of those who dwellt in townships (villages) in this part of Scotland. The type of building housed a range of social classes within the township. People would live at one end and animals at the other. The animals would help to keep the building warm. This was once a common living arrangement, and seen in similar types of buildings such as the longhouse in Wales and western England.
Creel houses were located all over Scotland and were the predecessors of the later stone built homes. Evidence shows they existed anywhere where hazel or timber was obtainable.
Terroir: probably a silly question, by why aren’t there any left?
No original Creel houses exist today. Due to the very organic nature of the materials used in their construction they had a very limited life expectancy. They are described as pre-improvement dwellings. Landowners discouraged the use of turf as a building material in the earlier part of the 18th century, to prevent large areas of potentially fertile land being stripped. The use of stone was encouraged as a building material instead.
Many people felt that their turf and creel houses were warmer and better insulated than the new stone houses and often refused to move out of their basket dwellings. Much propaganda by the ‘establishment’ deemed these creel homes poor and squalid, and forced the eventual demise of such structures.
Terroir: why build one and why in Glencoe?
RT: It is experimental archaeology; it tries to demonstrate a lost vernacular building style, and to understand how the materials used would behave. The building will also form part of a wider interpretation in telling the local story of the massacre of Glencoe.
From my point of view, and that of many of the crafts people involved, it is hopefully creating a resource for understanding this lost typology, and to provide an example of these materials and techniques. The turf wall aspect is particularly unusual.
Above left: turf wall detail. Above centre: base stones to keep the turf dry and off the ground. Above right: modern construction and safety techniques support ancient thatching skills
Terroir: how did you know what to build and what materials to use?
The building is based on archaeological findings from the National Trust for Scotland’s (NTS) excavation of the 17th century township of Achtriachtan further up the Glen - one of the main townships which predated the Glencoe massacre in 1692. The footprint for the new creel house was based on one of the larger houses to be found in the group. Along with written historic references and maps, the findings enabled the design of the new, replica house.
The project was commissioned by NTS, and constructed at the Glencoe NTS visitor Centre as a visitor attraction. The work was mainly funded by enthusiastic American donors, keen to see a recreated creel house form part of the interpretation of the Glencoe Massacre of 1692. It was led by an architect and a team of skilled crafts people. My involvement was funded by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) as a way of creating a skills legacy, including a record of the construction process, the skills and materials required and a maintenance manual. [Terroir: if only all new houses came with one of those]
Terroir: do you think that this new Creel House looks anything like the original dwellings?
RT: I think it is similar to an original creel house, but this is a very beautiful ‘Rolls Royce’ example. I think that the originals would have been a truer product of what could be sourced close to hand. Also I imagine the houses would have been continually altered and improved to cope with the climatic influences of their locality. What is important to understand is that these houses were often only built to last a few years, but this example has been constructed to last a lot longer, so it has to be more robust!
Accounts from the time revealed a palette of what materials may have been used, but it is not always clear how exactly some of these materials may have been used, for example, the coursing of the turf walls, or the use of glass in the window. The timber frame and wattle creel infill is similar to historic references, but the need to comply with modern building regulations made this a much more over-engineered example.
Terroir: are their lessons to be learnt?
It is a great example of what we can do with the materials in a historical way but I think that these materials can be developed into a modern context too. Long lost building techniques such as constructing with turf could be used in new homes, and I think it has certainly made people more aware of these materials, and their uses.
Having worked a lot with turf over the last year I can see its merits as a building material. Turf is easier to obtain than stone and is much better insulated. It is cosy to sit within the walls of a turf house, and it does not feel cold in the same way as a stone house. I also think when it comes to self-builds that turf and timber are both very user-friendly materials for anyone to try using.
Our next blog will return to Glencoe and its creel house and look at some of the unexpected and unintended consequences of creating a traditional building in a 21st century landscape.
But the best unexpected consequence is thanks to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Building (SPAB). The SPAB Heritage Awards will be presented by Kevin McLeod on the 3rd November in London https://www.spab.org.uk/news/new-awards-celebrate-historic-buildings-and-craftspeople . There are three finalists in the ‘Building Craftsperson of the Year Award (career changer)’ and we are delighted to announce that Rob Thompson is one of those three. Good luck Rob!
All images © R J Thompson
Who Lives Here?
What do our houses say about us?
For most of us, probably not a lot. Obviously the size and location of abode gives passers by an inkling of our financial standing. Something about our taste may be revealed in the external appearance of the dwelling place. Any garden may hint at our passion – or lack of it – for horticulture. What’s on the drive may signal a petrol head or whisper of a serious cyclist. But, on the whole, unless you have a liveried vehicle parked out front, our trade or profession, the name of our employer, or our pay grade, is not immediately obvious.
Looking at the images below, we might like to think we can work out the sort of person who would be living in any of these assorted homes, but to be honest, we have no idea.
Even whether we own or rent our property is less obvious since Mrs Thatcher’s ‘Right to Buy’ policy. Council Houses were always easy to spot: just like other mass building styles but with no external adornment whatsoever.
Former Council Housing
One of the early and easy ways of putting your own mark on your newly purchased council house was to replace the plain, unadorned, original front door with something more stylish, perhaps with an inset window, panels or a never-before-seen colour scheme. These days, social housing – what’s left of it – is much harder to spot.
But anonymity is not available to all. Consider this image (right):
Simply the name of the house reveals that at least one of the inhabitants is a committed Christian, is paid a not particularly generous stipend, is a cog in the Church of England behemoth, does not pay rent, council tax or water rates and won’t have to cough up to mend the roof. On changing job, parish or on retirement, the family will all have to move out.
Of course, in this particular vocation, making known one’s location is part of the job and is, I suppose, a not too onerous burden in the bigger scheme of being an effective Rector.
As an aside, it is interesting to note that this modern Rectory is now the hub of a United Benefice consisting of three village churches, and has replaced three former rectories, one in each of village.
Here is a view of one of those former Rectories. This glorious, historic edifice, now divided into two, generously sized homes (below left and centre), sends out an entirely different message about the status of Rectors in the Church and in Victorian Society, compared with the more modest and modern Rectory (below right). The latter requires a lot less upkeep (for the Church of England) and a lot less heating and house work (for the incumbent and family) than its predecessor.
