A Visit to Warwick Castle

By: Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett

The other day I took a group of holidaymakers from New Zealand to visit a top tourist attraction in the Heart of England, the impressive Warwick Castle, one of the best examples of a medieval castle in England.  It provided a wonderful day out for the group who explored the various exhibitions, watched a falconer training his owl, they climbed the castle mound, walked along the walls and saw the gardens. 

Warwick Castle has been home to many generations of the rich and powerful Earls of Warwick who have been key players in English history. 
 
During the Wars of the Roses (1455 – 1485) members of the Houses of York (whose symbol is the White Rose) and Lancaster (whose symbol is the Red Rose) – branches of the Plantagenet Royal family descended from King Edward III, fought a series of battles to gain the throne of England.

Preparations for the Battle of Barnet
At Warwick Castle you can see the preparations for the Battle of Barnet. Richard Neville, the 16^th Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, was assembling a great army to fight the Yorkist King, Edward IV, who was holding Lancastrian King Henry VI prisoner in the Tower of London.  The Earl wanted to restore Henry to the throne. 

Warwick the Kingmaker was killed during the Battle of Barnet and the Lancastrian army, which he led, were routed. King Edward IV’s army was victorious. Although Edward IV had defeated the Earl of Warwick and his army, he soon heard that Margaret of Anjou, King Henry VI’s wife and her son Edward, Prince of Wales who had been in exile in France, had landed at Weymouth with an army and were on their way to assist the Earl of Warwick finally destroy Edward IV.  Although they arrived too late for the Battle of Barnet, they continued marching north raising supporters as they travelled and were making their way to Wales to meet with a larger army who would fight for their cause.

Edward IV, anticipating their plans intercepted the Lancastrian army at Tewkesbury and after a bloody battle, they were again routed and victory for King Edward IV was finally secured.

The photograph on the left shows the 16th Earl of Warwick preparing to have his armour fitted at Warwick castle on the eve of the battle.  Further in to the exhibition you can see Fortune, the Earl's war horse armoured and robed in Warwick's distinctive colours and motif.  The blacksmith alongside a furnace hammering metal and preparing the horseshoes, the whitesmith burnishing the armour, the cannon, cannon balls, longbows, arrows and other weapons of war being completed.  The whole household were involved in the travel arrangements and battle preparations.  They were expecting a great victory.  Instead the Earl was slain on the battlefield. never to return to the castle.
Warwick castle has many more things to see including the fine state rooms, the exhibition of the great Royal weekend party of 1898 when Edward Prince of Wales was the guest of honour, and many demonstrations in the castle grounds.

 

A Ghost Walk around Prestbury, the most haunted village in Gloucestershire

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett



The haunted pub at the start of our walk

It was a cold, blustery, dark and eerie evening when I met 23 members of the Cheltenham branch of the Federation of Small Businesses for a stiff drink at the Plough Inn, Prestbury. Were we warming ourselves, chatting too much or just nervously 'raising the spirits' in preparation for our ghost walk?

Cathy, the landlady smiled knowingly, and promised to tell us about the spooks and spectres around the pub on our return. But first, as darkness had descended upon the familiar day-time world of this small village, we decided that it was time to set off and uncover the strange stories of the ghouls and ghosts that haunt the churchyard, dimly lit lanes and cottages at night. An owl hooted and we huddled together. With our senses alert, we listened for the sound of a galloping horse often heard by people around here.  Alongside the pub, in low tones I recounted the terrible event in the village's history that caused this ghostly horse to bolt:-

It was during the Civil War in 17th century that Oliver Cromwell had arranged for many of his officers to be billeted in the village. Some of the enemy had an encampment at nearby Sudeley Castle. Cromwell and his men knew that from time to time messages would be sent from the camp to Royalist troops who had besieged the nearby city of Gloucester and he ordered an ambush to be prepared in readiness.

As expected, a King's messenger was spotted galloping towards Prestbury on route to his destination. Cromwell's men heard him coming, raised the alarm, and moved in to attack.  The messenger saw what was happening ahead and spurred his horse into a faster gallop. Clods of earth flew from the horses hooves; the messenger was travelling so fast it was impossible to capture him.  However, what he didn't see, until it was too late, was a fine wire stretched between two trees across his path.  With an agonising scream he hit the wire so hard that his head was completely severed from his body.  The head, spouting blood, bounced to the ground first, followed by the grisly remains of the twitching corpse, while the terrified riderless horse galloped on.


