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www.youtube.com/watch?v=l36eO6BwPq8
This is one of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s so-called ‘Terrible Sonnets’, composed in the 1880s while he was living in Ireland and plunged in depression.
The poem beautifully captures Hopkins’s trademark ‘eloquent inarticulacy’ and is one of the most powerful descriptions of a sleepless night in all of English poetry..
.......
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
EXPLORE Jun 3, 2011 #354
The sentence "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem Sacred Emily, which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays. In that poem, the first "Rose" is the name of a person. Stein later used variations on the sentence in other writings, and "A rose is a rose is a rose" is probably her most famous quotation, often interpreted as meaning "things are what they are," a statement of the law of identity, "A is A". In Stein's view, the sentence expresses the fact that simply using the name of a thing already invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it, an idea also intensively discussed in the Problem of universals debate where Peter Abelard and others used the rose as an example concept. As the quotation diffused through her own writing, and the culture at large, Stein once remarked "Now listen! I’m no fool. I know that in daily life we don't go around saying 'is a ... is a ... is a ...' Yes, I’m no fool; but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years."
Source: Wikipedia
The sentence "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem "Sacred Emily", which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays.
In that poem, the first "Rose" is the name of a person. Stein later used variations on the sentence in other writings, and the shortened form "A rose is a rose is a rose" is among her most famous quotations, often interpreted as meaning "things are what they are", a statement of the law of identity, "A is A."
Stein once remarked, "Now listen! I'm no fool. I know that in daily life we don't go around saying 'is a ... is a ... is a ...' Yes, I'm no fool; but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years." (Four in America). (Source: Wikipedia).
Picture taken in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain.
UNA ROSA ES UNA ROSA ES UNA ROSA... (2024)
La frase "Rosa es una rosa es una rosa es una rosa" fue escrita por Gertrude Stein como parte del poema de 1913 "Sacred Emily", que apareció en el libro de 1922 Geography and Plays.
En ese poema, la primera "Rosa" es el nombre de una persona. Stein utilizó posteriormente variaciones de la frase en otros escritos, y la forma abreviada "Una rosa es una rosa es una rosa" es una de sus citas más famosas, a menudo interpretada como que significa "las cosas son lo que son", una declaración de la ley de identidad, "A es A".
Stein comentó una vez: "¡Escuche! No soy tonta. Sé que en la vida diaria no andamos por ahí diciendo 'es una... es una... es una...' Sí, no soy tonta; pero creo que en ese verso la rosa es roja por primera vez en la poesía inglesa en cien años". (Cuatro en América). (Fuente: Wikipedia).
Foto tomada en Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España.
Geoffrey Chaucer (/ˈtʃɔːsər/; c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.[1] He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry".[2] He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey.[3] Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament. ... --- WikiPedia
Arcadia (Greek: Ἀρκαδία) refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an idyllic vision of unspoiled wilderness. Arcadia is associated with bountiful natural splendor, harmony, and is often inhabited by shepherds. The concept also figures in Renaissance mythology. Commonly thought of as being in line with Utopian ideals, Arcadia differs from that tradition in that it is more often specifically regarded as unattainable. Furthermore, it is seen as a lost, Edenic form of life, contrasting to the progressive nature of Utopian desires.
The inhabitants were often regarded as having continued to live after the manner of the Golden Age, without the pride and avarice that corrupted other regions.[1] It is also sometimes referred to in English poetry as Arcady. The inhabitants of this region bear an obvious connection to the figure of the Noble savage, both being regarded as living close to nature, uncorrupted by civilization, and virtuous.
This is a decorated leaf from a Petrus Riga “Aurora”, a medieval poem, written in England in the fourteenth century.
The text is from Liber primus regum (I Kings) and is lines 185-248 of that part of the poem and appears to be the third of the three original versions. It relates to I Kings from towards the end of chapter 5 to the beginning of chapter 8.
The size of the leaf is 268/284mm x198mm (10 1/2 - 11 3/20ins. x 7 8/10ins.).
OTHER LEAVES: -
Other leaves from the same manuscript have been found in searches of the Internet and available reference books. These are: -
1. Bernard Quaritch Catalogue 1348 “Bookhands of the Middle Ages : Part VIII, Medieval Manuscripts” (2007), Item No. 96. This was a single leaf from the Book of Numbers and it had been in the collection of Bernard M. Rosenthal of San Francisco.
2. Marquette University – two leaves donated by Dr. and Mrs John Pick.
PROVENANCE: -
The leaf is from the Petrus Riga “Aurora that was lot 229 in the Sotheby’s auction of Important Western and Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures held on 11th. July 1966 and which had been the property of the Grosvenor family (the Dukes of Westminster).
The lot was purchased by the dealership Francis Edwards of Marylebone High Street, who took out the damaged leaves (and sold them separately) and offered the bulk of the book still in one piece in a number of their catalogues.
This particular leaf must have been sold to a person living in New York as the back of the frame it was mounted in had the label on it of Midtown Plaza Art Shop, Midtown Plaza Mall, Rochester, New York.
GENERAL COMMENTS: -
This is evidently one of the damaged leaves that were removed from the book. With the exception of a portion having been torn away from the bottom, the leaf is in excellent condition. It is not known how many leaves were sufficiently damaged to warrant their removal from the book more than fifty years ago. As it has only been possible to trace three others, is it probably very few.
Manuscripts of the “Aurora” were produced in large numbers in the thirteenth century to such an extent that very few copies were made in the fourteenth century. This leaf, being from one of these later copies, makes it highly desirable.
PETRUS RIGA AND THE “AURORA”: -
Petrus Riga, was probably born in about 1140, became a priest at Notre Dame de Reims in France and a Canon Regular of the Order of St. Augustine at St. Denis (also in Reims), and probably wrote the “Aurora”, a poem, between 1170 and 1200. He died in 1209.
The Aurora is essentially a series of long Latin poems which re-narrate (and often clarify) the content of several books of the Bible. It was apparently very well known in the high and later Middle Ages and more than 250 manuscript copies of the 15,000-line work survive.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
Illustration for Thomson's poem 'The Minstrel'.
Thomson, Beattie, West & Bampfylde 1861.
Works of James Thomson, also selections from James Beattie, Gilbert West and John Bampylde. Illustrated by Birket Foster.
Published by Routledge, Warne and Routledge, London. Original full dark green and gilt leather binding, 450 pages 16.5cm x 11cm.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
Down To A Sunless Sea - IMRAN™
As a schoolchild in Pakistan, I had read "Kubla Khan", a well-known poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the founders of the romanticism movement in English poetry in the late 18th century. That poem in particular supposedly came to him in an opium-fueled dream. He left it incomplete for many years, until another of my favorite poets, Lord Byron, encouraged him to publish it.
That poem has a line that inspired a book, "Down To A Sunless Sea" by David Graham, which I read as a teenager in late 1979.
That book was about a pilot flying a plane full of passengers trying to find a place to survive after most of the world is destroyed by a nuclear war.
Twenty years after reading that novel, I learned to fly in the USA. Even now, more than 40 years later, I often think of that book and title when I see a plane flying near a sunset sliding down into the sea.
What was fascinating about this photo (actually a panorama made from 4 Nikon D850 photos for incredible detail in large views) was that squiggly cloud. It looked almost as if a genie was coming out of a bottle, or God was sharpening the yellow colored pencil on the canvas of the golden sky across Tampa Bay, Florida, seen from my own stately pleasure-dome blessed home in Apollo Beach.
© 2020-2021 IMRAN™
#Aircraft, #Apollo #Beach, #Aviation, #Beach, #BeachLife, #Birds, #Boating, #Clouds, #creativity, #D850, #Florida, #History, #Home, #IMRAN, #ImranAnwar, #KublaKhan, #landscape, #Lifestyle, #literature, #Nature, #Nikon, #novels, #poetry, #seaside, #Square, #Sunset, #Tampa, #TampaBay
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
The Lilliputians have been busy in the 320-odd years since their chance encounter on the beach with Lemuel Gulliver, and their centuries-long project, ‘The Great Transition’, begun just after the end of that extraordinary experience, is now approaching its conclusion.
The ’Tower of Symphonic Cohesion’ has been completed and activated by dint of the correct orientation of the specified controls. In the vast parkland surrounding the tower, we can see countless millions of expectant Lilliputians, circling the base of their mighty edifice as they begin the final journey inward to illumination and transcendence. Note please the clockwise direction of travel of the swirling masses.
Look closer at the base of that mighty Doric column and you’ll notice that the participants have formed themselves into orderly ranks (mimicking the very flutes of their colossal monolith) before they complete the final part of their journey with a symbolic straight-line march from the edges of the ‘Grand Circus’ to the entrance halls of the magnificent ‘Palace of Comprehension’, wherein they begin their transfiguration.
Once inside, individuals are transformed by the perplexing multi-dimensional geometry found within the structure. Bodies and worldly goods are converted directly into the energy required to maintain the exotic topology, whilst the very essence of each mortal being is recast as pure mind. This naked mind then rises up the vast column in an anticlockwise direction until it enters the ‘Urn of Coalescence’, which sits atop a simple capital at the summit of the tower.
And there, finally, the singular minds of the entire race will coalesce into the luminous, group-consciousness that is the culmination of this stage of their evolution. Once whole, this flawless psyche will take its place amongst the pantheon of unfamiliar beings who inhabit the higher dimensional realities; leaving the Urn and the Tower mere shells, and the Giants to marvel at the power of Lilliput.
If you look carefully, at the back, near to the enclosing wall, you can see another visiting Giant, carefully picking its way along the narrow path around the edge of the parkland, intent on finding the best spot from which to view the impending climax.
---
I know, such silliness. Never mind. Usual caveats etc.
Twenty hand-held exposures representing 1 minute and 37 seconds of August 21st 2019. Taken in the English Poetry Garden at St. Mary’s House, Bramber, West Sussex.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
Geoffrey Chaucer was a 13th century English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.
He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey.
This sculpture of him by Sam Holland, is in the middle of Canterbury centre
Cycle of Life
After the horrendous stormy night as powerlines were down; civilization plunged into
the dark ages of nothingness, as me the antsy-pansy self,
strolled out to see how nature was fairing.
Lo! To my joy, I glimpsed at this little golden Butterfly hopping over blossom heads that popped out from the submerged mother plant; singing happy song with clapping wings loud for the world to hear.
As I merged with her in bliss; in stealth sat this green tyrant opened and snapped his piercing beak in a blink vanished my little golden mate
never to be seen nor heard her clap and sing.
Sly, selfish me, only a human, packed my camera, with a canny smile on my face; for I knew, I got the shot of the day.
© Franco Joseph
Subject: Small Bee Eater and the Yellow Butterfly
Camera: Nikon D5000
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter speed: 1/1000 Sec.
Lens: Sigma 150-500
Today I felt an dignified sense of pride for both myself and Sam, while loudly confirming that I'd spelt anthropomorphic correctly in my English poetry annotations in the presence of his friends at band practice. It was awesome: we set off a strangely uncomfortable atmosphere. I'm sure they all think that Sam and I get off to words.
Ha.
Splendor In (And Above) The Grass; Unique Perspectives On History, Culture, And Life From Top of Eiffel Tower - IMRAN®
Leaning out as far as I dared, Nikon D300 in hand, I captured this unusual perspective of the Champ de Mars, the great green expanse stretching from the Eiffel Tower toward the École Militaire. From above, its symmetry of clipped trees, lawns, and walkways appears almost timeless, a stage where centuries of history, love, and memory have played out.
It was here in 1790 that Parisians gathered joyfully for the Festival of the Federation, only to return in 1791 for the tragic Massacre of the Champ de Mars. A few years later, across the Channel, Wordsworth would write in his 1807 Ode:
“Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.”
Looking down, I saw lovers on the grass, echoing that theme of fleeting beauty — and I could not help recalling Splendor in the Grass, the 1961 Natalie Wood–Warren Beatty film named after Wordsworth’s lines. Released just a year before my birth, I watched it a decade later as a boy in Pakistan, long before I could truly understand its aching portrayal of love, repression, and the passage of youth.
And so, in 2018, standing atop this iron icon of modern Paris, I felt time fold in layers: revolutionary crowds, English poetry, Hollywood cinema, a childhood memory across continents, and now my own outstretched hand holding fast to a camera, capturing the geometry of history and the fleeting lives upon the grass below.
All are echoes of history, revolution, culture, life, love, poetry, movies, travel, and my life in one photograph. Will our names be remembered? Can you find my name in this?
© 2018–2025 IMRAN®
He writes the lines, he does.
Stolen from the experiences of life-
an ode to thee.
He counts the stars & lays out the numbers
on a silver sheet.
They look at it and wonder-
does wine sparkle more
or
the stars numbered on the sheet?
- Abhinav Vats, 2017.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
And miles to go before i sleep... and Miles to go before i sleep.
The words that filled the last few pages of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India's former prime minister. Excellent poem from Robert Frost, something i enjoyed studying in the English poetry class as a shool kid.
Precisely the words that came to my mind after seeing this picture of Mala, good friend of mine. Mala like her sister is full of surprises sweet and subtle. I still yonder what thoughts were so serious that were running across her mind, ploughing it like a plague that made this expression.