Which brings us neatly onto that other form of a dwelling which ‘goes with the job’ - the tied cottage. Often associated with agriculture, tied cottages became an increasingly significant part of rural housing with the 18th and 19th century Enclosure Acts, which dismantled both common land and commoners right (grazing, gathering of fire wood etc), much to the detriment of the local, independent, small scale, rural economy. Working people became more dependent on paid agricultural employment and, from various motives, landowners increasingly offered their workers some form of accommodation. Rent was probably minimal and the house considered a perk of the job. It sounds idyllic, all roses around the door, with farm hands located close to where they worked, but of course it gave land owners much greater control of their work force and the workers had few rights and little or no security.
Many reforms of the system were made in the 20th and 21st centuries, including right to buy options, but the system became increasingly unfit for purpose and, with drastic reduction in the need for agricultural workers, many tied cottages were sold off to reduce overheads.
In the 20th century, many of the landed estates started to develop or extend a system of colour coding for their estate properties. Of course the mansion at the core of any particular land holding did not have its doors and window frames painted in the estate colour of choice (right Petworth House, now National Trust, is instantly recognisable but delightful anonymous)
but it became common practice for other estate owned property – from farm yard to village hall to village shop to estate cottages – to be painted in the appropriate colour.
An article in Country Life (https://www.countrylife.co.uk/interiors/why-you-see-matching-front-door-colours-across-great-swatches-of-the-english-countryside-226604) talks nostalgically about the colour options chosen by the big estates. Cowdray’s Sussex estate has doors and windows painted a bright yellow. The Duke of Northumberland’s Surrey Estate is adorned with a tasteful green. There is Chatsworth blue and Belvoir brown. It does add a certain piquancy to the rural landscape, that splash of unexpected colour which provides a highlight in a green and brown English landscape, reminiscent of the impact of a Gilbert Scott red phone box on the corner of a lonely rural lane.
Above: Northumberland Green and Cowdray Yellow
Of course, it is also very paternalistic and a form of marking your territory and branding your belongings in the way we used to brand cattle. Signs such as Keeper’s Cottage, The Bothy or the Old Forge tend to appear after the last game keeper, gardener or blacksmith has long gone. Yet, if you live in a cottage on a large estate, you may have no choice, as the identity of your landlord/employer may be emblazoned, in colour, all over your door and window frames.
What did the Russians ever do for us?
I am sure there are many plucky overland travellers who have driven from Europe to Central Asia. I like to think Eric Newby started the trend in 1956 (see ‘A short Walk in the Hindu Kush’, when he and Hugh Carless drove a ‘brand new station wagon … painted in light tropical colours’ from London to Afghanistan) but no doubt there have been plenty of others, both before and after. We also know cyclists who have pedalled from Europe to Kyrgyzstan, and who report a vibrant and friendly camaraderie which supports them along the way.
But most of us take the less adventurous option and fly by commercial airline, even if we are beaten up by our carbon consciences. We say ‘less adventurous’ but struggling through Heathrow is no longer a walk in the park and there is that terrible frisson of fear when, checking in for a flight, one’s baggage disappears bearing the IATA airport code FRU when one’s ticket clearly states Bishkek.
‘Bishkek’ is a modern concept - the name was adopted at independence in 1991.
There seems to have been some sort of habitation here for centuries, but the Khan of Kokand fortified the site in the early 19th century and the Russians later carried on the work with the establishment of a strategic Cossack garrison.
Image above: the Kyrgyz Republic’s flag flying proudly from the 45 m high National Flag Pole over Bishkek’s Ala-Too Square
By 1878 the town was known as Pishpek and, by 1914, it had swollen to a substantial city of Russian and Chinese immigrants. Enter the Bolsheviks in 1917, and by 1926 Pishpek became the capital of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, and was renamed Frunze, after a locally born but recently deceased Bolshevik general. Hence the IATA code of FRU.
Today, central Bishkek’s basic bone structure is still that of a Central Asian capital city constructed during Soviet times. The classic elements are all there – wide boulevards, substantial parks, central spaces for mass rallies, backed by imposing ‘public’ buildings and, of course, statues of Lenin. It scrubs up well though and gives a maturity and presence to the capital of this new Kyrgyz Republic.
The wide boulevards are harder to photograph, cluttered as they are with both parked cars and moving vehicles, but they still slice through Bishkek’s urban area, creating a central grid pattern lined with trees, and radials which connect with surrounding areas, and offer tantalizing glimpses of the mountains.
Parks are a welcome addition in any Kyrgyz town, providing much needed shade, colour and social space, particularly in summer.
Independence was not an easy ride, however. Under the Soviets, there were jobs for all, housing and sufficient food, schools and universities. After independence, the economy crashed and none of the basics provided by the Soviets was a given. In addition, there was political instability, and ethnic friction in the geographically more distant south west, close to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Violence and revolution flared on a number of occasions.
Colin Thubron’s journey through Kyrgyzstan in the mid 2000s (Shadow of the Silk Road, first published 2006), describes poverty in both town and countryside. One chance acquaintance is quoted as saying, “We’re a poor country. We never looked for independence. It just fell into our hands. We should have had battles and rebellions against Moscow. But it was all done for us by others…”. His younger, post-communist, cousin describes being Kyrgyz as “hav[ing] no burden… Others have a burden of history. But we – nothing!”
We saw and felt the impact of this historical void in 2022 but also appreciated the actions taken to fill it: the increased self-esteem with the re-introduction of the Kyrgyz language into daily Kyrgyz life, the pride in the re-establishment of the legendary hero Manas (image left), the awareness of the need to conserve nomadic customs and traditions.
Bishkek’s statues reflect some of this re-acquisition of the Kyrgyz identity. Manas is huge, of course, literally, figuratively – and numerically. It’s a delight to see him pop up on road sides, town squares and mountain sides.
Perhaps surprisingly, Lenin is still present (image right), but has been moved from his original postion. He is no longer gesturing at distant mountains but seems to be waving at the former Central Committee Building . Read into that what you will.
Marx and Engels are still deep in conservation (below left). The Soviet Friendship Monument (below centre) is still floating above Ala-Too Square. But new post-Soviet monuments are also appearing, the most arresting being the black and white marble monument (below right) dedicated to ‘Those who Died for Freedom’. It is located close to the President’s Palace where protestors chained themselves to the railings.
