Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

  • London – Westminster – Tate Britain (Portrait of the Artist’s Wife by William Dobson)

    London – Westminster – Tate Britain (Portrait of the Artist’s Wife by William Dobson)

    The gallery note that William Dobson (1611-1646) was “considered to be one of the best English artists of his time” and I have no reason (or knowledge) to argue with that. There’s a watercolour from the 1830s which shows the painting on display at Howsham Hall, a grand house to the north-east of York and not that far from Castle Howard. Dobson was a court painter for King Charles I and was a respected artist of this time. Unfortunately, his allegiance to the Monarchy didn’t end well for him when Parliamentarians started to take power, he fell out of favour and died in poverty at the age of just 35.

    The artwork is of Judith Sanders, Dobson’s second wife, and it was painted in the late 1630s. It’s not known where the painting went until it was noted as being at Howsham Hall, where it remained until the sale in November 1948 when it was purchased by the Rev. Denzil Wright. The Tate acquired the artwork in 1992, although it had gone on display at the National Portrait Gallery in late 1983.

  • Cambridge – Mill Road Cemetery

    Cambridge – Mill Road Cemetery

    Across the country, there were problems in the early nineteenth century with churchyards in cities becoming full. The cholera epidemic gave the dual problem of more burials, as well as the risk of spreading disease by burying bodies in city centres. So, in 1844, a decision was wisely made to acquire a site of land where burials could take place and the Mill Road site was secured. There was also the inspired idea that the 13 parishes of All Saints, St Andrew the Great, St Andrew the Less, St Benedict, St Botolph, St Clement, St Edward, St Mary the Great, St Mary the Less, St Michael, St Paul, Holy Sepulchre and Holy Trinity could share the land.

    The information board at the cemetery shows how the churches divided up the land to suit the needs of their own parishes. The land was consecrated in 1848 and then burials were moved to this site, thereby relieving pressure on the existing churchyards.

    The lodge was constructed before the land was consecrated, so that the custodian of the site had accommodation, but the building was also used as offices and as a mortuary chapel. It doesn’t sound the ideal place to live if I’m being honest, but each to their own and there would have been far worse accommodation in Cambridge at the time.

    Money was raised to build a chapel at the centre of the site as the existing lodge wasn’t sufficient in size. Finances were secured to get the services of George Gilbert Scott to design the chapel and it opened on 28 May 1858. The chapel was used until the 1940s, but then it fell out of usage and was badly damaged by a fire. In 1954, it was decided that it would be best to demolish it, something which I think was a palpably bad decision. There was an archaeological investigation in 2009 to map out the foundations of the chapel, and they’ve been marked with stones, a project which I think is a marvellous idea. There are some medium-term plans to do something with this site, although I can’t imagine anything will take place for some time.

    As for the rest of the site, it’s peaceful and calm, but some parts have become quite derelict. Some parishes had filled their land up by the early twentieth century, but a few burials took place until it all came to an end in 1949 when the cemetery was closed. There is some provision for people to be buried alongside loved ones, but today the site is operated by Cambridge City Council.

    Some photos of the cemetery….

  • Cambridge – Old Ticket Office

    Cambridge – Old Ticket Office

    Despite using Cambridge railway station relatively regularly, I’ve managed not to notice that this pub opened in June 2018. Its presence has only become apparent to me since it’s now listed in the Good Beer Guide and it has pleased CAMRA, who have given it numerous awards. The pub is operated by the City Pub Company, who now have fifty or so pubs, and I like what they’ve done with the Bath Brew House (in Bath), the Lion & Lobster (in Brighton) and St. Andrew’s Brew House (in Norwich).

    I’ve had a look through the beers that this pub has been serving and there’s lots of innovation. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the beer selection that was on when I visited, but I imagine that their trade is down and so this is the response that they feel most appropriate at the moment. Having written that, the Norfolk Topper from Barsham Brewery was a locally sourced beer and it was well-kept and quite drinkable.

    The staff here are way above average, really engaging and welcoming. This gave me an excellent first impression and indeed, positive impression throughout my visit. I can see why the pub is doing so well.

    The pub’s web-site doesn’t say much about the history of the building that they’re in, which is a shame as it’s quite glorious. The pub’s name suggests that it’s the station’s former ticket office and the transformation is quite beautiful as it almost looks like this bar was always here. The green is inspired by the colour scheme of LNER, the 1923-1948 one and not the current one.

    For those who like to people watch, the outside terrace is ideal. I sat outside and spent most of my time fending off a wasp, a reminder to myself that it’s safer for people like me to sit inside. Sod the continental approach, it’s rarer to get rain, wind and wasps when sitting inside.

    So, all rather lovely, hopefully their beer selection will be more exciting when things start to return to some form of normality. But, it’s clear that this pub has been doing some great things and it’s become increasingly popular, so this is a useful on-trend addition to the railway station.

  • London – Westminster – Tate Britain (Distant View of York by Alexander Keirincx)

    London – Westminster – Tate Britain (Distant View of York by Alexander Keirincx)

    This isn’t a great photo of this artwork, which is a distant view of the city of York.