This picture is courtesy Mala, photographer of this picture is still unknown. Posted here for photographic delight. Picture shot with a simple cell phone camera. Black and White effects with Photoshop CS 2.0
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_Valley
The 'Soon Valley' (Urdu: [[وادئ سون)]] or Soon Sakesar is one of the famous valleys of Pakistan situated in the central Punjab province. The Valley is situated in the north west of Khushab. Naushera is the main town of the Valley. The Valley starts from Padhrar village and end to Sakesar that is the highest peak of Salt Range. The length of Soon Valley is 35 miles (56 km) and average width is 9 miles (14 km). The area of Soon Valley is 300-square-mile (780 km2). Although not as coold as the valleys up north, Soon valley consists of beautiful lakes, waterfalls, jungles, natural pools and ponds. Soon valley is also blessed with ancient civilization , natural resources, and fertile farms. There are some special features of this valley that distinguish it from other areas, without knowing about them it is very hard to understand its importance. Sabhral, Khoora, Naushera, Kufri, Anga, Ugali, Uchali and Bagh Shams-ud-Din are important towns in soon valley. Kanhatti Garden, Sodhi Garden, Da'ep and Sakesar are resorts to visit. Awan[1] tribe is settled in Soon Valley.[2]
Located at a height of 5,010 feet (1,530 m) above sea level, Sakesar was once the summer headquarters for the Deputy Commissioners of three districts - Campbelpur (now Attock), Mianwali and Shahpur (now Sargodha). It is the only mountain in this part of the Punjab which receives snow fall in winters. In view of Sakesar's ideal location and height, the PAF selected it in the late-50s as the site for a high powered radar which would provide air defence cover for the northeastern part of the western wing. Pakistan Television's re-broadcasting center has been installed to provide terrestrial transmissions coverage to adjoining areas.
Har do sodhi
(sodhi bala and sodhi zarien), Naushahra, Jabbah ,Ugalisharif, Kotli, Mukrumi,Kaamrh,Dhadhar, Mardwal, Kufri, Uchali, Chitta, Khoora,Anga,Khabbaki, kuradhi, Uchhala, Mustafaabad (Bhukhi), Sodhi Jai Wali, Sabhral, Shakarkot, Sirhal, Manawan, Surraki, Jahlar, Anga, Ahmadabad
•Distance from Islamabad: 290 km
•Distance from Sargodha: 110 km
•Lakes : Uchali, Khabbaki, Jahlar, Khura
•Shrines :Sultan Mehdi sahb, sultan Haji Ahmed sahb in Uchhala, Baba Shikh AkbarDin Ugalisharif, Pir Baba Sakhi Muhammad Khushhaal in Khabbaki, Amb Shareef, Baba beri Wala in Naushera, Abul Hameed & Aziz Ahmedabad
People
The main tribe of the area is the Awan of ancient repute. This tribe came in this area with Qutab Shah and settled in the Soon valley. The other sub branches and small tribes are Shehal, Ardaal, Mirwal, Adriyal, Shenaal in Kufri, Latifal, Jurwal, Radhnal, Sheraal in Naushehra, Pirkal in Jallay wali, Majhial in Mardwal,Bazral, Chhatal,Ghadhyal,Phatal,Yakial, Maswal in Ugalisharif, Phatwal and Bhojo khail, Sheral, Mianwaddal , Alyaral, Sher Shahal in Khabbaki and so on. In the valley Awan's are known by their clans. In old time the head of clan in each village was known as Raees, and the head of a tribe was known as Raees-Azam. The most famous Raees Azam were Pir Naubahar Shah of Pail,Malik Ameer Haider of Kufri, Qazi Mazhar Qayyum of Naushera and Lumberdar Syed Gul peer Shah of Sodhi,Baba Hafiz Ilyas of Chitta.
A majority of the people are serving in the armed forces of Pakistan. Many loyal brave soldiers and officers belong to this land who even laid down their lives for their homeland.[4]
Other professions like education, business, transportation and agricultural are also adopted by the locals. The people are hard working and agriculture used to be the main profession. Per person square footage of land decreased, as population increased. Consequently the people have migrated to large cities for jobs.
There are famous writers[5] like Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, and journalist[6] from this area. Famous Physicians and Surgeons like Dr. Muzaffar-ul-Haq, Dr. Ghaus Malik neurosurgen (USA), Dr. Javaid Malik (USA), Dr. Nazir Ahmed Malik (Child Specialist) and Hafiz Habib Sultan (Eye Specialist) and Shaukat Memud Awan, general secretary Adara Tehqiqul Awan pakistan also belong to this land.
FARMING: Our farmers are also not behind to make their real contribution in agricultural growing corps like wheat , dalls , jawar and bajra including makaee crops .In this way our farmer is also playing a remarkable roll to full fill the local food requirement at large level , i remember that our local production of wheat including other eatable plus abandant quantity of vegitable for our local use with addition we are meeting the requirement demand of vegitable up to Lahore , Gujranwala , Sargodha , Talagang and Rawalpindi Districts for their people at large quiantiy hence our small population is never dependant on any one else . We are self sufficient .
Review on “My celestial Dreams” written by Abdul Ghaffar Aamir Ghufri Valley Soon Sakaser khushab AAMIR’S POETRY AND MONTOMERY
By Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel
I opened the book, here and there, and my cursory glance met with certain spurts of genius. There was before me the vision of a bud that could blossom one day into fascinating flower to adorn the garden of English poetry. To reach that pinnacle, however, sincerity, purity, fortitude, patience, perseverance and learning, besides the general pre-requisites, such as imagination, wit, faculty of expression and command over language were necessary. The first two poems are hymns about the omnipresence of God. Quite naturally my thought went to a poem “The Omnipresence of Lord”, written by Montgomery. My acquaintance with this poem was due to its review written by Lord Macaulay in 1830. Literary Essay of Lord Macaulay) the review indeed was horrible. Shaking his fierce trident, the enraged critic fell upon the author with deadliest attack and would not cause till the victim lay dead. This was the work of blind fury; we have seen only such part of poem which were exhibited by the critic and faulty. Yet despite Macaulay’s total condemnation of the work, we think that criticism as a preplanned act of cruel murder. We are not in a position to challenge of defy the points raised by Macaulay, yet we cannot hesitate to assert that the work after all was not so bad and also, that besides flaws. It contained point of merit, for example it’s them, which Macaulay had internationally refuse to see. This certainly meant the violence of the rule of criticism. On the whole we think this Macaulay’s criticism as a tragedy in the annals of criticism itself. It is the blemish on the name of both of the critic and the criticism. Montgomery fell as the victim of illuck before the trident of Macaulay, who himself tells us in his article, that the practice of puffing of worthless literary works was the vogue in England. Macaulay called upon every one who was anxious for the purity of the national taste or for the honour of the literary character to join in this discountenancing the practice that of puffing which according to him was then so shamefully and so successfully carried on in the country. It was on this point that Montgomery appeared as the target, because Montgomery’s work had run into eleven editions. It is thus in his effort to discountenancing the practice of puffing that Macaulay fell headlong upon a poet whose work despite flaws had certain points of merit and was purchased and read with rapture in eleventh edition by the public of England. The whole article of Macaulay is interesting, but due to the considering of space, we shall have to be content with only one instance of Macaulay’s criticism. Say, he: “The all pervading influence of the Supreme being is then described in a few tolerable lines borrowed from Pope and a great many intolerable of Mr. Robert Montgomery’s own. The following may stand as a specimen.”. : Upon thy Mirror earths majestic view, : To paint thy presence and to feel it too, These last two lines contain and excellent specimen of Mr. Robert Montgomery’s Turkey carpet style of writing. The Majestic view of the earth is the mirror of God’s presence. And on this mirror Mr. Robert Montgomery paints God’s presence. The use of a mirror submit is not to be painted upon”. Says Macaulay:
We do not mean that this couplet is the specimen of high class English poetry, but the word paint of the mirror put easily be some substituted by the word canvas and show. We, however, want to make it clear that we are not going to judge the work of our point. Aamir on the standard of poet like Montgomery. Our poet shows the signs of genius that could rise to the highest of high class poetry in English.
Now before we leave Macaulay and Montgomery to rest in their graves, we intend to show some identity of thought and view between Montgomery and Aamir and not at all with a view to evaluating their works in comparison. Monitory’s work can stand no comparison. His verse is slow, sluggish, unwidely and lacks the qualities of high class poetry. While the works of Aamir is brist, precise, to the point and expressed with strong effect. Aamir’s thought a beginner in a language which is quite foreign to him, yet he shows the sign of rising to highest maintain while the great English poet. Montgomery says : : There is not a blossom fondled by the breeze, : There is not a fruit that beautify the trees, : There is not a particle in sea or air, : But nature own thy plastic influence there” Aamir says: : I feel your hand wherever I look in every flower, tree or brook, Montgomery says : : Yet not alone created realm engage, : Thy faultless wisdom, grand primeval sage: For all the thronging woes of life allied, Thy Mercy Tempers and Thy cares provide” Aamir says:- All kingdoms are yours, all crowns for you, You are the greatest, perfect and true When we suffers sorrow and decay, Your blessings see us through all the way: Montgomery says: : The dew that on the violet lies, Mocks the dark luster of thine eyes” Aamir says:- : All this beauty, charms and grace, Is just a lovely glimpse of your face”. We have given the above-quoted verse to see the identity of the views of the two poets, and to see also the difference between the rim odes of expression. Surely the verses of Aamir taken from his Hymn must be his earliest, yet his styles who was sort of precision which lacks in Montgomery’s verse. But Aamir has to be judged by the second part of his work, “My Celestial Dreams”. Therein we can have the audacity to show his work in comparison to greatest English poets. And he is as yet so young. As for as Montgomery’s work is concerned we can agree with Macaulay when he says:
His writing bears the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture. There are colours in the Turkey carpet out of which a picture might be made. There are words in Mr. Montgomery’s writing which, when disposed in certain corders and combinations, have made, and will again make, good poetry:
Yet our complaint is that Macaulay’s treatment of Montgomery was ruthless. Ruthless beyond any bounds, Montgomery was taken as a scrape-goat. As far as Aamir’s work is concerned, he himself says:
This humble effort of mine is not meant to stir your imagination towards the poetic proness of my pen, but just to apprise you of the fact that I have drunk deeply at he fountain of God’s love for human souls”.
While reading the work of Aamir, “My celestial dreams”, novice though he is, the eye meets everywhere some expression which sounds like the voice of some great English poet, such as Keats, Shelly, Wordsworth etc. to reach the pinnacle, however, means constant flight. Aamir is not so unfortunate as Montgomery was. He is in better times, and in a better environment. The world now sick of materialism, has begun to take interest in religion. And thus the product of his mind has every probability acceptance and appreciation all over the world. His work, “My celestial Dream” could a well be divined into two distinct parts, that is before the poem. “Hero of the land”, and after that to etched end. The second part has distinctive superiority over the first. The poet appears to be blossoming fast and has reached a remarkable standard of efficiency. His thought share sacred. His expression is origin and sublime. He certainly does not appear like a foreigner who has learned English languages. He rather composes his poetry like the aboriginal English poet. His themes are simple yet deeply touching and indeed great. Judging by this religious trend, he might be taken by some European critic as a bigot, which he certainly is not. Milton and Bunyan both poets of Christianity have long since been thrown into oblivion due to surging waves of modern materialism. Whereas Aamir stands a real chance to make his mark in the world as poet of Islam. The credit of eulogizing the Holy Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) in English poetry goes to him. He has emerged as a pioneer in that field. We will now quote some of his waves to see and urge the prowess of his pen. He might deny it, yet his pen is impressive beyond expectations:-
“O! Crescent star flag! I pray you fly, With honour so high, Above this world, And azure sky, “Sons of Turkey, the tigers of Kamal Brave courageous handsome and tall “In sweet sleeps of night I see your dreams, My love for your flows like rivers and streams. O! Father come back Wipe my eyes Kiss me. Come and grace my beautiful world, Which I made for you, And be my love Part of eternity. For my love is true and eternal Born in heaven, reared an earth, Pulling you from the burning sun. It will fill you with joy and mirth. So my love, now we separate, Let time and fate on love operate, With flaming passion we shall meet, Our souls, then pure rejoice, for ever greet, Today it is corpse But yesterday it was, A paragon Wistfully recalled the golden day’s When I was like a flower, Like a delightful nightingale, I felt as if truly, I had come to what I was again You shall be forever sought, By the one who shall not? See you again Your sketch I adored it, In the temple of my soul, And worshipped it, All my life. These are some examples of Aamir’s verse which we have quoted. And we wish him good and good speed. May he blossom one day into and an eminent literacy figure, and be our pride. Dated: 14th January 1986.
Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel C/O Khalid General Strores, Main Bazar, Nawababad, Wah Cantt. Distt. Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
www.oqasa.org www. soonvalley.com www.soonvalley.pakistan www.alturka.com www.likedone.pakistan
Martial Race
The Awans of the Soon Valley were also amongst those the British considered to be "martial race".[7] The British recruited army heavily from Soon Valley for service in the colonial army, and as such, the Awans of this area also formed an important part of the British Indian Army, serving with distinction during World Wars I and II. Of all the Muslim groups recruited by the British, proportionally, the Awans produced the greatest number of recruits during the First and Second World Wars. Contemporary historians, namely Professor Ian Talbot and Professor Tan Tai Yong, have authored works that cite the Awans (amongst other tribes) as being looked upon as a martial race by not only the British, but neighbouring tribes as well. The army of Pakistan also heavily recruits Awans from this area. Awans occupy the highest ranks of the Pakistani Army.[8] DHAHDHAR :- This is one of the most important village of this soon valley , which is producing wheat and vegitable at large quantity for offording local population as well as upto the range of Lahore , Gujranwala, Sargodha , Talagang & Rawalpindi Districts .
LIVE STOCK :- Our village is producing live stock breeding at large scal hence contributing a major roll for production of various type of animal like bufaloos , cow' , oxen, sheep and goats to full fill the requirement of general publc in case of meet , milk and skins for manufecturing of leather shoes and leather garments .