The reinstatement of religion also tells a story: “A poor Islam and a disgraced Communism...” (Colin Thubron’s Shadow of the Silk Road again). Our guides were somewhat embarrassed to tell us that there are now more mosques in Kyrgystan than there are schools. Funding appears to pour in for mosque construction, from Turkey, from the Middle East, and there are fears of fundamentalism. On the other hand, Kyrgyz people seem to practice a brand of ‘relaxed’ Islam, mixed with, or influenced by other, older influences such as Shamanism and Buddhism.
Some mosques are elaborate affairs (left), but many look like flat pack Ikea kits, consisting of a squat base, usually (but not always) a small dome, and a stick-on minaret which no muezzin could ever hope to climb.
In contrast, the Soviet era cemeteries seem ethereal, arresting - and distinctly un-egalitarian.
In the countryside, the 19th century Russian immigrants had already wrought significant, if small scale, changes by cultivating land and living in houses. But the Soviet approach was based on centralised control, via the collective farm, with its larger scale agricultural buildings.
We could only imagine the impact of the return to a market economy, combined of course with outward migration which presumably meant fewer agricultural workers but at least some money coming back in from remittances sent home.
We saw very little evidence remaining of the former collective farm stores and structures, and the scale of post-Soviet agriculture seemed very variable. Some fields were being tilled by hand; some showed a basic degree of mechanisation while other areas were growing arable crops across significantly large areas – all presumably for the home market. Wonderful apricots and other fruits also feature. Some fields were fallow, or possibly just totally neglected. A few were irrigated, some not. We saw few cash crops such as cotton or tobacco. But then we didn’t visit the Fergana Valley which may have a very different landscape.
Growing fodder for livestock still appears to be very significant. We were there at ‘hay’ time. For hay read green grass, cut and raked into windrows to dry, then either baled or raked into heaps for transporting loose. The domestic architecture of hay stacks was glorious.
We presume the basic, single storey, rectangular housing unit started life as a 19th Russian import. Most of the older houses we saw had a pitched, or pitched and hipped, or Mansard roofs, with the roof space bulging with last year’s hay. Rural fences come in all shapes and sizes but there was one common theme, a picket style with a diamond panel. Again, we assumed this was a Russian phenomenon, but cannot find its like on the internet.
Larger towns and urban areas are still not a significant feature of the Kyryz landscape but there is a feature of the Kyrgyz transport infrastructure which is something which the Russians did do for Kyrgyzstan. We’ll leave you with pictures of Central Asia’s quirkiest Soviet inheritance: the bus shelter.
Live On
We started preparing this week’s blog on Wednesday of last week, with the words: ‘We hadn’t planned on posting another blog on Kyrgyzstan quite so soon, but life is unpredictable and ‘stuff happens’. Our ‘stuff’ turned out to be very small fry compared with the events of the following Thursday afternoon. Whatever you think of living in a constitutional monarchy, the death of a highly respected, empathetic and influential women, who is also one of the world’s longest standing monarchs, must take priority. It’s a cliché but it is the end of an era.
Society and its landscape have changed markedly through the seventy years of the Queen’s reign. During the latter part, climate change was – finally – recognised as significant. Charles III, in the guise of the Prince of Wales, recognised this significance much earlier than many and was vocal in his responses and calls for action. Slowly his reputation and approach has been rehabilitated from say, eccentric, to unnerving realist.
Who would have thought, at the end of the 20th century, that the Tower of London, that massive and assertive symbol of English history and power, would have turned its moat over to ceramic poppies in 2014, in an act of remembrance, before progressing to real flowers in 2022, with the spectacular London ‘Superbloom’, in an act of hope and to signal the way forward. Thank goodness that Queen Elizabeth II lived long enough to see them both.
Sadly, as King Charles III, the former Prince of Wales can no longer pursue his campaigning lifestyle. This he confirmed in his address to the nation last Friday evening. In this carefully crafted speech, one phrase struck Terroir: ‘we must retain our values’. I think we all know what he meant – values relating to service, steadfastness, honesty – but we suspect that many of us define ‘values’ as being able to continue to live our lives as we have always done. These values have to change. Whether it be by not mowing our lawn so often, not eating meat, eschewing non-recyclable plastic wrapping, giving up the car, or supporting the erection of more windfarms and solar panels, we absolutely must change our values, and our way of life, if we are to have any life worth valuing.
The Queen is dead, but the Monarchy is not. Long live the King. The future of our planet, however, is not so well assured.
Building History
If you read Terroir’s previous blog on Kyrgyzstan, you might be forgiven for thinking that the whole country consists of sweeping mountain pastures, picturesque nomads, woolly yaks, woolly yurts and re-purposed railway carriages. This isn’t quite true, of course, and this week we will, finally, give you a peep at those three historic monuments we mentioned previously.
But we will start our story in prehistory – perhaps 4,000 years ago – with Bronze Age rock carvings (images below from the Cholpon-Ata Open-air Petroglyph Museum) …
… and fascinating Balbal figures. The Balbals reminded us very much of the archaeological site at Filitosa in southern Corsica and the southern mainland of France, some 4,000 miles to the west.
Below: left Balbals at Cholpon-Ata Open-air Petroglyph Museum); right, at Filitosa, Corsica (© Amaury Laporte https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=Filitosa%20corsica&license=4%2C5%2C6%2C9%2C10)
Subsequent political geography seems complex. The early silk trading routes started over two thousand years ago and the ‘owner/occupiers’ of what is now Kyrgyzstan included the Saka tribes (who seem to have successfully seen off Alexander the Great), Huns and Tocharians. Turkik peoples, from the west, started to arrive from the 6th century AD and Arab invasions brought Islam to central Asia in the 7th century AD.
[Various sources including the Bradt guide to Kyrgyzstan].
So now we can go to our first heritage building - the Burana Tower - a remant of the ancient city of Balasgun, founded in the 10th century by the Karakhanids, a Turkik group described by our guide book as ‘cultured’. It seems they were also heavily into trade, and Balasgun (in the Chui valley of northern Kyrgyzstan) is said to be one of three cities in the region controlling the silk roads. The tower is thought to have been a minaret, heavily restored in the 1970’s.
The surrounding urban complex (a fortress plus dwellings, shops, baths, mausoleums, etc) is hard to imagine now, but the small museum is interesting - and also amusing due to a bad attack of that universal problem of mis-translation. The Russian text refers to ‘women’s adornments’, the English text to ‘wallies’. If you know what the ‘wallies’ might be (image below right), please let us know. A couple of Scottish suggestions are already in (china dogs and ‘peely-wally’ ie pale/off-colour), but they don’t seem to get quite to the heart of the matter!