    Fortunately, the gallery has released copies of its artworks on-line, so here’s a better one. This painting was one of ten that were commissioned by King Charles I to show some northern and Scottish scenes. It was then housed at Whitehall Palace, before being sold at a sale of Commonwealth assets on 3 May 1650, the second of such disposals (and more were to come) of the Monarch’s property. This painting was purchased at the sale by Remigius van Leemput for his collections and it came to Tate Britain in 1986, so it has been on a long and circuitous journey to end up nearby to Whitehall once again.

    The artwork was painted by Alexander Keirincx (1600-1652), a Flemish landscape painter who specialised in wooded scenes and imagery of English castles and landscapes. He painted this series of artworks in 1639, before moving to Amsterdam in 1641 where he lived until his death.

    Work by the Tate suggests that the painting isn’t entirely historically accurate, so it’s unclear whether or not the artist did visit York or he just shoved something together from existing drawings. Interestingly, six of the paintings from the same series came up in the late twentieth century, two of which ended up at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and the other at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut (which has the largest collection of British paintings in the world outside of the UK). Some of the other paintings that came up for sale didn’t sell, so they could be anywhere at the moment.

  • Cambridge – Cambridge Blue

    Cambridge – Cambridge Blue

    This is a Good Beer Guide listed pub, located a relatively short walk from the railway station. Originally opened in the 1860s and formerly known as the Dew Drop Inn (which a few people have suggested is a Victorian play on the words of ‘do drop in’), the pub has a solid reputation within CAMRA given all that I’ve heard.

    I’ve been to the pub before, but I haven’t realised in the past just how big a beer garden they have.

    And a quirky interior. The staff members were friendly and there was one of the best attempts to manage social distancing in a pub that I’ve seen. Everything was clean and organised, with a really laid-back calm and relaxed atmosphere.

    I wasn’t sold on the beer options, there were no dark beers at all (there’s one on tomorrow), which is a disappointing imbalance of beer styles. The Hop Kitty from Animal Brewing was fine though, a hoppy beer with clean tastes. I liked the atmosphere and comfortable nature of the pub, as well as the friendly staff, but the beer range was a bit pointed at Belgian beers and light beers for my liking, marvellous though that it is. But perhaps there are supply issues at the moment, this is a challenging time for pubs in very many different ways.

  • Cambridge – Tram Depot

    Cambridge – Tram Depot

    I didn’t have enormously high expectations for this pub, but I liked its heritage as it’s the former depot for the horse-drawn trams. However, the welcome from the staff member was immediate and authentic, and I started to think that I could rather like it here. The pub was clean throughout as well and they were operating the track and trace effectively.

    I was seated on a low down sofa, but I looked enviously at those high tables with power and ability to tap piffle on my keyboard. I was willingly allowed to move.

    And here we are in my new location, overlooking the bar in what is quite a spacious place. There was table service offered throughout and the staff member was suitably engaging and welcoming. I liked this place sufficiently now to get food as well.

    Quirky buildings often make for great venues, although it’s a shame that the pub makes nothing of this on their web-site. In short though, this was the depot of Cambridge Street Tramways which operated horse-drawn trams between 1880 and 1914. This was required as the railway station had been built around a mile out of the centre of town, which wasn’t exactly ideal.

    The reviews of the pub are pretty high, no real issues there, although one customer complained they were barred and I liked the manager’s direct reply of:

    “Hi Colette. You know full well why you and your partner are barred, due to you[r] abysmal behavior on previous occasions.”

    I like direct.

    And then reviews like this, to which the manager didn’t reply, which seems to forget that licensing often dictates these things, not “evil” and “disgusting” pubs.

    “What kind of an evil place advertises pizza outside to then let you come in, sit down and be denied service because you have a teenager and an 11 y/o? I understand a no children behind the bar rule, but if you serve food, you should not discriminate. Never seen a pizza place for over 18s only, disgusting.”

    Excuse the poor quality of my phone’s zoom, but there was a reasonable range of beers on. Actually, the selection was well measured with a variety of different beer types.

    Titanic is one of my favourite breweries, so I was pleased that the pub had their stout available.

    The Big Tram pizza, with toppings of pulled pork, pepperoni, Prosciutto and chorizo. The quality was very high, particularly with reference to the toppings, and chorizo on top of a pizza is one of those gifts from the Gods. Perhaps it could have been just a little tiny bit bigger, but this was better tasting than I had expected. Indeed, the pub hadn’t disappointed me on anything, a reminder not to judge a book by its covers.

    The other bonus here was that the Government’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ kicked in to reduce the pizza price from £11.95 to £5.97, with the beer taking it to £10.10. The next excitement was that Amex Shop Small then kicked in, so this expedition cost me a grand total of £5.10. I’d say that’s a pretty good deal.

    This was one of the better pubs that I’ve been to in Cambridge and, if it was anything to do with me, I’d want to see it in the next issue of the Good Beer Guide.

  • Cambridge – Free Press

    Cambridge – Free Press

    I’ve been here before, although I’ve come to Cambridge with so many people (well, nearly five) that I can’t remember who I went with. Anyway, I doubt anyone much cares about that, but the reason I came back is that it’s in the Good Beer Guide. The pub is named after a temperance movement newspaper, which managed to get to just one issue. The story goes that Sarah Horne established the pub in 1834 and she named the pub after the newspaper because she thought that this was ironic, and it is indeed quite humorous, although I doubt the editor approved.