Lakes
There are two well-renowned Uchhali Lake and Khabikki Lake lakes in Soon valley. Uchhali is a salt water lake in the southern Salt Range area in Pakistan. This lake is formed due to the absence of drainage in the range. Sakaser, the highest mountain in the Salt Range, looms over the lake. Due to its brackish water the lake is lifeless. But it offers a picturesque scenery. Khabikki Lake is a salt water lake in the southern Salt Range area in Pakistan. This lake is formed due to the absence of drainage in the range. The lake is one kilometer wide and two kilometres long. Khabikki is also the name of a neighbouring village. Boats are also available and there is a rest house beside the lake. A hill gently ascended on the right side of the lake. The lake and the green area around provide a good scenery. These lakes attract thousands of migratory birds each year and are ideal haven for the bird watchers.
Tucked in the southern periphery of the Salt Range and hemmed in by its higher cliffs, is a cluster of natural lakes — Ucchali, Khabbeki and Jhallar in district Khushab. These lakes are said to be 400 years old, maybe more. The lakes are a prime sanctuary for the migratory birds and were declared a protected sanctuary for the native and migratory avifauna on the appeal of World Wildlife Fund. Nestled at about 800 meters above the sea, lakes have some marsh vegetation and are mostly surrounded by cultivated land, which is picturesquely intersected by hillocks. The lakes are fed by the spring, seepage from adjacent areas, and run off from the neighbouring hills of the historic Salt Range. The lakes are one of the most important wintering areas for the rare white-headed ducks (Oxyura leucocephala) in Pakistan that comes here from Central Asia. Locals believe that there is a volcano hidden beneath the surface of the Ucchali Lake due to which the colour of the water keeps changing. The appearance of a vert broad and brightly coloured rainbow in 1982 for consecutive 15 days is also attributed to this analogy. in 1982, a strange phenomenon was observed in the villages Ucchali and Dhadhar. The lakes’ water is also said to cure gout and skin diseases. People have been taking the water from the lakes as far as Lahore and Karachi. People think that a pure white winged creature called Great egret, from Grus family, found in the area is a symbol of longevity.
Town and Villages
•Naushera
•Sakesar
•Jabbah
•Uchalla
•Pail-Piran
•Sodhi
•Kalial
•Sirhal
•Shakar Kot
•Unga
•Khabbaki
•Dhadhar
•Mardawal
•Khewra
•Kufri (now its name is sadiq abad so called with this new name)
•Sabhral
•Koradhi
•Uchhali
•Shakarkot
•Anngah
•Ugalisharif
•Makrumi
•Kamrah
•Dhadar
•Ahmadabad
har do sodhi soon become union consil
Different Villages Location
Villages west of Naushehra are Sabhral, Kufri, Koradhi,Uchhali, and Chitta before reaching the Pakistan Air Force Base of Sakesar.
Villages to the north west of Naushehra are Sirhal, Shakarkot Anngah and Ugalisharif.
Villages to the north east of Naushehra are Mardowal, Makrumi,Kamrah,Dhadar, Ahmadabad, Khabakki and Jabah.
Villages to the south west of Naushehra are har do sodhi , Surraki and Jahlar.
Villages to the south of Naushehra are Chamraki and Sodhian villages.
Villages to the east of Naushehra are Dhakah, Mirokah Dhakah, Jalay Wali, (Uchhalah is not on the main road), Sodhi Jai Wali, Kaliyal, Khurrah, and Kathwai.
Padhrar and Pail-Piran are not the part of soon valley but these villages are in the same election area and fall on Chakwal-Khushab road.
There are scattered colonies of certain families which are called Dhok. Usually at each Dhoke there are two to ten houses.
Historical Places
•Lakes: Ugalisharif & Uchalli Lake, Khabikki Lake and Jahlar Lake.
•Waterfalls at Kufri.
•Ambh Sharif is a historical place in Hinduism.
•Kanahti Garden, Sodhi Garden, Khabakki Jheel,Ugalisharif & Uchali Jheel, Sakesar and Daip Shareef and the hiking experiences of hills
•Anga, an important village.
•Sodhi village has waterfalls, a Rest House, and wild animals like Cheetah, Rabbit, Deer, Teetar (Urdu name of a bird).
•Shrines of Babashikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah UGALISHRIF, Makan Sharif Kufri sajadh nashin Sahibzadh Muhammad Hamid Aziz Hamidi, Pir Khawja Noori and Pir Sahib Acha (Hacha)- descendents of Baha Ud Din Zakkariyya Multani(Hazrat Baha Ul Haq)in Pail-Piran
•Ganji Pahari, Baba shikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah UGALISHRIF. Baba Sewu Beri Wala and Baba Mari Wala in Naushera.
•Baba shikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah Ugli Sharif and Pir Khawaja Noori in Pail jant
•Mahala Jurwal, is the biggest and most densed street of Naushahra. Malik Sultan Mubaraz, a well knw transporter of last dacade belongs to this street
•Mahala Qazian Wallah, is also a famous street of Naushera, where the famous qadis of Naushera used to live.
•Graveyard of qadi family
•Sodhi Jai Wali is also famous for its natural Water falls and Garden as well. The Garden is located near a Historical Rest House, It is said that this Rest House was gifted by Syed Family of Sodhi Jai wali to the British Rulers.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by Fotofolio of Box 661, Canal Sta., NY, NY. The photography was by Rollie McKenna. The card has a divided back.
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas, who was born in Swansea on the 27th. October 1914, was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night' and 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion.'
Dylan's other work included 'Under Milk Wood' as well as stories and radio broadcasts such as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'.
He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a roistering, drunken and doomed poet.
In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later.
Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' caught the attention of the literary world.
While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara. They married in 1937, and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy and Colm.
Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found it hard to earn a living as a writer. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940's brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.
Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950's. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'.
During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on the 9th. November 1953, and his body was returned to Wales. On the 25th. November 1953, he was laid to rest in St Martin's churchyard in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.
Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. He is regarded by many as one of the great modern poets, and he still remains popular with the public.
-- Dylan Thomas - The Early Years
Dylan was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, the son of Florence Hannah (née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school.
Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home.
Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which means 'Son of the Sea', after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. Dylan's middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles.
Dylan caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the 'Dull One.' When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation, and gave instructions that it should be spoken as 'Dillan.'
The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.
Dylan's childhood featured regular summer trips to the Llansteffan Peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire, where his maternal relatives were the sixth generation to farm there.
In the land between Llangain and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem 'Fern Hill', but is portrayed more accurately in his short story, 'The Peaches'.
Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood, and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, and he was skilful in gaining attention and sympathy.
Thomas's formal education began at Mrs Hole's Dame School, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in Reminiscences of Childhood:
"Never was there such a dame school as ours,
so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with
the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons
drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom,
where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over
undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling
of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick
under the table during English literature".
In October 1925, Dylan Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading.
In his first year, one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. In June 1928, Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death.
During his final school years Dylan began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27th. April 1930, is entitled 'Osiris, Come to Isis'.
In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.
In his free time, Dylan joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles.
In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins.
-- 1933–1939
In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.
Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published:
-- 'And Death Shall Have no Dominion'
-- 'Before I Knocked'
-- 'The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'.
'And Death Shall Have no Dominion' appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933:
'And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the
west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and
the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they
shall rise again
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion'.
When 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' appeared in The Listener in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London - T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas, and his first poetry volume, '18 Poems', was published in December 1934.
'18 Poems' was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that:
"The work is the sort of bomb
that bursts no more than once
in three years".
The volume was critically acclaimed, and won a contest run by the Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers, and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors, including Philip Larkin.
In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Dylan introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang".
In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt.
On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him.
In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem 'The Hand That Signed the Paper' to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse.
In 1936, Dylan's next collection 'Twenty-five Poems' received much critical praise. In 1938, Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.
In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–94), a 22-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish and French descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and at the age of 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium.
Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head on her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met.
Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with Augustus John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and by the second half of 1936 they were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall, on the 11th. July 1937.
In early 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on the 30th. January 1939.
By the late 1930's, Thomas was embraced as the "Poetic Herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. However Thomas refused to align himself with them, and declined to sign their manifesto.
He later stated that:
"They are intellectual muckpots
leaning on a theory".
Despite Dylan's rejection, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas's.
During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930's, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the communists, as well as being decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement, and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.
-- 1939–1945
In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as 'The Map of Love'.
Ten stories in his next book, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in 'The Map of Love', and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.
Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.
Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire 'The Death of the King's Canary', though due to fears of libel, the work was not published until 1976.
At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "An Unreliable Lung".
Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.
Saddened to see his friends going on active service, Dylan continued drinking, and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.
In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a three night blitz. Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded:
"Our Swansea is dead".
Soon after the bombing raids, he wrote a radio play, 'Return Journey Home', which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on the 15th. June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.
In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry, and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After initially being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post. Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942.
In five film projects, between 1942 and 1945, the Ministry of Information (MOI) commissioned Thomas to script a series of documentaries about both urban planning and wartime patriotism, all in partnership with director John Eldridge:
-- 'Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain'.
-- 'New Towns for Old' (on post-war reconstruction).
-- 'Fuel for Battle'.
-- 'Our Country' (1945) was a romantic tour of Great
Britain set to Thomas's poetry.
-- 'A City Reborn'.
Other projects included:
-- 'This Is Colour' (a history of the British dyeing industry).
-- 'These Are The Men' (1943), a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's verse accompanied Leni Riefenstahl's
footage of an early Nuremberg Rally.
-- 'Conquest of a Germ' (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis.
In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.
In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.
The Thomas family made several escapes back to Wales during the war. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, Talsarn, in Cardiganshire. Plas Gelli sits close by the River Aeron, after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named. Some of Thomas’ letters from Gelli can be found in his 'Collected Letters'.
The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with the Thomases in nearby New Quay is portrayed in the 2008 film, 'The Edge of Love'.
In July 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs landing on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain, Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing 'Holy Spring' and 'Vision and Prayer'.
In September 1944, the Thomas family moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda, a wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay. It was here that Thomas wrote the radio piece 'Quite Early One Morning', a sketch for his later work, 'Under Milk Wood'.
Of the poetry written at this time, of note is 'Fern Hill', believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaencwm in mid-1945. Dylan's first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon wrote that:
"His nine months in New Quay were a second
flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the
earliest days, with a great outpouring of poems
and a good deal of other material".
His second biographer, Paul Ferris, concurred:
"On the grounds of output, the bungalow
deserves a plaque of its own."
The Dylan Thomas scholar, Walford Davies, has noted that:
"New Quay was crucial in supplementing
the gallery of characters Thomas had to
hand for writing 'Under Milk Wood'."
-- Dylan Thomas's Broadcasting Years 1945–1949
Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled 'Reminiscences of Childhood' for the Welsh BBC.
In December 1944, he recorded 'Quite Early One Morning' (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC), but when Davies offered it for national broadcast, BBC London initially turned it down.
However on the 31st. August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast 'Quite Early One Morning' nationally, and in the three subsequent years, Dylan made over a hundred broadcasts for the BBC, not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.
In the second half of 1945, Dylan began reading for the BBC Radio programme, 'Book of Verse', that was broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income, and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished.
On the 29th. September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided further opportunities for Thomas.
He appeared in the play 'Comus' for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's 'Agamemnon', and Satan in an adaptation of 'Paradise Lost'.
Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who stated:
"He is useful should a younger
generation poet be needed".
He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management, and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and well-known celebrity within Great Britain.
By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales, and were living with various friends in London. In December, they moved to Oxford to live in a summerhouse on the banks of the Cherwell. It belonged to the historian, A. J. P. Taylor. His wife, Margaret, became Thomas’s most committed patron.
The publication of 'Deaths and Entrances' in February 1946 was a major turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator:
"This book alone, in my opinion,
ranks him as a major poet".
From 'In my Craft or Sullen Art,' 'Deaths and Entrances' (1946):
'Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon, I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art'.
The following year, in April 1947, the Thomases travelled to Italy, after Thomas had been awarded a Society of Authors scholarship. They stayed first in villas near Rapallo and then Florence, before moving to a hotel in Rio Marina on the island of Elba.
On their return to England Thomas and his family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford, found for him by Margaret Taylor.
He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts, and worked further on his ideas for 'Under Milk Wood'.
In March 1949 Thomas travelled to Prague. He had been invited by the Czech government to attend the inauguration of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union. Jiřina Hauková, who had previously published translations of some of Thomas' poems, was his guide and interpreter.
In her memoir, Hauková recalls that at a party in Prague, Thomas narrated the first version of his radio play 'Under Milk Wood.' She describes how he outlined the plot about a town that was declared insane, and then portrayed the predicament of an eccentric organist and a baker with two wives.
A month later, in May 1949, Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor.
Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems. To see a photograph of the interior of Dylan's shed, please search for the tag 55DTW96
Just before moving into the Boat House, Thomas rented Pelican House opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents. They both lived there from 1949 until Dylan's father 'D.J.' died on the 16th. December 1952. His mother continued to live there until 1953.
Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on the 25th. July 1949.
In October 1949, the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow came to visit Thomas at the Boat House, who took him to his writing shed. Curnow recalls:
"Dylan fished out a draft to show me
of the unfinished 'Under Milk Wood'
that was then called 'The Town That
Was Mad'."
-- Dylan Thomas's American tours, 1950–1953
(a) The First American Tour
The American poet John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses.
The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium in the Poetry Centre in New York, took in a further 40 venues. During the tour, Thomas was invited to many parties and functions, and on several occasions became drunk - going out of his way to shock people - and was a difficult guest.
Dylan drank before some of his readings, although it is argued that he may have pretended to be more affected by the alcohol than he actually was.
The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicated a performer he could be, and how the tension would build before a performance:
"Would he arrive only to break
down on the stage?
Would some dismaying scene
take place at the faculty party?
Would he be offensive, violent,
obscene?"
Dylan's wife Caitlin said in her memoir:
"Nobody ever needed encouragement
less, and he was drowned in it."