Tash Rabat – our second monument - is a breathtaking, 15th century, silk road caravanserai on a site which may also have been used as an earlier monastery (Christian or perhaps Buddhist) prior to the arrival of Islam. The location is remote – over 100 km from the town of Naryn – but well worth the long climb into the Tian Shan Mountains. The Chinese border is maybe 30 km away, as the Eagle flies.
Half buried in the hillside, the stone built structure must have been part hotel, part secure warehouse and perhaps part administrative centre too. The situation is phenomenal, and the building’s historic aura is almost tangible. Inside it is cool, secure, but cunningly constructed to make good use of natural daylight. Around 30 small rooms provide bedrooms, kitchens, storage, prayer rooms and prison cells. It was thronged with ghosts.
By the time the Tash Rabat caravanserai was built, it seems that ethnically Kyrgyz people (nomads/warriors) had arrived in the Tien Shan Mountains and spread into what is now called Kyrgyzstan. This journey from northern Mongolia included robust altercations with rivals and futile attempts to resist Ghengis Khan and his Mongolian Golden Horde. Later (17th century) the western Mongol Oirats got involved, only to be replaced, in the 18th century, by the Chinese. Things seemed to get tough again with a takeover by the Uzbek Kokand Khanate (the guide book mentions issues relating to Silk Road fortresses, high taxes and violent repression).
Next: enter the Russians. The Tsar’s armies defeated the Kokand forces in 1865, annexed the territory and took control. It seems that, in social and landscape terms, nothing was ever the same again.
A new breed of migrants started to enter Kyrgyzstan – sedentary, house dwelling, farmers. Many were soldiers, but many others were landless peasants, offered free land (well, actually nomadic, seasonal grazing) and building materials, in exchange for populating what the Tsar saw as a frontier zone. Russian or Soviet rule would last until the early 21st century.
Not all incoming migrants were Russian, of course, but all needed some form of shelter. Permanent military and domestic structures must have started to make significant inroads into the nomadic Kyrgyz people’s lowland pastures.
Many of the new incomers were Muslim Hui and Uyghur refugees from China and one assumes their spritual needs were already met, at least in part, by the existing Islamic infrastructure of the Kyrgyz society. But the Russians would have been Orthodox Christians, looking to construct churches as well as homes, barns and barracks.
And so we come to our third historic Monument, the splendid, wooden Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, in Karakol.
The cathedral website is in Russian, but travel websites (such as https://visitkarakol.com/holy_trinity_cathedral), dedicated to enticing tourists to Kyrgystan, provide useful background information.
Once a garrison town, Karakol is now described in our guide book as “delightfully serene … resonant with the ghosts of 19th-century rural Russian life”. We can thoroughly recommend the small Museum of Local History which illustrates, amongst many other things, the lives and homes of the peasants who arrived to take up their homeland’s offer of a better life. Building the church must have been a significant event in their new lives and their new landscape.
Below left: Museum of Local History and, right: agricultural machinery and dolls dressed in the costumes of the immigrants who came to farm here
The first church, apparently a small brick building, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1885, some sixteen years after it was constructed. The larger, wooden replacement took six years to build and, at the time, was by far the tallest building in town. The cathedral survived a rather chequered career in Soviet times but was returned to the church in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. It has, of course, needed considerable but we would judge, pretty successful, restoration.
Of course there are other places of worship in Karakol. We also visited the Dungan, or ‘Chinese’ Mosque. This too is constructed from wood (completed in 1910) and also symbolises the migrant journey of the muslim, Dungan Chinese, escaping persecution. In terms of architecture, Holy Trinity brought Russia to Kyrgyzstan, but this mosque’s history is slightly more complex. As you can see, despite it's rectangular minaret, it resembles more pagoda than mosque, and reflects the Dungan’s Buddhist past.
In Britain, this would probably be a listed structure by now. We suggest it’s time Kyrgyzstan increased its heritage building list from three to four!
No Fixed Address
It can take a lot of driving and a robust vehicle to visit the historic buildings of Kyrgyzstan. We managed to visit all of them over a 9 day visit. In the UK, that would be pretty amazing; there are over 370,000 structures on the Heritage list for England alone. But in Kyrgyzstan, our guides informed us, there are only three monuments regarded as heritage buildings. Kyrgyzstan is great on archaeology, but very light on early architecture.
This lack of old structures is largely due to Kyrgyzstan’s social and geographical history: this bit of central Asia was largely about nomads until well into the 19th century. Despite being traversed by the ‘silk road’ trading routes between China and Turkey, despite sharing a border with Uzbekistan (a settled, farming country rich in trade and Islamic architecture with legendary cities such as Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva), Kyrgyzstan is startlingly different. Kyrgyzstan’s heritage is about wide open spaces, about seasonal movement, and about yurts, not houses. It takes quite a lot of getting used to.
So why is the nomadic landscape so hard to ‘read’? What’s different from any other grazed hillside? Most Europeans are very familiar with the bi-annual transhumance of domestic animals: up in spring time to those picturesque, mountain meadows, leaving the lowlands to grow hay for winter fodder; down in the autumn as the days shorten and the uplands prepare for snow.
But no, that’s not the same as nomadic. Down in those European valleys are quaint farm houses with barns and cow sheds, villages, churches and inns, where humans and livestock can overwinter in permanent structures. This isn’t part of a truly nomadic tradition.
So what is a nomad? Wikipedia’s definition seems as good as any:
‘A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased, reaching an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world as of 1995.’ [Terroir’s highlighting] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomad
Trying to locate information on the current status of nomads in Kyrgyzstan is difficult. Understandably, many of the websites which offer information are those promoting tourism and selling ‘experiences’ in Kyrgyzstan. We have no problem with that - we ourselves were tourists and glad to be supporting the Kyrgyz economy - but the sources of the tourist sites’ data are unreferenced and hard to verify. One such site suggests that there are still 4.4 million Kyrgyz nomads, ‘who mostly live in Kyrgyzstan’. Assuming that the current population of Kyrgyzstan (not all of which are ethnic Kyrgyz, of course) is about 6.7 million people (depending on which website you check), then about half the Republic’s population could be classified as nomadic. From what we experienced, however, we assume that the continued use of the term ‘nomads’ is somewhat misleading as most families now have permanent winter/all year round quarters with, perhaps, summer yurts on the upland pastures. A great many of the yurts we saw are now also, or possibly only, servicing the tourist industry. One family we chatted to spent their winters in Bishkek and their summers on the Tien Shan uplands, providing visitor facilities at Tash Rabat - one of those three historic buildings we mentioned earlier.