Prestbury High Street where all sorts of
strange things happen at night



From that day onwards, locals have often heard the disembodied clatter of hooves of a galloping horse along the road outside the pub. The eerie sound has been attributed to the soul of this headless horseman. 

Our group, continued along the streets, through the lanes and across the churchyard to hear other spine chilling stories including that of the Strangled Bride; the famous Black Abbot who haunts the churchyard; Peeping Thomasina; Old Moses; the disappearing jockey; the girl who plays the spinnet; Cromwell's bargain with the Devil and more...

After an hour or so we returned to the The Plough in need of another drink to settle our nerves.  We were served with a piping hot meal and, gathering around the tables, we listened to Cathy as she told us of her experiences with the invisible, mischievous and often troublesome pub poltergeist.
                                                                                                                                                                     To book an evening Ghost Walk around Prestbury and hear more about the village's incredible tales:-
Contact Anne via her website:   www.tourandexplore.com

The 2012 Cotswold Olimpicks and the World Shin Kicking Competition

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett

My souvenir programme
for the 400th anniversary

This year, in Gloucestershire, we have been looking forward to the 400th anniversary of  Robert Dover's Cotswold Olimpicks, a much advertised precursor to the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The official opening of the Cotswold Olimpick Games begins at 7.30 in the evening by someone taking the part of Robert Dover, who started the games back in 1612. He rides into the arena on a white horse, supposedly wearing some of King James 1 old clothes, accompanied by Endymion Porter and the Skuttlebrook Wake Queen and her attendants.  The games begins with a speech from Robert Dover followed by the firing of a cannon to awake the spirit of the Games.
 

Robert Dover with white feather in
his black hat.

The Cotswold Olympicks include team competitions such as Obstacle Races and Tugs of War as well as individual races such as Running, Throwing the Hammer, Putting the Shot, Jumping and Spurning the Barre.  But the most famous competition of all is Shin Kicking!  In earlier days it was very brutal. The contestants hardened their shins by hammering them and, it wasn't unknown for boots to have iron tips on them!  Nowadays it's permissible to push straw up your trouser legs to protect your shins a bit.

One of the shin kicking contestants in the
picture is celebrity sportsman Ben Fogle.

 Here, on the left, you see one of the many heats taking place.  The competitors hold one another by the shoulders. The object is to kick each other as hard as possible in the shins until one looses his balance and is brought to the ground.
At 9.30pm, as its getting dark, the final shin kicking competition takes place to find the World Shin Kicker 2012.

Here is a Youtube video, uploaded by SoGlos last year in 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGXDwbzlJKw

The torchlit procession into Chipping Campden

After the presentation of the awards - the finale; which is the lighting of a beacon and a brilliant display of fireworks. The last event of the night, and not to be missed, is leaving the games in a torchlit procession. You join the thousands of spectators carrying a flaming torch and walk from the hill down into Chipping Campden.  A Corp of Drums and a Pipe Band lead the way.  Its a wonderful sight and great to be part of this historic annual Cotswold event.

Cheltenham's connection with Capt. Scott's Expedition to the South Pole

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett

Dr Edward Wilson

This fine statue on the Promenade in Cheltenham is of local hero Dr Edward Wilson who went on two Polar Expeditions to the Antarctic with Capt. Robert Falcon Scott. 

The first one (1901 - 1904) on the ship the Discovery was supported by the Royal Society and The Royal Geographical Society and was primarily for scientific research as well as exploration. On this expedition Captain Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Dr Edward Wilson penetrated further south than any explorer had in the past and their valuable scientific research was more wide-ranging than any undertaken before, but they didn't cross the Great Ice Barrier to reach the South Pole.
Edward Wilson besides being an explorer was a physician, an artist, a naturalist as well as an ornithologist.  He combined his important scientific work with beautiful paintings and drawings of the landscape and wildlife of this virtually unknown continent.
The second expedition (1910 - 1912), again led by Capt. Scott with Dr Wilson accompanying him, was specifically undertaken to reach the South Pole and to be the first explorers to do so,  also, a large team of scientists travelled and worked alongside them to discover and gain more knowledge about the frozen continent. 
Meanwhile, another very experienced team of explorers lead by a Norwegian, Roald Amundsen was raising money and preparing to travel to the Arctic to reach the North Pole. However, Amundsen's plans changed when he heard that rival explorers had reached the North Pole before him.  Because he was unsure as to how his backers would react he secretly changed his objectives and headed South to be the first explorer to reach the South Pole instead.  He announced his plans when he was well on his way. 
When Scott heard that Amundsen had changed his plans he realised that it would be a race to get to the South Pole first.