On returning to Great Britain, Thomas began work on two further poems, 'In the White Giant's Thigh', which he read on the Third Programme in September 1950:
'Who once were a bloom of wayside
brides in the hawed house
And heard the lewd, wooed field
flow to the coming frost,
The scurrying, furred small friars
squeal in the dowse
Of day, in the thistle aisles, till the
white owl crossed.'
He also worked on the incomplete 'In Country Heaven'.
In October 1950, Thomas sent a draft of the first 39 pages of 'The Town That Was Mad' to the BBC. The task of seeing this work through to production was assigned to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon, who had been responsible for casting Thomas in 'Paradise Lost'.
However, despite Cleverdon's urgings, the script slipped from Thomas's priorities, and in early 1951 he took a trip to Iran to work on a film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The film was never made, with Thomas returning to Wales in February, though his time there allowed him to provide a few minutes of material for a BBC documentary, 'Persian Oil'.
Early in 1951 Thomas wrote two poems, which Thomas's principal biographer, Paul Ferris, describes as "unusually blunt." One was the ribald 'Lament', and the other was an ode, in the form of a villanelle, to his dying father 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night". (A villanelle is a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated).
Despite a range of wealthy patrons, including Margaret Taylor, Princess Marguerite Caetani and Marged Howard-Stepney, Thomas was still in financial difficulty, and he wrote several begging letters to notable literary figures, including the likes of T. S. Eliot.
Margaret Taylor was not keen on Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if he had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there. She bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat. Thomas described the flat as his "London House of Horror", and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.
(b) The Second American Tour
Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin - after she had discovered that he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems.
It was during this tour that the above photograph was taken.
The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements.
The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year. One of his works recorded during this time, 'A Child's Christmas in Wales', became his most popular prose work in America. The recording was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, which stated that:
"It is credited with launching the
audiobook industry in the United
States".
(c) The Third American Tour
In April 1953, Thomas returned alone for a third tour of America. He performed a "work in progress" version of 'Under Milk Wood', solo, for the first time at Harvard University on the 3rd. May 1953. A week later, the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York.
Dylan met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they put on their makeup.
During this penultimate tour, Thomas met the composer Igor Stravinsky. Igor had become an admirer of Dylan after having been introduced to his poetry by W. H. Auden. They had discussions about collaborating on a "musical theatrical work" for which Dylan would provide the libretto on the theme of:
"The rediscovery of love and
language in what might be left
after the world after the bomb."
The shock of Thomas's death later in the year moved Stravinsky to compose his 'In Memoriam Dylan Thomas' for tenor, string quartet and four trombones. The work's first performance in Los Angeles in 1954 was introduced with a tribute to Thomas from Aldous Huxley.
Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair.
During this time, Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, put his arm in plaster, and treated him for gout and gastritis.
After returning home, Thomas worked on 'Under Milk Wood' in Wales before sending the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on the 15th. October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America.
(d) The Fourth American Tour
Thomas flew to the States on the 19th. October 1953 for what would be his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record 'Under Milk Wood'. Richard Burton featured in its first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954, the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.
Thomas's last collection 'Collected Poems, 1934–1952', published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that:
"Thomas is the greatest living
poet in the English language".
There followed a series of distressing events for Dylan. His father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953, his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age, and Caitlin had an abortion.
Thomas left Laugharne on the 9th. October 1953 on the first leg of his trip to America. He called on his mother, Florence, to say goodbye:
"He always felt that he had to get
out from this country because of
his chest being so bad."
Thomas had suffered from chest problems for most of his life, though they began in earnest soon after he moved in May 1949 to the Boat House at Laugharne - the "Bronchial Heronry", as he called it. Within weeks of moving in, he visited a local doctor, who prescribed medicine for both his chest and throat.
Whilst waiting in London before his flight in October 1953, Thomas stayed with the comedian Harry Locke and worked on 'Under Milk Wood'. Locke noted that Thomas was having trouble with his chest, with terrible coughing fits that made him go purple in the face. He was also using an inhaler to help his breathing.
There were reports, too, that Thomas was also having blackouts. His visit to the BBC producer Philip Burton a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London, he had another in the company of his fellow poet Louis MacNeice.
Thomas arrived in New York on the 20th. October 1953 to undertake further performances of 'Under Milk Wood', organised by John Brinnin, his American agent and Director of the Poetry Centre. Brinnin did not travel to New York, but remained in Boston in order to write.
He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three-week romance early in the year. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance. He looked pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self:
"He was very ill when he got here."
After being taken by Reitell to check in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of 'Under Milk Wood'. They then went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.
(Bob Dylan, formerly Robert Zimmerman, used to perform at the White Horse; Dylan Thomas was his favourite poet, and it is highly likely that Bob adopted Dylan's first name as his surname).
The next day, Reitell invited Thomas to her apartment, but he declined. They went sightseeing, but Thomas felt unwell, and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of phenobarbitone to help him sleep, and spent the night at the hotel with him.
Two days later, on the 23rd. October 1953, at the third rehearsal, Thomas said he was too ill to take part, but he struggled on, shivering and burning with fever, before collapsing on the stage.
The next day, 24th. October, Reitell took Thomas to see her doctor, Milton Feltenstein, who administered cortisone injections. Thomas made it through the first performance that evening, but collapsed immediately afterwards.
Dylan told a friend who had come back-stage:
"This circus out there has taken
the life out of me for now."
Reitell later said:
"Feltenstein was rather a wild doctor
who thought injections would cure
anything".
At the next performance on the 25th. October, his fellow actors realised that Thomas was very ill:
"He was desperately ill…we didn’t think
that he would be able to do the last
performance because he was so ill…
Dylan literally couldn’t speak he was so
ill…still my greatest memory of it is that
he had no voice."
On the evening of the 27th. October, Thomas attended his 39th. birthday party, but felt unwell, and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day, he took part in 'Poetry and the Film', a recorded symposium at Cinema 16.
A turning point came on the 2nd. November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly, and exacerbated chest illnesses such as Thomas's. By the end of the month, over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog.
On the 3rd. November, Thomas spent most of the day in his room, entertaining various friends. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel, he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring:
"I've had eighteen straight
whiskies. I think that's the
record!"
However the barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have drunk more than half that amount, although the barman could have been trying to exonerate himself from any blame.
Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on the 4th. November. When Todd telephoned the Chelsea that morning, Thomas said he was feeling ill, and postponed the engagement. Todd thought that Dylan sounded "terrible".
The poet, Harvey Breit, was another to phone that morning. He thought that Thomas sounded "bad". Thomas' voice, recalled Breit, was "low and hoarse". Harvey had wanted to say:
"You sound as though from the tomb".
However instead Harvey told Thomas that he sounded like Louis Armstrong.
Later, Thomas went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Dr. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the cortisone secretant ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of morphine sulphate, which affected Thomas' breathing.
Reitell became increasingly concerned, and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested that she get male assistance, so she called upon the artist Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11 pm. At midnight on the 5th. November, Thomas's breathing became more difficult, and his face turned blue.
Reitell phoned Feltenstein who arrived at the hotel at about 1 am, and called for an ambulance. It then took another hour for the ambulance to arrive at St. Vincent's, even though it was only a few blocks from the Chelsea.
Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1:58 am. He was comatose, and his medical notes stated that:
"The impression upon admission was acute
alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain
by alcohol, for which the patient was treated
without response".
Feltenstein then took control of Thomas's care, even though he did not have admitting rights at St. Vincent's. The hospital's senior brain specialist, Dr. C. G. Gutierrez-Mahoney, was not called to examine Thomas until the afternoon of the 6th. November, thirty-six hours after Thomas' admission.
Dylan's wife Caitlin flew to America the following day, and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were:
"Is the bloody man dead yet?"
Caitlin was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning, but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill John Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straitjacket and committed, by Feltenstein, to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island.
It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema before his admission to St Vincent's. In their 2004 paper, 'Death by Neglect', D. N. Thomas and Dr Simon Barton disclose that Thomas was found to have pneumonia when he was admitted to hospital in a coma.
Doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. Summarising their findings, they conclude:
"The medical notes indicate that, on admission,
Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very
extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung
fields, both left and right."
The forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, concurs:
"Death was clearly due to a severe lung infection
with extensive advanced bronchopneumonia.
The severity of the chest infection, with greyish
consolidated areas of well-established pneumonia,
suggests that it had started before admission to
hospital."
Thomas died at noon on the 9th. November 1953, having never recovered from his coma. He was 39 years of age when he died.
-- Aftermath of Dylan Thomas's Death
Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging, or even that Thomas had drunk himself to death. Later, speculation arose about drugs and diabetes.
At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death - pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite Dylan's heavy drinking, his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.
The publication of John Brinnin's 1955 biography 'Dylan Thomas in America' cemented Thomas's legacy as the "doomed poet". Brinnin focuses on Thomas's last few years, and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer.
Later biographies have criticised Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas's death. David Thomas in 'Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?' claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable.
FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas's demise.
Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days, and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death.
Many sources have criticised Feltenstein's role and actions, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr C. G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, the doctor who treated Thomas while at St. Vincent's, concluded that Feltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner was even more culpable than his use of morphine.
Caitlin Thomas's autobiographies, 'Caitlin Thomas - Leftover Life to Kill' (1957) and 'My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story' (1997), describe the effects of alcohol on the poet and on their relationship:
"Ours was not only a love story, it was
a drink story, because without alcohol
it would never had got on its rocking
feet. The bar was our altar."
Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the decline in Thomas's health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his extramarital affairs.
In contrast, Dylan biographers Andrew Sinclair and George Tremlett express the view that Thomas was not an alcoholic. Tremlett argues that many of Thomas's health issues stemmed from undiagnosed diabetes.
Thomas died intestate, with assets worth £100. His body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Dylan's funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on the 24th. November 1953.
Six friends from the village carried Thomas's coffin. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed, and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas's fellow poet and long-time friend Vernon Watkins wrote The Times obituary.
Thomas's widow, Caitlin, died in 1994, and was laid to rest alongside him. Dylan's mother Florence died in August 1958. Thomas's elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000, his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009, and his youngest son Colm in 2012.
-- Dylan Thomas's Poetry
Thomas's refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorise. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movements, he refused to follow such creeds. Instead, critics view Thomas as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful.
Elder Olson, in his 1954 critical study of Thomas's poetry, wrote:
"There is a further characteristic which
distinguished Thomas's work from that
of other poets. It was unclassifiable."
Olson went on to say that in a postmodern age that continually attempted to demand that poetry have social reference, none could be found in Thomas's work, and that his work was so obscure that critics could not analyse it.
Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night'.
His images appear carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death, and new life that linked the generations.
Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite.
Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud. Explaining the source of his imagery, Thomas wrote in a letter to Glyn Jones:
"My own obscurity is quite an unfashionable one,
based, as it is, on a preconceived symbolism
derived (I'm afraid all this sounds woolly and
pretentious) from the cosmic significance of the
human anatomy".
Thomas's early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and some critics detected the influence of the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins, had taught himself Welsh, and used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work.
However when Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. Thomas greatly admired Thomas Hardy, who is regarded as an influence. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited some of Hardy's work in his readings.
Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence.
William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, 'A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas', finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas.
Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by the poet Roy Campbell.
Critics have explored the origins of Thomas's mythological pasts in his works such as 'The Orchards', which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion.
Thomas's poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in 'Fern Hill', 'In Country Sleep', 'Ballad of the Long-legged Bait' and 'In the White Giant's Thigh' from Under Milk Wood.
Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:
"I should say I wanted to write poetry in the
beginning because I had fallen in love with
words.
The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes,
and before I could read them for myself I had
come to love the words of them. The words
alone.
What the words stood for was of a very
secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is
the only expression I can think of, at once,
and am still at the mercy of words, though
sometimes now, knowing a little of their
behaviour very well, I think I can influence
them slightly and have even learned to beat
them now and then, which they appear to
enjoy.
I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began
to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later,
to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I
had discovered the most important things, to
me, that could be ever."
Thomas became an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940) and 'Quite Early One Morning' (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. His first published prose work, 'After the Fair', appeared in The New English Weekly on the 15th. March 1934.
Jacob Korg believes that one can classify Thomas's fiction work into two main bodies:
-- Vigorous fantasies in a poetic style
-- After 1939, more straightforward
narratives.
Korg surmises that Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.
-- Dylan Thomas as a Welsh Poet
Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his Collected Poems, he added:
"Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by
Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh."
Despite this, his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that:
"Dylan's inspiration and imagination
were rooted in his Welsh background".
Caitlin Thomas wrote that:
"He worked in a fanatically narrow groove,
although there was nothing narrow about
the depth and understanding of his feelings.
The groove of direct hereditary descent in
the land of his birth, which he never in
thought, and hardly in body, moved out of."
Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas's early radio talks, believed that the poet's whole attitude is that of the medieval bards.
Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a difficult enterprise to find traces of cynghanedd (consonant harmony) or cerdd dafod (tongue-craft) in Thomas's poetry. Instead he believes that Dylan's work, especially his earlier, more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation:
"Rural and urban, chapel-going and profane,
Welsh and English, unforgiving and deeply
compassionate."
Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of cynghanedd in Thomas's work were accidental, although he felt that Dylan consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics: that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine Fitzgibbon, who was his first in-depth biographer, wrote:
"No major English poet has
ever been as Welsh as Dylan".
Although Dylan had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote:
"Land of my fathers, and
my fathers can keep it".
While often attributed to Thomas himself, this line actually comes from the character Owen Morgan-Vaughan, in the screenplay Thomas wrote for the 1948 British melodrama 'The Three Weird Sisters'.
Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled:
"I only once heard Dylan express an
opinion on Welsh Nationalism.
He used three words. Two of them
were Welsh Nationalism."
Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas's friendship cooled in the later years because he had not rejected enough of the elements that Thomas disliked, i.e. "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality".
Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of the literary magazine 'Wales', Thomas's father wrote:
"I'm afraid Dylan isn't much
of a Welshman".
FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas's negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.
Critical Appraisal of Dylan Thomas's Work
Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York.
When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet, he opened by addressing the assembly:
"Dylan Thomas is now as much
a case history as a chapter in the
history of poetry".
He queried how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication 'Llareggub Revisited':
"The strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's
notoriety - not that he is bogus, but that
attitudes to poetry attached themselves
to him which not only threaten the prestige,
effectiveness and accessibility to English
poetry, but also destroyed his true voice
and, at last, him."
The Poetry Archive notes that:
"Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him
of being drunk on language as well as
whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that
the sound of language is central to his
style, he was also a disciplined writer
who re-drafted obsessively".
Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow, and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. However those who have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947:
"Nothing could be more wrongheaded
than the English disputes about Dylan
Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling
obscure writer who can be enjoyed
without understanding."
Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading 'Eighteen Poems':
"The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated
schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow
with one small book as Swinburne had with
Poems and Ballads."
Philip Larkin, in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that:
"No one can stick words into us
like pins... like Thomas can".
However he followed that by stating that:
"Dylan doesn't use his words
to any advantage".
Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in Dylan's work, and claiming that:
"He is frothing at the mouth
with piss."
In 1956, the publication of the anthology 'New Lines' featuring works by the British collective The Movement, which included Amis and Larkin amongst its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940's. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated:
"Dylan Thomas was made to stand for
everything they detest, verbal obscurity,
metaphysical pretentiousness, and
romantic rhapsodizing".
Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public.
In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th.
Several of Dylan's poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers.
The long-running BBC Radio programme, 'Desert Island Discs', in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.
John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common. He also cites that despite a brief period during the 1960's when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place.
Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970's and has become: "... an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism", his work failing to fit standard narratives, and thus being ignored rather than studied.
-- Memorials to Dylan Thomas
In Swansea's maritime quarter is the Dylan Thomas Theatre, the home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member. The former Guildhall built in 1825 is now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and which is a setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas by John Doubleday.
Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of Dylan's favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park, cut by and inscribed by the late sculptor Ronald Cour with the closing lines from Fern Hill:
'Oh as I was young and easy
in the mercy of his means
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like
the sea'.
Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is now a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas's writing shed is also preserved.
In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005, the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival.
In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The plaque is also inscribed with the last two lines of 'Fern Hill'.
In 2014, the Royal Patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival was Charles, Prince of Wales, who made a recording of 'Fern Hill' for the event.
In 2014, to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth, the British Council Wales undertook a year-long programme of cultural and educational works. Highlights included a touring replica of Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on 'Under Milk Wood', and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Thomas's work.
Towamensing Trails, Pennsylvania named one of its streets, Thomas Lane, in Dylan's honour.
-- List of Works by Dylan Thomas
-- 'The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The New Centenary Edition', edited and with Introduction by John Goodby. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014.
-- 'The Notebook Poems 1930–34', edited by Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1989.
-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Film Scripts', edited by John Ackerman. London: Dent 1995.
-- 'Dylan Thomas: Early Prose Writings', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent 1971.
-- 'Collected Stories', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent, 1983.
-- 'Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices', edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1995.
-- 'On The Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts', edited by Ralph Maud. New York: New Directions, 1991.
-- Correspondence
-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters', edited by Paul Ferris (2017), 2 vols. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Vol I: 1931–1939
Vol II: 1939–1953.
-- 'Letters to Vernon Watkins', edited by Vernon Watkins (1957). London: Dent.
-- Posthumous Film Adaptations
-- 2016: Dominion, written and directed by Steven Bernstein, examines the final hours of Dylan Thomas.
-- 2014: Set Fire to the Stars, with Thomas portrayed by Celyn Jones, and John Brinnin by Elijah Wood.
-- 2014: Under Milk Wood BBC, starring Charlotte Church, Tom Jones, Griff Rhys-Jones and Michael Sheen.
-- 2014: Interstellar. The poem is featured throughout the film as a recurring theme regarding the perseverance of humanity.
-- 2009: A Child's Christmas in Wales, BAFTA Best Short Film. Animation, with soundtrack in Welsh and English. Director: Dave Unwin. Extras include filmed comments from Aeronwy Thomas.
-- 2007: Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology (DDHE/IWM).
-- 1996: Independence Day. Before the attack, the President paraphrases Thomas's "Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night".
-- 1992: Rebecca's Daughters, starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson.
-- 1987: A Child's Christmas in Wales, directed by Don McBrearty.
-- 1972: Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole.
-- Opera Adaptation
-- 1973: Unter dem Milchwald, by German composer Walter Steffens on his own libretto using Erich Fried's translation of 'Under Milk Wood' into German, Hamburg State Opera. Also at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1977.
-- Final Thoughts From Dylan Thomas
"Somebody's boring me.
I think it's me."
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
"When one burns one's bridges,
what a very nice fire it makes."
"I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble; It is so sad and
beautiful, so tremulously like a dream."
"An alcoholic is someone you don't
like, who drinks as much as you do."
"I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me,
and my enquiry is as to their working, and my
problem is their subjugation and victory, down
throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-
expression."
"The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea
with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy.
Let me shipwreck in your thighs."
"Why do men think you can pick love up
and re-light it like a candle? Women know
when love is over."
"Poetry is not the most important thing in life.
I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading
Agatha Christie and sucking sweets."
"And now, gentlemen, like your manners,
I must leave you."
"My education was the liberty I had to read
indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes
hanging out."
"I'm a freak user of words, not a poet."
"Our discreditable secret is that we don't
know anything at all, and our horrid inner
secret is that we don't care that we don't."
"It snowed last year too: I made a snowman
and my brother knocked it down and I knocked
my brother down and then we had tea."
"Though lovers be lost love shall not."
"Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.
Then, when his soul is naked, is he one
with the man in the wind, and the west moon,
with the harmonious thunder of the sun."
"And books which told me everything
about the wasp, except why."
"We are not wholly bad or good, who
live our lives under Milk Wood."
"Love is the last light spoken."
"... an ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ...
by the side of a long and splendid curving
shore. This sea-town was my world."
"I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies.
They are better company, and their feelings
towards you are always genuine."
"This poem has been called obscure. I refuse
to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence,
or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime,
it is more compressed."
"One: I am a Welshman; two: I am a drunkard;
three: I am a lover of the human race, especially
of women."
"I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they've ever
questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn't
know, because I won't ever dare ask that question."
"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and
confusions, are written for the love of man and in
praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."
"Before you let the sun in, mind he wipes his shoes."
"Nothing grows in our garden, only washing.
And babies."
"Make gentle the life of this world."
"A worm tells summer better than the clock,
the slug's a living calendar of days; what shall
it tell me if a timeless insect says the world
wears away?"
"Time passes. Listen. Time passes. Come
closer now. Only you can hear the houses
sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt
and silent black, bandaged night."
"Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.
She did not hear him, but stood over his bed
and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold
my hand, he said, and then: Why are you
putting the sheet over my face?"
"Come on up, boys - I'm dead."
"Life is a terrible thing, thank God."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_Valley
The 'Soon Valley' (Urdu: [[وادئ سون)]] or Soon Sakesar is one of the famous valleys of Pakistan situated in the central Punjab province. The Valley is situated in the north west of Khushab. Naushera is the main town of the Valley. The Valley starts from Padhrar village and end to Sakesar that is the highest peak of Salt Range. The length of Soon Valley is 35 miles (56 km) and average width is 9 miles (14 km). The area of Soon Valley is 300-square-mile (780 km2). Although not as coold as the valleys up north, Soon valley consists of beautiful lakes, waterfalls, jungles, natural pools and ponds. Soon valley is also blessed with ancient civilization , natural resources, and fertile farms. There are some special features of this valley that distinguish it from other areas, without knowing about them it is very hard to understand its importance. Sabhral, Khoora, Naushera, Kufri, Anga, Ugali, Uchali and Bagh Shams-ud-Din are important towns in soon valley. Kanhatti Garden, Sodhi Garden, Da'ep and Sakesar are resorts to visit. Awan[1] tribe is settled in Soon Valley.[2]
Located at a height of 5,010 feet (1,530 m) above sea level, Sakesar was once the summer headquarters for the Deputy Commissioners of three districts - Campbelpur (now Attock), Mianwali and Shahpur (now Sargodha). It is the only mountain in this part of the Punjab which receives snow fall in winters. In view of Sakesar's ideal location and height, the PAF selected it in the late-50s as the site for a high powered radar which would provide air defence cover for the northeastern part of the western wing. Pakistan Television's re-broadcasting center has been installed to provide terrestrial transmissions coverage to adjoining areas.
Har do sodhi
(sodhi bala and sodhi zarien), Naushahra, Jabbah ,Ugalisharif, Kotli, Mukrumi,Kaamrh,Dhadhar, Mardwal, Kufri, Uchali, Chitta, Khoora,Anga,Khabbaki, kuradhi, Uchhala, Mustafaabad (Bhukhi), Sodhi Jai Wali, Sabhral, Shakarkot, Sirhal, Manawan, Surraki, Jahlar, Anga, Ahmadabad
•Distance from Islamabad: 290 km
•Distance from Sargodha: 110 km
•Lakes : Uchali, Khabbaki, Jahlar, Khura
•Shrines :Sultan Mehdi sahb, sultan Haji Ahmed sahb in Uchhala, Baba Shikh AkbarDin Ugalisharif, Pir Baba Sakhi Muhammad Khushhaal in Khabbaki, Amb Shareef, Baba beri Wala in Naushera, Abul Hameed & Aziz Ahmedabad
People
The main tribe of the area is the Awan of ancient repute. This tribe came in this area with Qutab Shah and settled in the Soon valley. The other sub branches and small tribes are Shehal, Ardaal, Mirwal, Adriyal, Shenaal in Kufri, Latifal, Jurwal, Radhnal, Sheraal in Naushehra, Pirkal in Jallay wali, Majhial in Mardwal,Bazral, Chhatal,Ghadhyal,Phatal,Yakial, Maswal in Ugalisharif, Phatwal and Bhojo khail, Sheral, Mianwaddal , Alyaral, Sher Shahal in Khabbaki and so on. In the valley Awan's are known by their clans. In old time the head of clan in each village was known as Raees, and the head of a tribe was known as Raees-Azam. The most famous Raees Azam were Pir Naubahar Shah of Pail,Malik Ameer Haider of Kufri, Qazi Mazhar Qayyum of Naushera and Lumberdar Syed Gul peer Shah of Sodhi,Baba Hafiz Ilyas of Chitta.
A majority of the people are serving in the armed forces of Pakistan. Many loyal brave soldiers and officers belong to this land who even laid down their lives for their homeland.[4]
Other professions like education, business, transportation and agricultural are also adopted by the locals. The people are hard working and agriculture used to be the main profession. Per person square footage of land decreased, as population increased. Consequently the people have migrated to large cities for jobs.
There are famous writers[5] like Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, and journalist[6] from this area. Famous Physicians and Surgeons like Dr. Muzaffar-ul-Haq, Dr. Ghaus Malik neurosurgen (USA), Dr. Javaid Malik (USA), Dr. Nazir Ahmed Malik (Child Specialist) and Hafiz Habib Sultan (Eye Specialist) and Shaukat Memud Awan, general secretary Adara Tehqiqul Awan pakistan also belong to this land.
FARMING: Our farmers are also not behind to make their real contribution in agricultural growing corps like wheat , dalls , jawar and bajra including makaee crops .In this way our farmer is also playing a remarkable roll to full fill the local food requirement at large level , i remember that our local production of wheat including other eatable plus abandant quantity of vegitable for our local use with addition we are meeting the requirement demand of vegitable up to Lahore , Gujranwala , Sargodha , Talagang and Rawalpindi Districts for their people at large quiantiy hence our small population is never dependant on any one else . We are self sufficient .
Review on “My celestial Dreams” written by Abdul Ghaffar Aamir Ghufri Valley Soon Sakaser khushab AAMIR’S POETRY AND MONTOMERY
By Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel
I opened the book, here and there, and my cursory glance met with certain spurts of genius. There was before me the vision of a bud that could blossom one day into fascinating flower to adorn the garden of English poetry. To reach that pinnacle, however, sincerity, purity, fortitude, patience, perseverance and learning, besides the general pre-requisites, such as imagination, wit, faculty of expression and command over language were necessary. The first two poems are hymns about the omnipresence of God. Quite naturally my thought went to a poem “The Omnipresence of Lord”, written by Montgomery. My acquaintance with this poem was due to its review written by Lord Macaulay in 1830. Literary Essay of Lord Macaulay) the review indeed was horrible. Shaking his fierce trident, the enraged critic fell upon the author with deadliest attack and would not cause till the victim lay dead. This was the work of blind fury; we have seen only such part of poem which were exhibited by the critic and faulty. Yet despite Macaulay’s total condemnation of the work, we think that criticism as a preplanned act of cruel murder. We are not in a position to challenge of defy the points raised by Macaulay, yet we cannot hesitate to assert that the work after all was not so bad and also, that besides flaws. It contained point of merit, for example it’s them, which Macaulay had internationally refuse to see. This certainly meant the violence of the rule of criticism. On the whole we think this Macaulay’s criticism as a tragedy in the annals of criticism itself. It is the blemish on the name of both of the critic and the criticism. Montgomery fell as the victim of illuck before the trident of Macaulay, who himself tells us in his article, that the practice of puffing of worthless literary works was the vogue in England. Macaulay called upon every one who was anxious for the purity of the national taste or for the honour of the literary character to join in this discountenancing the practice that of puffing which according to him was then so shamefully and so successfully carried on in the country. It was on this point that Montgomery appeared as the target, because Montgomery’s work had run into eleven editions. It is thus in his effort to discountenancing the practice of puffing that Macaulay fell headlong upon a poet whose work despite flaws had certain points of merit and was purchased and read with rapture in eleventh edition by the public of England. The whole article of Macaulay is interesting, but due to the considering of space, we shall have to be content with only one instance of Macaulay’s criticism. Say, he: “The all pervading influence of the Supreme being is then described in a few tolerable lines borrowed from Pope and a great many intolerable of Mr. Robert Montgomery’s own. The following may stand as a specimen.”. : Upon thy Mirror earths majestic view, : To paint thy presence and to feel it too, These last two lines contain and excellent specimen of Mr. Robert Montgomery’s Turkey carpet style of writing. The Majestic view of the earth is the mirror of God’s presence. And on this mirror Mr. Robert Montgomery paints God’s presence. The use of a mirror submit is not to be painted upon”. Says Macaulay:
We do not mean that this couplet is the specimen of high class English poetry, but the word paint of the mirror put easily be some substituted by the word canvas and show. We, however, want to make it clear that we are not going to judge the work of our point. Aamir on the standard of poet like Montgomery. Our poet shows the signs of genius that could rise to the highest of high class poetry in English.