Below: summer uplands near Tash Rabat, 21st century style - yurts, trucks, tourists and horses
What are the key elements of Kyrgyzstan’s historic nomadic lifestyle? Terroir would suggest that the combination of vast areas of upland, combined with robust and sure footed livestock, is key.
According to our guide book, a staggering 90% of Kyrgyzstan is over 1,500m (around 5,000 ft). If you read our previous blog (The Bin), you’ll know that Ben Nevis is ‘only’ 1,345 m (or 4,413 ft). The north and east of the country is dominated by the Tien Shan mountain range, which stretches from Uzbekistan, thrugh Kyrgyzstan and on into western China. The highest peak, on the Kyrgyz side of the China border, clocks 7,439 m (over 24,000 ft) which is not far off 84% of the height of Everest. The geology and age of the rocks varies and so does the landscape (see below).
South western Kyrgyzstan sports sections of the Pamir and Pamir Alay ranges, older and more rounded mountains but still achieiving a Kyrgyz summit (second highest in the Pamir range) of 7,134 m (23,400 ft) at Peak Lenin.
Below: glimpses of the Tien Shan range
How do you create a way of life which makes best use of such a vertical country? Livestock is the obvious answer. Horses, donkeys and camels - the four legged equivalent of the modern four wheel drive - provide transport and draft power. Cattle, yaks and sheep provide food, drink, housing, clothing and an outlet for artistic expression. But communities have to keep moving to ensure the meagre pastures can continuously support the animal based ‘capital’.
Below: livestock on the summer pastures - horses, sheep, camels, yak, a donkey on child care duties and cattle
Need some ready money for a lowland shopping expedition? Cash in a beast or two at the cattle market.
Obviously meat is an important part of the nomadic diet (traditionally mutton and horse were particularly significant) but fermented mare’s milk (kumis) is also a Kyrgyz speciality and is now an important part of that new aspect of the nomadic economy - tourism.
We experienced both meat and kumis at Lake Son Kul - a water body frozen in winter, but a dusty experence in summer thanks to climate-change induced mega temperatures. The lake is described in guide books, and on tourist websites, as ‘isolated’ and ‘only accessible by hiking and walking’. In fact we were driven there, but our non four-wheel drive minibus did not enjoy the off-road experience.
An ‘all in one’ meal of mutton and vegetables was prepared for us (below left) (Terroir found it utterly delicious) and which was served to us in an adjacent yurt (middle picture). The low table was laden with the stew, plus salads, fruit, biscuits, jams and sweets, laid out in very generous quantities. The yurt was beautifully decorated but as there was nothing else in it apart from us and the table, it felt rather like eating in the little used parlour or ‘front room’ of an English, Edwardian, terraced house.
After lunch we were introduced to kumis and shown how the women milked the mares to obtain the basic raw material (below right). Before and after fermentation tasting samples were available; the kumis reminded Terroir of kefir but of a thinner consistency.
Kyrgyz nomadic housing, is of course, based on the yurt, a structure made from wood, reed, leather and thick, home made felt. It can be collapsed, packed away, loaded onto a cart, transported to a new area of meadow, and reconstructed with remarkable efficiency.
Here is Terroir’s guide to erecting a yurt in ten (uneasy?) steps. Please note that the yurt in question is tiny so that the building team could fit in the demonstration before another generous lunch was served in the family house!
Actually it should be eleven steps - it was pointed out that we had missed the shots of vodka taken inside on completion.
And, of course, no modern yurt is complete without its converted railway carriage extension.
A mobile life means that crafts and artistic expression must use easily available raw materials. It must also adapt well to life in an upland pasture and be easily packed away and transported.
Animal skins are great for boots and bottles but you can’t beat home-made woollen felt for stunning interior decoration and inspired needle work.
Our first introduction to Kyrgyz shyrdaks was in hotels and guest houses where these patterned felt rectangles had been re-puposed from domestic decorative wall hangings, carpets and table covers to doing the same job in the hospitality sector. They are stunning in either location.
Thankfully, we were soon taken to visit a fascinating collection of costumes and decorative textiles lovingly kept by a Kyrgyz family who were concerned, not just with interested tourists like ourselves, but with the conservation of this heritage and with raising awareness, both locally and regionally, of a traditional art and craft form which could easily be lost.
Women created these fabrics. The work was slow, laborious but social and one can imagine that process was as important as finished product. Our guide book suggests that two colour embroidery was formerly the norm but, with the availability of modern, 20th century dyes, more dramatic colour schemes have developed. We have yet to verify this and, foolishly, didn’t ask when the opportunity arose. We could certainly spot the difference between items produced for tourists (smaller, easier to carry, quicker to make, often involving machine rather than hand stitching) but that’s fine. We bought.
How many in Kyrgyzstan can afford to risk investment (time, finance, market research) to produce modern pieces using traditional techniques? How many women still have the skills? What are the risks of cultural appropriation? Who would buy? I would - if I could afford it, of course.
We haven’t even touched on two other nomad staples which delight visitors to Kyrgyzstan.
One is the use of eagles for hunting. Extraordinarily dramatic and picturesque - an adult eagle can take out a wolf, as well as kill prey for human consumption - and steeped in tradition. Does it exist now just for tourists? Can it adapt to a modern but non-tourist context? It reminded me of our European traditions of hunting with birds. Now largely a tourist spectacle, it does have a few modern commercial functions, but I can hardly see eagles being employed to rid Kyrgyz airports or football grounds of starlings and pigeons.
The other is a modern tradition built on nomadic skills and sports - the Kyrgyz invention of the Nomad Games. First held in 2016 and now with a permanent stadium in Cholpon-Ata on Lake Issyk Kul, this biennial event is largely based on equestrian skills, wrestling, falconry (yes, the eagles do have a role) but also includes yurt building and board games - nomadic aspects you don’t usually see at that other great horse based tradition, the North American rodeo.
But we can’t finish a blog on the nomadic traditions of Kyrgyzstan without mentioning one final, great Kyrgyz icon. The hat or headress is key, of course.