The Antarctic Wilderness

Amundsen's team arrived in the Bay of Wales on The Fram and set up their base camp. They started their journey to the Pole on 19th October 1911.  Captain Scott, Dr Edward Wilson, Henry Bowyers, Edgar Evans, Lawrence (Titus) Oates left their base camp at Cape Evans on 1st November 1911 and arrived at the Pole to find that Amundsen and his team had beaten them by 5 weeks.
Capt Scott wrote in his diary "All day dreams must go.  It will be a very wearisome return."
It was a battle through terrible freezing temperatures and blinding blizzards. Hauling their sledges was debilitating. Exhausted, starving and suffering from frostbite they slowly perished  The frozen bodies of Capt Scott, Dr Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers were found in their tent months later. Evans and Oates bodies were never found.  The frozen continent became their final resting place.
Dr Edward Wilson's statue on the Promenade in Cheltenham was sculpted by Captain Scott's widow Kathleen and bears the following inscription:-

Edward Adrian Wilson B.A. M.B. CANTAB. F.Z.S.
Born in Cheltenham 1872.  Chief of the Scientific Staff.
Artist and Zoologist of the British Antarctic Expedition 1910 - 1913.
He reached the South Pole January 17 1912. And died with Capt. Scott
on the Great Ice Barrier March 1912.
"He died as he lived.  A brave true man.
The best of Comrades and staunchest of friends"
(Letter from Capt. Scott)

Gloucestershire's connections with Charles Dickens

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett



Charles Dickens
(7th Feb 1812 - 9th June 1870)

 On the 7th February 2012 we will be celebrating the bicentenary of  the birth of one of the most influential, widely read, Victorian novelists - Charles Dickens.

London played a very big part in Dickens' life and was the setting for many of his novels, but he also travelled extensively.  

We will be remembering Dickens in Gloucestershire as he visited our impressive city on his travels and later came to Gloucester on one of his reading tours.  He enjoyed his visits and described Gloucester as - 'a wonderful and misleading city.' After his visit to the docks he wrote "You will see, suddenly appearing, as if in a dream, long ranges of warehouses with cranes attached, endless intricacies of dock, miles of tramroad, wildernesses of timber in stacks, and huge, three-masted ships, wedged into little canals, floating with no apparent means of propulsion, and without a sail to bless themselves with."

North of Gloucester is the Medieval town of Tewkesbury which was mentioned in the Pickwick Papers, when Mr Pickwick and his friends stopped at a coaching inn  - The Hop Pole, on route from Bristol to Birmingham.


The Hop Pole, Tewkesbury where Mr Pickwick,
Ben Allen, Bob Sawyer & Sam Weller stayed

 On the left is a picture of the coaching inn. There is a large plaque on the wall which quotes:  'At the Hop Pole, Tewkesbury they stopped to dine, upon which occasion there was more bottled ale, with some Madeira and some port besides.... and here the case bottle was replenished for the fourth time. Under the influence of these combined stimulants, Mr Pickwick and Mr Ben Allen fell asleep for thirty miles, while Bob and Mr Weller sang duets in the Dickie.'



The Dickens House Museum, London

 Once Pickwick Papers became a best seller and Dickens was receiving a steady salary as editor of Bentley's Miscellany and was writing Oliver Twist, he and his wife Catherine had enough money to rent this spacious terraced house in Doughty Street, London - this is now the Dickens museum. It is well worth a visit but (NB it will be closed from April 9th this year for refurbishment.)

Another interesting place in Gloucestershire is The Bibury Court Hotel, in the Cotswolds. This is supposed to have been the inspiration for Dickens' novel - Bleak House written between 1852 - 8153.

Originally Bibury Court was a grand Jacobean Manor House dating from the late 16th century and owned by the Sackville family.  The house and estate passed down through the family for a number of generations then through the female line to the Cresswell family.  The Cresswells were among many to suffer the injustices of the English legal system, of which Dickens was so critical, trying to sort out a disputed family will.  It was supposedly this long running litigation that inspired him to write Bleak House and the case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce in the Court of Chancery.