Now before we leave Macaulay and Montgomery to rest in their graves, we intend to show some identity of thought and view between Montgomery and Aamir and not at all with a view to evaluating their works in comparison. Monitory’s work can stand no comparison. His verse is slow, sluggish, unwidely and lacks the qualities of high class poetry. While the works of Aamir is brist, precise, to the point and expressed with strong effect. Aamir’s thought a beginner in a language which is quite foreign to him, yet he shows the sign of rising to highest maintain while the great English poet. Montgomery says : : There is not a blossom fondled by the breeze, : There is not a fruit that beautify the trees, : There is not a particle in sea or air, : But nature own thy plastic influence there” Aamir says: : I feel your hand wherever I look in every flower, tree or brook, Montgomery says : : Yet not alone created realm engage, : Thy faultless wisdom, grand primeval sage: For all the thronging woes of life allied, Thy Mercy Tempers and Thy cares provide” Aamir says:- All kingdoms are yours, all crowns for you, You are the greatest, perfect and true When we suffers sorrow and decay, Your blessings see us through all the way: Montgomery says: : The dew that on the violet lies, Mocks the dark luster of thine eyes” Aamir says:- : All this beauty, charms and grace, Is just a lovely glimpse of your face”. We have given the above-quoted verse to see the identity of the views of the two poets, and to see also the difference between the rim odes of expression. Surely the verses of Aamir taken from his Hymn must be his earliest, yet his styles who was sort of precision which lacks in Montgomery’s verse. But Aamir has to be judged by the second part of his work, “My Celestial Dreams”. Therein we can have the audacity to show his work in comparison to greatest English poets. And he is as yet so young. As for as Montgomery’s work is concerned we can agree with Macaulay when he says:
His writing bears the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture. There are colours in the Turkey carpet out of which a picture might be made. There are words in Mr. Montgomery’s writing which, when disposed in certain corders and combinations, have made, and will again make, good poetry:
Yet our complaint is that Macaulay’s treatment of Montgomery was ruthless. Ruthless beyond any bounds, Montgomery was taken as a scrape-goat. As far as Aamir’s work is concerned, he himself says:
This humble effort of mine is not meant to stir your imagination towards the poetic proness of my pen, but just to apprise you of the fact that I have drunk deeply at he fountain of God’s love for human souls”.
While reading the work of Aamir, “My celestial dreams”, novice though he is, the eye meets everywhere some expression which sounds like the voice of some great English poet, such as Keats, Shelly, Wordsworth etc. to reach the pinnacle, however, means constant flight. Aamir is not so unfortunate as Montgomery was. He is in better times, and in a better environment. The world now sick of materialism, has begun to take interest in religion. And thus the product of his mind has every probability acceptance and appreciation all over the world. His work, “My celestial Dream” could a well be divined into two distinct parts, that is before the poem. “Hero of the land”, and after that to etched end. The second part has distinctive superiority over the first. The poet appears to be blossoming fast and has reached a remarkable standard of efficiency. His thought share sacred. His expression is origin and sublime. He certainly does not appear like a foreigner who has learned English languages. He rather composes his poetry like the aboriginal English poet. His themes are simple yet deeply touching and indeed great. Judging by this religious trend, he might be taken by some European critic as a bigot, which he certainly is not. Milton and Bunyan both poets of Christianity have long since been thrown into oblivion due to surging waves of modern materialism. Whereas Aamir stands a real chance to make his mark in the world as poet of Islam. The credit of eulogizing the Holy Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) in English poetry goes to him. He has emerged as a pioneer in that field. We will now quote some of his waves to see and urge the prowess of his pen. He might deny it, yet his pen is impressive beyond expectations:-
“O! Crescent star flag! I pray you fly, With honour so high, Above this world, And azure sky, “Sons of Turkey, the tigers of Kamal Brave courageous handsome and tall “In sweet sleeps of night I see your dreams, My love for your flows like rivers and streams. O! Father come back Wipe my eyes Kiss me. Come and grace my beautiful world, Which I made for you, And be my love Part of eternity. For my love is true and eternal Born in heaven, reared an earth, Pulling you from the burning sun. It will fill you with joy and mirth. So my love, now we separate, Let time and fate on love operate, With flaming passion we shall meet, Our souls, then pure rejoice, for ever greet, Today it is corpse But yesterday it was, A paragon Wistfully recalled the golden day’s When I was like a flower, Like a delightful nightingale, I felt as if truly, I had come to what I was again You shall be forever sought, By the one who shall not? See you again Your sketch I adored it, In the temple of my soul, And worshipped it, All my life. These are some examples of Aamir’s verse which we have quoted. And we wish him good and good speed. May he blossom one day into and an eminent literacy figure, and be our pride. Dated: 14th January 1986.
Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel C/O Khalid General Strores, Main Bazar, Nawababad, Wah Cantt. Distt. Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
www.oqasa.org www. soonvalley.com www.soonvalley.pakistan www.alturka.com www.likedone.pakistan
Martial Race
The Awans of the Soon Valley were also amongst those the British considered to be "martial race".[7] The British recruited army heavily from Soon Valley for service in the colonial army, and as such, the Awans of this area also formed an important part of the British Indian Army, serving with distinction during World Wars I and II. Of all the Muslim groups recruited by the British, proportionally, the Awans produced the greatest number of recruits during the First and Second World Wars. Contemporary historians, namely Professor Ian Talbot and Professor Tan Tai Yong, have authored works that cite the Awans (amongst other tribes) as being looked upon as a martial race by not only the British, but neighbouring tribes as well. The army of Pakistan also heavily recruits Awans from this area. Awans occupy the highest ranks of the Pakistani Army.[8] DHAHDHAR :- This is one of the most important village of this soon valley , which is producing wheat and vegitable at large quantity for offording local population as well as upto the range of Lahore , Gujranwala, Sargodha , Talagang & Rawalpindi Districts .
LIVE STOCK :- Our village is producing live stock breeding at large scal hence contributing a major roll for production of various type of animal like bufaloos , cow' , oxen, sheep and goats to full fill the requirement of general publc in case of meet , milk and skins for manufecturing of leather shoes and leather garments .
Lakes
There are two well-renowned Uchhali Lake and Khabikki Lake lakes in Soon valley. Uchhali is a salt water lake in the southern Salt Range area in Pakistan. This lake is formed due to the absence of drainage in the range. Sakaser, the highest mountain in the Salt Range, looms over the lake. Due to its brackish water the lake is lifeless. But it offers a picturesque scenery. Khabikki Lake is a salt water lake in the southern Salt Range area in Pakistan. This lake is formed due to the absence of drainage in the range. The lake is one kilometer wide and two kilometres long. Khabikki is also the name of a neighbouring village. Boats are also available and there is a rest house beside the lake. A hill gently ascended on the right side of the lake. The lake and the green area around provide a good scenery. These lakes attract thousands of migratory birds each year and are ideal haven for the bird watchers.
Tucked in the southern periphery of the Salt Range and hemmed in by its higher cliffs, is a cluster of natural lakes — Ucchali, Khabbeki and Jhallar in district Khushab. These lakes are said to be 400 years old, maybe more. The lakes are a prime sanctuary for the migratory birds and were declared a protected sanctuary for the native and migratory avifauna on the appeal of World Wildlife Fund. Nestled at about 800 meters above the sea, lakes have some marsh vegetation and are mostly surrounded by cultivated land, which is picturesquely intersected by hillocks. The lakes are fed by the spring, seepage from adjacent areas, and run off from the neighbouring hills of the historic Salt Range. The lakes are one of the most important wintering areas for the rare white-headed ducks (Oxyura leucocephala) in Pakistan that comes here from Central Asia. Locals believe that there is a volcano hidden beneath the surface of the Ucchali Lake due to which the colour of the water keeps changing. The appearance of a vert broad and brightly coloured rainbow in 1982 for consecutive 15 days is also attributed to this analogy. in 1982, a strange phenomenon was observed in the villages Ucchali and Dhadhar. The lakes’ water is also said to cure gout and skin diseases. People have been taking the water from the lakes as far as Lahore and Karachi. People think that a pure white winged creature called Great egret, from Grus family, found in the area is a symbol of longevity.
Town and Villages
•Naushera
•Sakesar
•Jabbah
•Uchalla
•Pail-Piran
•Sodhi
•Kalial
•Sirhal
•Shakar Kot
•Unga
•Khabbaki
•Dhadhar
•Mardawal
•Khewra
•Kufri (now its name is sadiq abad so called with this new name)
•Sabhral
•Koradhi
•Uchhali
•Shakarkot
•Anngah
•Ugalisharif
•Makrumi
•Kamrah
•Dhadar
•Ahmadabad
har do sodhi soon become union consil
Different Villages Location
Villages west of Naushehra are Sabhral, Kufri, Koradhi,Uchhali, and Chitta before reaching the Pakistan Air Force Base of Sakesar.
Villages to the north west of Naushehra are Sirhal, Shakarkot Anngah and Ugalisharif.
Villages to the north east of Naushehra are Mardowal, Makrumi,Kamrah,Dhadar, Ahmadabad, Khabakki and Jabah.
Villages to the south west of Naushehra are har do sodhi , Surraki and Jahlar.
Villages to the south of Naushehra are Chamraki and Sodhian villages.
Villages to the east of Naushehra are Dhakah, Mirokah Dhakah, Jalay Wali, (Uchhalah is not on the main road), Sodhi Jai Wali, Kaliyal, Khurrah, and Kathwai.
Padhrar and Pail-Piran are not the part of soon valley but these villages are in the same election area and fall on Chakwal-Khushab road.
There are scattered colonies of certain families which are called Dhok. Usually at each Dhoke there are two to ten houses.
Historical Places
•Lakes: Ugalisharif & Uchalli Lake, Khabikki Lake and Jahlar Lake.
•Waterfalls at Kufri.
•Ambh Sharif is a historical place in Hinduism.
•Kanahti Garden, Sodhi Garden, Khabakki Jheel,Ugalisharif & Uchali Jheel, Sakesar and Daip Shareef and the hiking experiences of hills
•Anga, an important village.
•Sodhi village has waterfalls, a Rest House, and wild animals like Cheetah, Rabbit, Deer, Teetar (Urdu name of a bird).
•Shrines of Babashikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah UGALISHRIF, Makan Sharif Kufri sajadh nashin Sahibzadh Muhammad Hamid Aziz Hamidi, Pir Khawja Noori and Pir Sahib Acha (Hacha)- descendents of Baha Ud Din Zakkariyya Multani(Hazrat Baha Ul Haq)in Pail-Piran
•Ganji Pahari, Baba shikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah UGALISHRIF. Baba Sewu Beri Wala and Baba Mari Wala in Naushera.
•Baba shikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah Ugli Sharif and Pir Khawaja Noori in Pail jant
•Mahala Jurwal, is the biggest and most densed street of Naushahra. Malik Sultan Mubaraz, a well knw transporter of last dacade belongs to this street
•Mahala Qazian Wallah, is also a famous street of Naushera, where the famous qadis of Naushera used to live.
•Graveyard of qadi family
•Sodhi Jai Wali is also famous for its natural Water falls and Garden as well. The Garden is located near a Historical Rest House, It is said that this Rest House was gifted by Syed Family of Sodhi Jai wali to the British Rulers.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
’TIS the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.
~ Thomas Moore 1779–1852 ~
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_Valley
The 'Soon Valley' (Urdu: [[وادئ سون)]] or Soon Sakesar is one of the famous valleys of Pakistan situated in the central Punjab province. The Valley is situated in the north west of Khushab. Naushera is the main town of the Valley. The Valley starts from Padhrar village and end to Sakesar that is the highest peak of Salt Range. The length of Soon Valley is 35 miles (56 km) and average width is 9 miles (14 km). The area of Soon Valley is 300-square-mile (780 km2). Although not as coold as the valleys up north, Soon valley consists of beautiful lakes, waterfalls, jungles, natural pools and ponds. Soon valley is also blessed with ancient civilization , natural resources, and fertile farms. There are some special features of this valley that distinguish it from other areas, without knowing about them it is very hard to understand its importance. Sabhral, Khoora, Naushera, Kufri, Anga, Ugali, Uchali and Bagh Shams-ud-Din are important towns in soon valley. Kanhatti Garden, Sodhi Garden, Da'ep and Sakesar are resorts to visit. Awan[1] tribe is settled in Soon Valley.[2]
Located at a height of 5,010 feet (1,530 m) above sea level, Sakesar was once the summer headquarters for the Deputy Commissioners of three districts - Campbelpur (now Attock), Mianwali and Shahpur (now Sargodha). It is the only mountain in this part of the Punjab which receives snow fall in winters. In view of Sakesar's ideal location and height, the PAF selected it in the late-50s as the site for a high powered radar which would provide air defence cover for the northeastern part of the western wing. Pakistan Television's re-broadcasting center has been installed to provide terrestrial transmissions coverage to adjoining areas.