The man’s jaunty, felt, titfer is modelled for us by the yak herder at the top of this blog, and by our eagle toting friend above. It comes in a variety of patterns. If you don’t fancy making your own, new ones can be bought in the Bishkek bazaar. It is such a symbol of the Kyrgyz male, that there is even an older version in the excellent Karakol museum (image left).
In contrast, women tend to have moved on from the traditional yards of cotton which once swathed their heads and which, unlike the man’s headgear, could also be pressed into service to swaddle babies or staunch wounds, as required.
Below (left) women’s traditional and (right) more modern headgear
We might get to those three heritage buildings next time.
The Bin
We’re in Central Asia. New experiences are flooding in, unfamiliar landscapes surround us, cultural assumptions are being challenged, flora and fauna are simultaneously familiar and exotic.
We have reached a pass at about 3,400m (that’s around 11,155 ft in old/Boris money). For a bit of context, Ben Nevis is 1,345 m (4,413 ft), Mont Blanc is 4,807 m (15,770 ft) and Everest is 8,849 m (a tad over 29,000 ft). We’re in a minibus in T shirts and trainers, by the way, not on foot in full climbing gear. We’ve just passed that herd of yak.
We stop for a toilet break and photos. It has the potential to be a memorable moment. And it is: for Terroir, at least, this turns out to be the most memorable and, sadly, the most shocking view of the whole trip.
No - not the toilet block (men on the left and women on the right - it’s in Kyrgyz, not Russian).
The issue is the awful, ghastly, horrendous abomination of plastic litter, accumulating so unexpectedly in this vast landscape. It hit us hard, straight between the eyes and sent us reeling.
This isn’t Kyrgyzstan’s fault. This is the fault of the whole world.
This blog is not about Central Asia. It’s about the environment, global responsibility, and to some extend, international tourism. Specifically it’s a desperate plea regarding the misuse and abuse of so-called single use plastics.
Single use plastic is any plastic item which is designed to be thrown away. Even if it’s technically recyclable, it’s still far more likely to be thrown away, as demonstrated in the pictures above.
Single use plastic isn’t just bottles - it can be plastic shopping bags (again, see pictures) labels and tags, drinking straws, takeaway containers, packaging and cutlery.
Despite what we are led to believe, single use plastic DOES NOT biodegrade but merely breaks down into micro particles, too small to see. But its still there, polluting land, rivers, sea - and our food.
Plastics which aren’t recycled get burnt or dumped, polluting water, air, land - and our food.
And inevitably, the pollution caused by single-use plastics’ impacts disproportionately on poorer and disadvantaged communities.
But:
We can take action
.
The immediate and short term solution, suggested by our picture above, is to take your litter home and dispose of it responsibily!
This Kyrgyz litter bin (right) is trying hard too, although one wonders how much of the plastic deposited here can actually be recycled.
Better and more long term solutions include:
political pressure - write to your MP, join a pressure group, sign petitions
find alternatives to single use plastics - use zero waste shops, avoid that chippy with polystyrene containers, buy drinks in cans, take a cloth bag when shopping
wear natural fabrics or go to a charity shop for recycled clothes
if you can afford it, boycott items in plastic packaging; change the mindset of manufacturers and suppliers
It’s not simple - it never is - but that is a very bad reason for doing nothing.
Please take action now. Not everyone will have been brought up short by the experience we had in Central Asia. Plastic pollution is usually invisible and insidous, impacting on every corner of the globe. We musn’t ignore it.
Our thanks to Greenpeace, amongst others, for some hard, cold reality to temper the rather emotional response to the Kyryzstan high level bin. https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blogs/14052/everything-you-should-know-about-single-use-plastic/
Wall Flowers
No, not this sort of wallflower (Erisymum) which, unromantically, is part of the cabbage family, the Brassicaceae.
Nor this sort of wall flower either: the flamboyant flower varieties that can be encouraged to grow next to walls, or dangle down walls from hanging baskets or project themselves from walls in window boxes.
We’re talking about the sort of plants which grow in walls, and which plant themselves there without the aid of potting compost and irrigation.
This maidenhair spleenwort (left) is a classic example.
Terroir North writes:
A suprising number of plants are tenacious enough, and versatile enough, to successfully colonise all sorts of nooks and crannies in what appear to be very inhospitable environments, including man-made structures like stone and brick walls.
For obvious reasons, this sort of ‘wall flower’ needs to be able to withstand drought. Such flora can also be typical of horizontal environments such as dry, bare ground, where there is no competition from other plants. White stonecrop, a native succulent, has fleshy, waterstoring leaves, which enable it to grow in the free-draining conditions of crevices as well as rocky soils.
Similarly, plants which thrive in the lime mortar, which holds many walls together, may also be typical of more horizontal limestone outcrops.
Where mosses have established they can provide humus and a more favourable seed bed for many subsequent wall colonisers.
Some wall plants are true natives to the UK such as wall speedwell and wall lettuce. But others may have been introduced some time ago from beyond our shores and have ‘naturalised’ and become accepted as part our native flora. Ivy-leaved toadflax (below left) probably started life in Britain adorning the walled gardens of large country houses, following introduction from the Mediterranean as far back as the 17th century. Pellitory of the wall (below centre) is another incomer, thought to have been introduced to Britain for its (doubtful and unproven) herbal medicinal uses. Old cottage garden plants, such as common red valerian (below right) and purple toadflax, have escaped from gardens and also naturalised in the wild.
In centuries-old castles, such as Caerphilly in South Wales, or Thirlwall Castle near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, a diverse range of plants have successfully established themselves all around the walls. Over time the lime mortar between the stone blocks has crumbled, providing a more suitable foothold for these plants. Seeds, either carried on the wind or excreted or dropped by birds, may land in these spaces and, where a crack or crevice in the mortar has developed, they can germinate and become established. In the damper and more shady parts of the walls the spores of ferns carried on the wind may also establish themselves.
Thirlwall Castle:
At Caerphilly Castle in June 2021, the wall flower display was dazzling. Ivy leaved toadflax and pellitory of the wall were present in abundance, but the other star of the show was the navelwort (also called pennywort), in various stages of its spectacular development.
The Caerphilly supporting act was diverse.
Of course the grasses get in on the act with their wonderfully evocative names. Here is a selection:
The former induustrial buildings of Cornwall provide a lush wall habitat with an eclectic mix of mosses and shrubs, reflecting the local rainfall statistics, the shelter of surrounding landforms and seed from the adjacent scrub regeneration.