Bibury Court was bought and sold a number of times after the court case.  By the 1920's it had fallen into a delapidated estate.  It was bought by the Clarke family who restored it then, when Lady Clark died in the 1980's, it was sold again and was converted to a large luxury hotel which opened in 1968.

Gloucester makes its mark on the 2012 Cultural Olympiad

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett


West end of Gloucester Cathedral


Last week's Gloucester city walking tour had an added highlight:  Gloucester Cathedral had became the location for the filming of some of Shakespeare's historical plays - Henry IV parts 1&2 and Henry V.  These plays will be shown on BBC 2 as part of the multi million pound Cultural Olympiad.

The Director chosen for these films is said to be Sir Richard Eyre in conjunction with Sam Mendes and among the actors, many big names, including; Jeremy Irons who will play Henry IV, Tom Hiddleston, Prince Hal, Rory Kinnear as John of Gaunt, Simon Russell Beale, Falstaff, Julie Walters as Mistress Quickly plus many more.

 The Cathedral's policy was not to close to the public during filming, just restrict access, so it was very exciting for our visitors to see the production in progress.  As my group and I walked across to the north side of the Cathedral we noticed a number of generators producing a smoke which was filling the nave.  This created a haze, a special effect to make beams of light show up across the film set. Scenery, looking like great solid stone walls was being moved into place and the costumed actors were preparing for the next take.

We were told that the nave was being adapted to become 

The great Norman columns of the nave

Westminster Hall in London and the choir and high altar was being transformed to become Westminster Abbey.



The cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral

 Our visitors enjoyed watching the preparations.  After a while, we slipped quietly into the cloisters to enjoy some of the Cathedral's finest architecture, the earliest fan vaulted ceilings dating back to 1350's. It was a briefer look at the Cathedral than normal but we look forward to the Shakespeare season later this year on BBC 2 and will try to identify the shots taken in Gloucester.

Getting Deeper into the Forest of Dean

Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett

The countryside between the lower reaches of the River Severn and the River Wye is known as the Forest of Dean.  It's a very special place that I enjoy exploring, and is an area with a unique history and heritage. My good friend - free miner Dave Harvey wouldn't live anywhere else. But there is more than natural beauty in this land between two rivers, it was very much a working forest as conversations with Dave reveals..

Dave was the model for the sculpture in Cinderford, pictured on the right.  Life was tough and dangerous working underground extracting coal from the seams under the plateau on which the centre of the Forest stands and many accidents occurred. 

Dave himself narrowly escaped death when the rocky roof of a coal seam that was being worked in the Northern United Colliery collapsed.  As everyone tried to escape, he was half buried by falling rubble and timber pit props.  A fellow miner turned to see Dave trapped. With rock from the roof still crashing down into the mine shaft, a giant of a man known as 'big Phil' - with super-human effort grabbed his colleague under the arms and pulled. He got Dave out just as the rest of the roof came down. Dave's narrow escape left him with deep cuts and bruises but no bones broken.  The scars from that dreadful day will never ever disappear

On the left is a picture of Dave standing beside a chainsaw carving of that fateful day in 1963 with  'big Phil' pulling him out of the rubble. It has been carved by Clayton Ryder and is on display in the grounds of the Dean Heritage Centre, Soudley in the Forest of Dean.   Dave has written a poem which is displayed alongside.

Despite the horrific accident  (coal face twenty three was totally destroyed and no longer workable) Dave returned to his job within weeks joining the other miners who all began working on another coal face.   He said that he was very nervous but continue working underground for a further two years. Then, the unthinkable happened! The Northern United Colliery was closed down - on Christmas Day 1965!  It was sudden and unexpected.  Over night everyone was out of work. 

The mine buildings are still there today but the pit has been filled in and capped.  Below is the sign outside the colliery gates which is still there today.

The sign says it all - the end of an era in the Forest of Dean.

Today Dave is a great Ambassador for the Forest, a place he loves. He describes his life and life in the Forest in his amazing poems.  His collection of poetry and songs are published on three CD's and are for sale at the Dean Heritage Centre.

Dave has been booked for an evening show with the Forest Male Voice Choir on Friday 21st October 2011 which will be filmed for ITV.  We look forward to seeing him on National TV later in the year.


Above - a picture of the glorious and mysterious Dean we know today, but its a fascinating place of great contrasts.