Har do sodhi
(sodhi bala and sodhi zarien), Naushahra, Jabbah ,Ugalisharif, Kotli, Mukrumi,Kaamrh,Dhadhar, Mardwal, Kufri, Uchali, Chitta, Khoora,Anga,Khabbaki, kuradhi, Uchhala, Mustafaabad (Bhukhi), Sodhi Jai Wali, Sabhral, Shakarkot, Sirhal, Manawan, Surraki, Jahlar, Anga, Ahmadabad
•Distance from Islamabad: 290 km
•Distance from Sargodha: 110 km
•Lakes : Uchali, Khabbaki, Jahlar, Khura
•Shrines :Sultan Mehdi sahb, sultan Haji Ahmed sahb in Uchhala, Baba Shikh AkbarDin Ugalisharif, Pir Baba Sakhi Muhammad Khushhaal in Khabbaki, Amb Shareef, Baba beri Wala in Naushera, Abul Hameed & Aziz Ahmedabad
People
The main tribe of the area is the Awan of ancient repute. This tribe came in this area with Qutab Shah and settled in the Soon valley. The other sub branches and small tribes are Shehal, Ardaal, Mirwal, Adriyal, Shenaal in Kufri, Latifal, Jurwal, Radhnal, Sheraal in Naushehra, Pirkal in Jallay wali, Majhial in Mardwal,Bazral, Chhatal,Ghadhyal,Phatal,Yakial, Maswal in Ugalisharif, Phatwal and Bhojo khail, Sheral, Mianwaddal , Alyaral, Sher Shahal in Khabbaki and so on. In the valley Awan's are known by their clans. In old time the head of clan in each village was known as Raees, and the head of a tribe was known as Raees-Azam. The most famous Raees Azam were Pir Naubahar Shah of Pail,Malik Ameer Haider of Kufri, Qazi Mazhar Qayyum of Naushera and Lumberdar Syed Gul peer Shah of Sodhi,Baba Hafiz Ilyas of Chitta.
A majority of the people are serving in the armed forces of Pakistan. Many loyal brave soldiers and officers belong to this land who even laid down their lives for their homeland.[4]
Other professions like education, business, transportation and agricultural are also adopted by the locals. The people are hard working and agriculture used to be the main profession. Per person square footage of land decreased, as population increased. Consequently the people have migrated to large cities for jobs.
There are famous writers[5] like Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, and journalist[6] from this area. Famous Physicians and Surgeons like Dr. Muzaffar-ul-Haq, Dr. Ghaus Malik neurosurgen (USA), Dr. Javaid Malik (USA), Dr. Nazir Ahmed Malik (Child Specialist) and Hafiz Habib Sultan (Eye Specialist) and Shaukat Memud Awan, general secretary Adara Tehqiqul Awan pakistan also belong to this land.
FARMING: Our farmers are also not behind to make their real contribution in agricultural growing corps like wheat , dalls , jawar and bajra including makaee crops .In this way our farmer is also playing a remarkable roll to full fill the local food requirement at large level , i remember that our local production of wheat including other eatable plus abandant quantity of vegitable for our local use with addition we are meeting the requirement demand of vegitable up to Lahore , Gujranwala , Sargodha , Talagang and Rawalpindi Districts for their people at large quiantiy hence our small population is never dependant on any one else . We are self sufficient .
Review on “My celestial Dreams” written by Abdul Ghaffar Aamir Ghufri Valley Soon Sakaser khushab AAMIR’S POETRY AND MONTOMERY
By Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel
I opened the book, here and there, and my cursory glance met with certain spurts of genius. There was before me the vision of a bud that could blossom one day into fascinating flower to adorn the garden of English poetry. To reach that pinnacle, however, sincerity, purity, fortitude, patience, perseverance and learning, besides the general pre-requisites, such as imagination, wit, faculty of expression and command over language were necessary. The first two poems are hymns about the omnipresence of God. Quite naturally my thought went to a poem “The Omnipresence of Lord”, written by Montgomery. My acquaintance with this poem was due to its review written by Lord Macaulay in 1830. Literary Essay of Lord Macaulay) the review indeed was horrible. Shaking his fierce trident, the enraged critic fell upon the author with deadliest attack and would not cause till the victim lay dead. This was the work of blind fury; we have seen only such part of poem which were exhibited by the critic and faulty. Yet despite Macaulay’s total condemnation of the work, we think that criticism as a preplanned act of cruel murder. We are not in a position to challenge of defy the points raised by Macaulay, yet we cannot hesitate to assert that the work after all was not so bad and also, that besides flaws. It contained point of merit, for example it’s them, which Macaulay had internationally refuse to see. This certainly meant the violence of the rule of criticism. On the whole we think this Macaulay’s criticism as a tragedy in the annals of criticism itself. It is the blemish on the name of both of the critic and the criticism. Montgomery fell as the victim of illuck before the trident of Macaulay, who himself tells us in his article, that the practice of puffing of worthless literary works was the vogue in England. Macaulay called upon every one who was anxious for the purity of the national taste or for the honour of the literary character to join in this discountenancing the practice that of puffing which according to him was then so shamefully and so successfully carried on in the country. It was on this point that Montgomery appeared as the target, because Montgomery’s work had run into eleven editions. It is thus in his effort to discountenancing the practice of puffing that Macaulay fell headlong upon a poet whose work despite flaws had certain points of merit and was purchased and read with rapture in eleventh edition by the public of England. The whole article of Macaulay is interesting, but due to the considering of space, we shall have to be content with only one instance of Macaulay’s criticism. Say, he: “The all pervading influence of the Supreme being is then described in a few tolerable lines borrowed from Pope and a great many intolerable of Mr. Robert Montgomery’s own. The following may stand as a specimen.”. : Upon thy Mirror earths majestic view, : To paint thy presence and to feel it too, These last two lines contain and excellent specimen of Mr. Robert Montgomery’s Turkey carpet style of writing. The Majestic view of the earth is the mirror of God’s presence. And on this mirror Mr. Robert Montgomery paints God’s presence. The use of a mirror submit is not to be painted upon”. Says Macaulay:
We do not mean that this couplet is the specimen of high class English poetry, but the word paint of the mirror put easily be some substituted by the word canvas and show. We, however, want to make it clear that we are not going to judge the work of our point. Aamir on the standard of poet like Montgomery. Our poet shows the signs of genius that could rise to the highest of high class poetry in English.
Now before we leave Macaulay and Montgomery to rest in their graves, we intend to show some identity of thought and view between Montgomery and Aamir and not at all with a view to evaluating their works in comparison. Monitory’s work can stand no comparison. His verse is slow, sluggish, unwidely and lacks the qualities of high class poetry. While the works of Aamir is brist, precise, to the point and expressed with strong effect. Aamir’s thought a beginner in a language which is quite foreign to him, yet he shows the sign of rising to highest maintain while the great English poet. Montgomery says : : There is not a blossom fondled by the breeze, : There is not a fruit that beautify the trees, : There is not a particle in sea or air, : But nature own thy plastic influence there” Aamir says: : I feel your hand wherever I look in every flower, tree or brook, Montgomery says : : Yet not alone created realm engage, : Thy faultless wisdom, grand primeval sage: For all the thronging woes of life allied, Thy Mercy Tempers and Thy cares provide” Aamir says:- All kingdoms are yours, all crowns for you, You are the greatest, perfect and true When we suffers sorrow and decay, Your blessings see us through all the way: Montgomery says: : The dew that on the violet lies, Mocks the dark luster of thine eyes” Aamir says:- : All this beauty, charms and grace, Is just a lovely glimpse of your face”. We have given the above-quoted verse to see the identity of the views of the two poets, and to see also the difference between the rim odes of expression. Surely the verses of Aamir taken from his Hymn must be his earliest, yet his styles who was sort of precision which lacks in Montgomery’s verse. But Aamir has to be judged by the second part of his work, “My Celestial Dreams”. Therein we can have the audacity to show his work in comparison to greatest English poets. And he is as yet so young. As for as Montgomery’s work is concerned we can agree with Macaulay when he says:
His writing bears the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture. There are colours in the Turkey carpet out of which a picture might be made. There are words in Mr. Montgomery’s writing which, when disposed in certain corders and combinations, have made, and will again make, good poetry:
Yet our complaint is that Macaulay’s treatment of Montgomery was ruthless. Ruthless beyond any bounds, Montgomery was taken as a scrape-goat. As far as Aamir’s work is concerned, he himself says:
This humble effort of mine is not meant to stir your imagination towards the poetic proness of my pen, but just to apprise you of the fact that I have drunk deeply at he fountain of God’s love for human souls”.
While reading the work of Aamir, “My celestial dreams”, novice though he is, the eye meets everywhere some expression which sounds like the voice of some great English poet, such as Keats, Shelly, Wordsworth etc. to reach the pinnacle, however, means constant flight. Aamir is not so unfortunate as Montgomery was. He is in better times, and in a better environment. The world now sick of materialism, has begun to take interest in religion. And thus the product of his mind has every probability acceptance and appreciation all over the world. His work, “My celestial Dream” could a well be divined into two distinct parts, that is before the poem. “Hero of the land”, and after that to etched end. The second part has distinctive superiority over the first. The poet appears to be blossoming fast and has reached a remarkable standard of efficiency. His thought share sacred. His expression is origin and sublime. He certainly does not appear like a foreigner who has learned English languages. He rather composes his poetry like the aboriginal English poet. His themes are simple yet deeply touching and indeed great. Judging by this religious trend, he might be taken by some European critic as a bigot, which he certainly is not. Milton and Bunyan both poets of Christianity have long since been thrown into oblivion due to surging waves of modern materialism. Whereas Aamir stands a real chance to make his mark in the world as poet of Islam. The credit of eulogizing the Holy Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) in English poetry goes to him. He has emerged as a pioneer in that field. We will now quote some of his waves to see and urge the prowess of his pen. He might deny it, yet his pen is impressive beyond expectations:-
“O! Crescent star flag! I pray you fly, With honour so high, Above this world, And azure sky, “Sons of Turkey, the tigers of Kamal Brave courageous handsome and tall “In sweet sleeps of night I see your dreams, My love for your flows like rivers and streams. O! Father come back Wipe my eyes Kiss me. Come and grace my beautiful world, Which I made for you, And be my love Part of eternity. For my love is true and eternal Born in heaven, reared an earth, Pulling you from the burning sun. It will fill you with joy and mirth. So my love, now we separate, Let time and fate on love operate, With flaming passion we shall meet, Our souls, then pure rejoice, for ever greet, Today it is corpse But yesterday it was, A paragon Wistfully recalled the golden day’s When I was like a flower, Like a delightful nightingale, I felt as if truly, I had come to what I was again You shall be forever sought, By the one who shall not? See you again Your sketch I adored it, In the temple of my soul, And worshipped it, All my life. These are some examples of Aamir’s verse which we have quoted. And we wish him good and good speed. May he blossom one day into and an eminent literacy figure, and be our pride. Dated: 14th January 1986.
Allama Muhammad Yousuf Gabriel C/O Khalid General Strores, Main Bazar, Nawababad, Wah Cantt. Distt. Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
www.oqasa.org www. soonvalley.com www.soonvalley.pakistan www.alturka.com www.likedone.pakistan
Martial Race
The Awans of the Soon Valley were also amongst those the British considered to be "martial race".[7] The British recruited army heavily from Soon Valley for service in the colonial army, and as such, the Awans of this area also formed an important part of the British Indian Army, serving with distinction during World Wars I and II. Of all the Muslim groups recruited by the British, proportionally, the Awans produced the greatest number of recruits during the First and Second World Wars. Contemporary historians, namely Professor Ian Talbot and Professor Tan Tai Yong, have authored works that cite the Awans (amongst other tribes) as being looked upon as a martial race by not only the British, but neighbouring tribes as well. The army of Pakistan also heavily recruits Awans from this area. Awans occupy the highest ranks of the Pakistani Army.[8] DHAHDHAR :- This is one of the most important village of this soon valley , which is producing wheat and vegitable at large quantity for offording local population as well as upto the range of Lahore , Gujranwala, Sargodha , Talagang & Rawalpindi Districts .
LIVE STOCK :- Our village is producing live stock breeding at large scal hence contributing a major roll for production of various type of animal like bufaloos , cow' , oxen, sheep and goats to full fill the requirement of general publc in case of meet , milk and skins for manufecturing of leather shoes and leather garments .
Lakes
There are two well-renowned Uchhali Lake and Khabikki Lake lakes in Soon valley. Uchhali is a salt water lake in the southern Salt Range area in Pakistan. This lake is formed due to the absence of drainage in the range. Sakaser, the highest mountain in the Salt Range, looms over the lake. Due to its brackish water the lake is lifeless. But it offers a picturesque scenery. Khabikki Lake is a salt water lake in the southern Salt Range area in Pakistan. This lake is formed due to the absence of drainage in the range. The lake is one kilometer wide and two kilometres long. Khabikki is also the name of a neighbouring village. Boats are also available and there is a rest house beside the lake. A hill gently ascended on the right side of the lake. The lake and the green area around provide a good scenery. These lakes attract thousands of migratory birds each year and are ideal haven for the bird watchers.