No review of wall botany would be complete without a mention of lichens. Terroir is far better at taking photographs of lichens than in identifying them, as illustrated by the uncaptioned images below. If you can assist us, please use the comment box at the bottom of this blog. We would be very appreciative. Sadly a quick trawl of lichen related websites demonstrated a preponderance of sites dedicated to removing lichen from stone work, paths and many other substrates. As we assume the search engines list sites in order of popularity/hits/willingness of product manufacturers to pay, this is deeply worrying.
On the whole, lichens, mosses and herbaceous plants don’t seem to do significant harm to their host structures and can certainly add a great deal to local biodiversity, provide a source of food for pollinators, and enhance the interest and appearance of old walls.
Of course disasters do happen. This wall collapse (right), which probably had nothing to do with its attendant plant community, has wiped out a section of the habitat for wall loving flora. If left alone, however, or if repaired using traditional techniques, soil creation will start again and the surrounding vegetation will provide ample seeds and spores for recolonisation.
Fences and fence posts aren’t a patch on walls for biodiversity of course, but are good for perching birds and can also do quirky!
Ophelia’s Brook
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up
Hamlet, Act IV, Scene vii
Shakespeare first launched poor Ophelia into the weeping brook at the beginning of the 17th century. The play, ‘Hamlet Prince of Denmark’ is thought to have been written between 1599 and 1601 and Terroir likes to think that the first night might have been in 1601 or 1602 (for reasons which will later become obvious), prior to print versions being published in 1603 and 1604.
For over 400 years, Hamlet’s story has continued to resonate with audiences and artists alike. Ophelia would fit in well today; her issues relating to such things as mental health, domestic abuse and feminism have not gone away.
Thus the troubled Ophelia was muse to many painters, and the Victorians were particularly fascinated by her. British artists Richard Redgrave, Arthur Hughes, Thomas Francis Dicksee and John Williams Waterhouse all had a go, depicting her in various states of frailty and/or innocence. Photographs of their interpretations can be found at https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2018/01/30/ophelia-nineteenth-century-english-art/
But it was John Everett Millais, a founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who really put Ophelia on the artistic map and probably inspired the many subsequent renditions of the Ophelia image.
Of the artists listed above, only Richard Redgrave’s portrait (left) predates Millais’. Our heroine sits on a tree trunk with her flower garlands in her lap, and her gaze fixed on an unknown view. Behind her, her own landscape is diminished, fading into a dark wooded tunnel, a hollow way, which holds we know not what untold nightmares.
Image:
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Using content from V&A Search the Collections for non-commercial purposes
In July 1851, 250 years after ‘Hamlet’ was first performed, Millais started work on his version of Ophelia. His model for Ophelia herself was Elizabeth Siddal, described as a ‘favourite of the Pre-Raphaelites’. Siddal posed for the work lying in a bath. The water was heated by lamps from below, but the experience must still have been extraordinarily unpleasant. Understandably, she became ill – her father threatened Millais with legal action until he consented to pay her doctor’s bills – but survived, and later married Dante Gabriel Rossetti, another founder member of the Brotherhood.
Millais’ model for the “weeping brook” was the Hogsmill River, a chalk stream which rises in Ewell in Surrey and flows into the Thames at Kingston. The clear waters and floriferous banks must have made it an attractive and appropriate location and perhaps its brief life ‘on this earth’ (it flows for a mere six or seven miles before being swallowed by the mighty Thames) also made it an appropriate watery symbol of Ophelia’s brief existence.
When Millais was painting the Hogsmill River it would probably have been a classic, rural, chalk stream and an integral part of the water meadows through which it flowed. We can imagine it as a thread of clear water running over long fans and tassels of water crowfoot, which Terroir likes to think must have been very redolent of a women’s wet and trailing skirt.
The finished painting provides a vivid illustration of water crowfoot (seen, in flower, in the extract below), accentuating the line of Ophelia’s fabulous and floral garment.
Extract from Nicole Ameda https://www.flickr.com/photos/153228408@N06/33651078923/
In the 1850s the flow of the river was sufficient to drive a number of corn and gunpowder mills, so commercial and industrial establishments were also co-habiting with Ophelia. Indeed, William Holman Hunt, another founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, also found inspiration along the Hogsmill, and his painting, ‘The Light of the World’, portrays Christ knocking at a door said to be modelled on the that of a disused hut, once used by workers at one of the gunpowder mills. https://eehe.org.uk/?p=25294
The flowers which Millais painted with great botanical accuracy – including daisy, violets, the white field rose, pansies, poppies, forget me not and purple loosestrife – could all have grown hereabouts, although not necessarily all flowering at the same time nor all growing in the exact same location!
In 2001, 150 years after Millais started work besides the Hogsmill River, The London Walking Forum launched the ‘London Loop’, a 150-mile hiking route around the green spaces of outer London. As a result, many ‘Loopers’ will be familiar with the Hogsmill and its links to Millais, as it/they take a star turn in Section 8, ‘Bourne Hall Park, Ewell to Kingston upon Thames’.
Although part of Terroir had already circumnavigated London on the ‘Loop’, we started again in 2021 to ensure that all of ‘Terroir South’ could get full Looping honours. In June 2022, 170 years after the completion of the Ophelia magnum opus, we went back again, to look in detail at where Millais would have planted his easel.
From a review of the Ordnance Survey maps, it seemed likely that the first major development in the area was the building of a railway line very close to the ‘Ophelia Site’, in 1859. If Millais, and indeed Holman Hunt, had postponed their projects by just a few years, ‘Ophelia’, The Light of the World’ and HH’s ‘Hireling Shepherd’ might have been located in some other valley. Thereafter, however, there seems to have been little significant change until the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1910, a sewage works was built close to the Hogsmill (to the west of Millais’ ‘Ophelia’ site), and this may well have been a good thing for the river. But by the 1933 map survey, significant changes can be seen, as Ewell’s urban area expanded hugely thanks to the mass construction of pre-war, speculative, housing. The estates were kept at least one field’s width from the river bank, but the die was cast for the change from a largely agrarian landscape to a significantly suburban one.
Today, the river runs shallow and often turbid, through a recreational landscape which is well used – and no doubt highly valued - by the many who live close by. The landscape is a mix of open grassy spaces (based on former meadow areas) and encroaching scrub and secondary woodland which provides a good mosaic of actual and potential wild life habitat. A good network of paths and river bridges provides easy access to and from local housing (as well as for London Loopers). It hasn’t the open, rural , traditional, meadow feel which Millais probably experienced, but it fulfils its modern function more than adequately.