    It’s a Greene King operated venue, so the beer choice wasn’t overly exciting, but the Timothy Taylor’s Landlord was well-kept and tasted as it was meant to. The staff member did recommend a bottled beer as I wanted something darker, so there was an effort made and the service was polite and helpful.

    The pub wasn’t very busy, this is the left-hand side front room. There’s lots of heritage here and it’s clearly been popular with locals and university students (and indeed university students who are locals) for many decades.

    In a nod to their printing related name, local customers have given the pub random photos and, to be honest, some junk, which is placed in type cases that were once used by printers. The Good Pub Guide, which is a book I don’t much like (unlike the Good Beer Guide, which is truly excellent), says that the pub “was a print shop for a local paper” which doesn’t appear to be true.

    The pub still has outdoor toilets, which is exciting insomuch that it doesn’t happen much any more, and there’s an external seating area. It was also raining, so this didn’t seem quite as appealing as it might do in the warm summers that the UK is not entirely renowned for.

    I suspect, and indeed know since the staff member told another customer, that the number of table bookings wasn’t very high at all, which is surprising given the eat out to help out scheme which is running. Although, I didn’t even realise they were serving food until someone ordered at the bar, there were no menus visible (or I didn’t notice any, but I might not have noticed them as I get distracted easily). The Scotch eggs looked good in photos though, a reliable bar snack option if they’re done right.

    So, it was all entirely acceptable and the staff members were friendly, so the environment was comfortable. The pub seemed clean, although it had the problem of having a toilet check-list that wasn’t being routinely filled in, so customers then can see that staff aren’t checking the toilets. But, I don’t let such things worry me (although I seem to have the need to comment on them) and there’s a quirkiness to this pub that I rather liked.

  • Paston – St. Margaret’s Church (Chest)

    Paston – St. Margaret’s Church (Chest)

    Most churches would have had a chest, or hutch, such as this in order to store their parish documents and any valuables. Not many survive in situ, so this is quite marvellous, with this one dating back at least 600 years. Fortunately, the documents, which date back to 1538, have now been moved to the wonderful Norfolk Record Office, so they’re safe and sound.

    Unfortunately, the current health issue means that it has red and white tape attached to it to try and keep visitors in limited areas, but this is all now part of the long history of this chest. That this chest has survived for 600 years, with no-one pinching it or damaging it, is remarkable, as is that it has never been caught up in a fire or other disaster. A rather lovely item to see.

  • Paston – St. Margaret’s Church (It’s All the Wrong Way Round)

    Paston – St. Margaret’s Church (It’s All the Wrong Way Round)

    It’s fair to say that Richard and I are not church experts, although we’re getting ever more competent at this church history thing now on our meanders. But, it was evident to me that we were approaching the church from the wrong side and it was evident to Richard that the lychgate was in the wrong place.

    This lychgate should be where the road is, not in a random corner.

    The church itself addresses this issue on their web-site:

    “You approach the church from the north, the “wrong” side, because the first Sir William Paston in the early 15th century diverted the road away from Paston Hall to reduce disturbance to himself and his family This angered the villagers who demolished the wall he had built across the old road, which he then re-built and the family had insults hurled at them (all of which is described in the letters).”

    Which all leads me to want to look at maps, although of course, the changes in the fifteenth century mean there won’t be much evident here.

    So, this is the starting point (clicking on the image makes it bigger), which is the church in 1900 on the left and the church now on the right.

    This is the tithe map, which gives a faint clue. We know that the road went to the south of the church and that the wooded area is the boundary of the church, so the road must have cut straight across the area in front of Paston Hall (just to the top of the blue circle and there’s a route of a former footpath evident through there) which is what inconvenienced Sir William.

    I can see why the locals were annoyed…..

  • London – Westminster – Tate Britain (An Unknown Lady by Marcus Gheeraerts II)

    London – Westminster – Tate Britain (An Unknown Lady by Marcus Gheeraerts II)

    Nothing is known of this lady, other than she’s pregnant and wealthy, that’s about the limit to what can be worked out. This is a shame, here she is presented in one of the world’s finest art galleries and no-one knows who she is. They’re not even entirely sure who painted the artwork, but it’s probably Marcus Gheeraerts II (1561-1636), who worked at the court of Queen Elizabeth I.

    The artwork was painted in around 1595 and the gallery has done a huge amount of work on it, including analysing most of the paintwork and putting it through an x-ray machine. For a while, the artist was thought to be William Segar and it was only after cleaning of the painting that it was re-attributed. Most of this work was done just after 2001, which is when the painting came to the Tate in lieu of tax. There’s a bit of a gap in the provenance of the painting, although the gallery knows that it was owned by Walter Waring in the eighteenth-century, namely because he wrote this on the back of the artwork. Handy.

    But, to whoever the lady in the painting is, her image is now seen by hundreds of people every day, so I’m guessing that she’d probably be quite pleased.