These days, a summer Looper’s landscape along the Hogsmill looks something like this:
And the river itself, often running through a tunnel of woodland, looks something like this (there is a glimpse of that chalk stream clarity in the image below right):
While the massive structure of a fairly modern railway bridge contributes images like this:
Finally we reach the spot which Millais chose to illustrate Ophelia’s ultimate tragedy. Here is a reminder of how Millais saw the river bank:
Extract from Nicole Ameda https://www.flickr.com/photos/153228408@N06/33651078923/
In 2022, the water is clear but very shallow - not enough to power a flour mill, let alone support a flower bedecked Ophelia. Where once were massive veteran pollarded willows and field roses, there is now sycamore, ash, field maple and remnants of elm, all significantly younger than Millais (probably post WWII). Where once was purple loosetrife and teasels there is now Alexanders, stinging nettle, Himalayan balsam and bramble, all symptomatic of changes in landuse from agriculture to urban fringe (although, to be honest, we did spot teasels elsewhere - below right - where light levels were higher).
Behind Millais, there would probably been well-watered, species rich, hay meadows. There is grassland there still, but evidence indicates a series of changes. Rye grass along the edges may indicate a mutation to a more productive monoculture, perhaps for grazing. But it appears that meadows are being reintroduced again, and the whole area managed to create a haven for wildlife, to improve water quality and boost biodiversity, as well as providing a green oasis for residents and visitor alike. Its good to see that much of the area along the Hogsmill is now designated as Local Nature Reserves.
Above: glorious June meadows
Currently, the river banks remain wooded and this rustic ‘memorial’ to Millais and Ophelia (left) is slowly being swallowed by hawthorn and blackthorn, with no direct view of the river itself. But at least the bramble flowers, peaking into the top right corner of the photograph, provide a floral memory of Millais’ field rose tribute to Ophelia, on the banks of the ‘weeping brook’
Serendipity
Albania 3
All countries reveal quirky and unexpected glimpses of themselves to those who travel through or spend some time there. These glimpses can often be surprising, puzzling or amusing, but always revealing and sometimes challenging.
What follows is a pictorial tour through Albania through the medium of the quirky and the unexpected. And don’t worry - this is the last Albania blog!
Transport is certainly a mixed bag. Of course there are modern cars, motor bikes, taxis and buses. But push bikes (above and below) are still part of the psyche.
Agricultural transport can be pretty varied too.
Railways are struggling - but colourful.
In a country of rivers and lakes, ferries are important but idiosyncratic.
Below left: a rope ferry, connecting communities across an inlet; the fare is equivalent to a few pennies
Centre: the Lake Komani stopping service - a bus body on a boat’s hull
Right: the view from the Komani Lake vehicle ferry; part tourist boat, part freight lifeline; both uses are illustrated - just - in the bottom right hand corner of the photograph
Of course, where there is water, there are also bridges. These are a long standing feature of the Albanian landscape but design, function, size and materials vary dramatically. The photograph (left) is the best image we could get of the Roman bridge and aqueduct which crossed the Vivari Channel and linked Roman Buthrotum (now Albanian Butrint) with the Straits of Corfu.
The subsquent Ottoman bridges are one of the great symbols of Albania, adorning the landscape, and all Albanian guide books, with their simplicity, curvature - and unexplained items of metal work.
More recent bridges are of a less curvaceous form of engineering, with a metal superstructure and stone buttresses.
Below left and centre: this one features hardware from Middlesborough (M ˑ BRO), and
Below right: some dodgy timber planking on a bridge to a former mill.
Both are slightly scary, in their own way, crossing narrow gorges of foaming mountain waters - very much a feature of Albania.
Many railway bridges are similarly meccano like (nearer bridge, below left) but what appear at first glance as modern road bridges, do reveal more historic supporting structures (below left and right). We don’t think the Ottomans went in for fancy metal balustrades.
This is the Balkans and the concept of nationalism is never far from the surface. The Luftetari Kombetar or national fighter is remembered and memorialised in many statues around Albania. These representations are sometimes war like in stance but many stand in a more watchful pose, garlanded with ammunition, shod in traditional Albanian footwear and appearing surprisingly well built. Malnutrition or even a lithe, lean look does not seem to be part of the sculptors’ lexicon.
Sadly, the most obvious, physical, memorial to the Cold War years seems to be a collection of concrete ‘mushrooms’, actually the outward manifestation of a system of underground bunkers sufficient, apparently, to give shelter to every Albanian man, woman and child, should the nuclear threat become a reality.
The bunker below this ‘mushroom’ (left) has been converted into a museum charting the history of the Albanian police force. It starts innocently enough with the story of the 1920s, Dutch trained, Gendarmerie but all too soon progresses to the far darker and scarier repressive years from 1944 to 1991.
Religion was banned, and faith leaders persecuted, during the Communist dictatorship. “In 1976, the Party of Labour even declared Albania to be the first atheist country in the world, putting a ban on religious belief in the constitution and imposing punishments for participating in religious ceremonies and possessing religious books” (https://balkaninsight.com/2019/08/28/how-albania-became-the-worlds-first-atheist-country). Mr G, our guide, described it as a complete vacuum in scoiety, with religious buildings demolished or repurposed, and two generations brought up with no faith or spiritual related input. In the 21st century, we found a very relaxed approach to religion throughout Albania. The population is a mix of Muslim (mainly but not exclusively Sunni) with a significant minority of Christians (Catholic and Orthodix). Nearly 10% identify as either atheists or of no religion.
As tourists we didn’t see many shops. Even tourist shops were hard to find, which was actually quite a relief. But spot the upmarket bric-a-brac shop, below!
Albanian craft products are also hard to find. Albanian carpets, fabrics and embroidery are a feast for the eyes, but shopping is challenging if you don’t want red or white! Silver filgree work is also making a modest comeback.
Of course, any journey will ‘throw up’ some linguistic jokes.
But here are our favourite quirky insights into Albania.
In third place, an early encounter with a restaurant toilet door. Such an attractive and homely welcome.
In second place: a traditional Albanian broom - and yes, it’s made out of a broom plant, in flower too.
First place:
this is what Albania is all about - good coffee, good beer, and a very warm welcome