Tucked in the southern periphery of the Salt Range and hemmed in by its higher cliffs, is a cluster of natural lakes — Ucchali, Khabbeki and Jhallar in district Khushab. These lakes are said to be 400 years old, maybe more. The lakes are a prime sanctuary for the migratory birds and were declared a protected sanctuary for the native and migratory avifauna on the appeal of World Wildlife Fund. Nestled at about 800 meters above the sea, lakes have some marsh vegetation and are mostly surrounded by cultivated land, which is picturesquely intersected by hillocks. The lakes are fed by the spring, seepage from adjacent areas, and run off from the neighbouring hills of the historic Salt Range. The lakes are one of the most important wintering areas for the rare white-headed ducks (Oxyura leucocephala) in Pakistan that comes here from Central Asia. Locals believe that there is a volcano hidden beneath the surface of the Ucchali Lake due to which the colour of the water keeps changing. The appearance of a vert broad and brightly coloured rainbow in 1982 for consecutive 15 days is also attributed to this analogy. in 1982, a strange phenomenon was observed in the villages Ucchali and Dhadhar. The lakes’ water is also said to cure gout and skin diseases. People have been taking the water from the lakes as far as Lahore and Karachi. People think that a pure white winged creature called Great egret, from Grus family, found in the area is a symbol of longevity.
Town and Villages
•Naushera
•Sakesar
•Jabbah
•Uchalla
•Pail-Piran
•Sodhi
•Kalial
•Sirhal
•Shakar Kot
•Unga
•Khabbaki
•Dhadhar
•Mardawal
•Khewra
•Kufri (now its name is sadiq abad so called with this new name)
•Sabhral
•Koradhi
•Uchhali
•Shakarkot
•Anngah
•Ugalisharif
•Makrumi
•Kamrah
•Dhadar
•Ahmadabad
har do sodhi soon become union consil
Different Villages Location
Villages west of Naushehra are Sabhral, Kufri, Koradhi,Uchhali, and Chitta before reaching the Pakistan Air Force Base of Sakesar.
Villages to the north west of Naushehra are Sirhal, Shakarkot Anngah and Ugalisharif.
Villages to the north east of Naushehra are Mardowal, Makrumi,Kamrah,Dhadar, Ahmadabad, Khabakki and Jabah.
Villages to the south west of Naushehra are har do sodhi , Surraki and Jahlar.
Villages to the south of Naushehra are Chamraki and Sodhian villages.
Villages to the east of Naushehra are Dhakah, Mirokah Dhakah, Jalay Wali, (Uchhalah is not on the main road), Sodhi Jai Wali, Kaliyal, Khurrah, and Kathwai.
Padhrar and Pail-Piran are not the part of soon valley but these villages are in the same election area and fall on Chakwal-Khushab road.
There are scattered colonies of certain families which are called Dhok. Usually at each Dhoke there are two to ten houses.
Historical Places
•Lakes: Ugalisharif & Uchalli Lake, Khabikki Lake and Jahlar Lake.
•Waterfalls at Kufri.
•Ambh Sharif is a historical place in Hinduism.
•Kanahti Garden, Sodhi Garden, Khabakki Jheel,Ugalisharif & Uchali Jheel, Sakesar and Daip Shareef and the hiking experiences of hills
•Anga, an important village.
•Sodhi village has waterfalls, a Rest House, and wild animals like Cheetah, Rabbit, Deer, Teetar (Urdu name of a bird).
•Shrines of Babashikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah UGALISHRIF, Makan Sharif Kufri sajadh nashin Sahibzadh Muhammad Hamid Aziz Hamidi, Pir Khawja Noori and Pir Sahib Acha (Hacha)- descendents of Baha Ud Din Zakkariyya Multani(Hazrat Baha Ul Haq)in Pail-Piran
•Ganji Pahari, Baba shikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah UGALISHRIF. Baba Sewu Beri Wala and Baba Mari Wala in Naushera.
•Baba shikh Akbar Din Darbar-e- aaliah Chishtiah Akbariah Ugli Sharif and Pir Khawaja Noori in Pail jant
•Mahala Jurwal, is the biggest and most densed street of Naushahra. Malik Sultan Mubaraz, a well knw transporter of last dacade belongs to this street
•Mahala Qazian Wallah, is also a famous street of Naushera, where the famous qadis of Naushera used to live.
•Graveyard of qadi family
•Sodhi Jai Wali is also famous for its natural Water falls and Garden as well. The Garden is located near a Historical Rest House, It is said that this Rest House was gifted by Syed Family of Sodhi Jai wali to the British Rulers.
The sentence ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem Sacred Emily, which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays. In that poem, the first ROSE is the name of a person. Stein later used variations on the sentence in other writings, and A ROSE IS ROSE IS A ROSE is probably her most famous quote, often interpreted as meaning THINGS ARE WHAT THEY ARE, a statement of the law of identity, A IS A. In Stein's view, the sentence expresses the fact that simply using the name of a thing already invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it. As the quote diffused through her own writing, and the culture at large, Stein once remarked NOS LISTEN! I'M NO FOOL. I KNOW THAT IN DAILY LIFE WE DON'T GO AROUND SAYING IS A... IS A...IS A... YES, I'M NO FOOL; BUT THINK THAT LINE THE ROSE IS RED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ENGLISH POETRY FOR A HUNDRED YEARS. (Four in America).
Gertrude Stein's repetitive language can be said to refer to the changing quality of language in time and history. She herself said to an audience at Oxford University that the statement referred to the fact that when the Romantics used the word ROSE it had a direct relationship to an actual rose. For later periods in literature this would no longer be true. The eras following romanticism, notably the modern era, use the word rose to refer to the actual rose, yet they also imply, through the use of the word, the archetypical elements of the romantic era. It also follows the rhetoric law of thricefold repetition to emphasize a point, as can be seen in speeches dating back to the sophists.
Wylam is a railway station on the Tyne Valley Line, which runs between Newcastle and Carlisle via Hexham. The station, situated 9 miles 71 chains (9.89 mi; 15.9 km) west of Newcastle, serves the village of Wylam in Northumberland, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.
The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway was formed in 1829, and was opened in stages. The station opened in March 1835, following the commencement of passenger trains between Blaydon and Hexham.
The station was formerly one of two serving the village, the other being North Wylam on the Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway, which operated between 1876 and 1968. It was situated a short distance from the station at Wylam, at the opposite end of Wylam Bridge.
The station layout is unusual, in that the platforms are not opposite each other. The westbound platform is to the east of the level crossing, alongside the stationmaster's house, whilst the eastbound platform is to the west of the level crossing.
The over-line, elevated signal box, once a popular design for the line is now almost unique, with the only other surviving signal box of this design located at Hexham. Constructed in 1835, the stationmaster's house is a Grade II* listed building, whilst the footbridge and signal box are both Grade II listed.
The station has two platforms, both of which have a ticket machine (which accepts card or contactless payment only), seating, waiting shelter, next train audio and visual displays and an emergency help point. There is step-free access to both platforms, which are linked by level crossing and footbridge. There is a small pay and display car park and cycle storage at the station.
Wylam is part of the Northern Trains penalty fare network, meaning that a valid ticket or promise to pay notice is required prior to boarding the train.
As of the December 2023 timetable change, there is an hourly service between Newcastle and Hexham (or Carlisle on Sunday), with additional calls at peak times. Most trains extend to Morpeth or Nunthorpe via Hartlepool. All services are operated by Northern Trains.
Rolling stock used: Class 156 Super Sprinter and Class 158 Express Sprinter
Wylam is a village and civil parish in the county of Northumberland, England. It is located about 10 miles (16 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne.
It is famous for the being the birthplace of George Stephenson, one of the early railway pioneers. George Stephenson's Birthplace, his cottage, can be found on the north bank of the Tyne 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the village. It is owned by the National Trust.
Wylam has further connections with the early railway pioneers. The steam locomotive engineer Timothy Hackworth, who worked with Stephenson, was also born here. William Hedley who was born in the nearby village of Newburn attended the village school. He later went on to design and manufacture Puffing Billy in 1813, two years before George Stephenson produced his first locomotive Blücher. Christopher Blackett as lord of the manor in the first 30 years of the 19th century provided the entrepreneurial drive that encouraged these engineers.
Once an industrial workplace with collieries and an ironworks, it is now a commuting village for Newcastle upon Tyne and Hexham, served by the Tyne Valley line.
The earliest reference to Wylam is in a record of 1158 that records that the settlement belonged to the priory at Tynemouth. It is thought that Guy de Balliol, Lord of Bywell, gave Wylam to the priory in 1085. The priors of Tynemouth held lands in the village until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century.
The Blackett family have had a long association with the village. In 1659 Christopher Blackett acquired the Lordship of the Manor of Wylam on the death of his wife's father, Thomas Fenwick. Following Christopher's death, his second son, John Blackett, took over the estate and purchased additional land in the area, including two farms at Wylam bought in 1685. These farms formed a modest estate and residence for the Blackett family until the third quarter of the 20th century. The Lordship also included mineral rights within the township. This allowed the family to develop the colliery and further increase their prosperity.
An article in the Newcastle Courant of 17 January 1874 entitled "Our Colliery Villages" paints an unattractive image of the village – 'Wylam is the very worst colliery village that we have yet beheld ...'. The colliery has an important place in the history of the development of the locomotive. It is thought that the Wylam waggonway was opened in 1748 and was therefore one of the earliest waggonways in the North of England. The waggonway linked the colliery to the staiths at Lemington from where the coal was taken down the River Tyne on flat bottomed boats called keels to be loaded on the large coal ships further down the river.
Several famous engineers have had links with the village. George Stephenson was born at a small cottage at Wylam in June 1781. Timothy Hackworth's father was foreman blacksmith at the colliery and his son was born in the village in December 1786. Hackworth together with William Hedley and Jonathan Forster were involved in the development of the locomotive engine at the colliery. Perhaps the most famous of the engines to be developed was the Puffing Billy, which is now housed at The Science Museum in London, followed closely by Wylam Dilly which is on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The late 18th century was a period of prosperity for the village – the colliery was thriving and an ironworks, a leadshot manufactury and a brewery were all established in the village. In 1864 the ironworks closed. Four years later the colliery was closed. The brewery ceased to operate sometime in the 1870s. This decline in the industry led to a change in the character of the village. By the 20th century the village was almost entirely a residential settlement.
Wylam has approximately 800 households, with a population of 2,100.
Wylam, for Local Government purposes, comes under Northumberland County Council, a unitary authority.
It is in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham.
Wylam Winter Tales is a not-for-profit arts and culture festival held in the village every January/February. It features a week of varied events including music, storytelling, film, crafts and history at venues throughout the village. It is funded through small grants, donations and ticket sales and is run by volunteers.
Wylam is located on the north and south sides of the River Tyne, in Northumberland, England. The riverside walks and country trails surrounding the village are popular for cyclists, runners and walkers alike and the view of Wylam Bridge from Wylam Wood Road towards the southwest is especially dramatic.
To the east of Wylam railway station is the mouth of the small brook known as Stanley Burn, which originates in the southern Prudhoe area and also forms the regional border between Northumberland to the west and the borough of Gateshead (Tyne and Wear). The traditional boundary between Northumberland and County Durham follows the River Tyne from this point.
Wylam Railway Bridge (also known as Points Bridge and the Half Moon bridge) is located at Hagg Bank, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the town. It is a wrought iron bridge built by the Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway Company in 1876 to link the North Wylam Loop with the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway.
The original plan had been to build a bridge with four spans resting on three piers on the river bed. This was rejected by the local coal companies who feared that the construction of the piers on the river bed would disturb the shallow mine workings below, which already suffered from flooding.
The designers found the solution in designing a single-span bridge carrying a double track, without the need for piers. The bridge consists of three parallel wrought iron arches resting on abutments on each bank, with the twin rail decks suspended by 14 wrought iron drop bars. It cost £16,000 to build. The bridge paved the way for new developments in bridge building – Newcastle's Tyne Bridge in 1928 and Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, being direct descendants of the design and construction of Hagg's Bridge.
Many of the trains which used the bridge carried coal from the collieries at Newburn and Walbottle westwards to Carlisle.
The line was closed in 1968 and the bridge later purchased by Northumberland County Council. It was restored in 1997 with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund. All the old lead-based paint was removed, requiring the bridge to be wrapped in plastic to prevent polluting the river.
The war memorial, which is a cross about 8 metres (26 ft) in height, stands by the roadside just to the north of Wylam Bridge. The inscriptions and names on the war memorial have been transcribed and published by the North East War Memorials Project.
Unusually for a rural area, transport in Wylam is mainly Rail and cycle orientated.
Railway The village is served by Wylam railway station on the Tyne Valley Line. The line was opened in 1838, and links the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in Northumberland with Carlisle in Cumberland. The line follows the course of the River Tyne through Northumberland. Passenger services on the line are operated by Northern. The line is also heavily used for goods.
The railway station is on the south bank of the River Tyne. There used to be another railway station in Wylam on the north bank of the river, which was part of the Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway. The line has now closed and the tracks removed, with the North Wylam railway station area now being used as a car park.
Bus The bus service to and from Wylam is poor and many services have been discontinued over the years. There is an hourly service to Newcastle and Hexham provided by Go North East with the X84 service.
Cyclepath After the Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway line was closed the trackwork was removed and the trackbed later converted into a cyclepath. That cyclepath forms part of National Cycle Network Route 72 and starts at Tyne Riverside Country Park at Low Prudhoe. After Wylam it keeps to the north side of the River Tyne, linking Wylam with Newcastle and the coast at Tynemouth. There is another cyclepath on the south side of the river which starts in the car park at Wylam railway station and links Wylam to Gateshead and the coast at South Shields.
Wylam's parish church was built in 1886 and is dedicated to St. Oswin, a Northumbrian saint. Wylam St. Oswin's has a regular Sunday and weekday services. Pre-1886 the villagers of Wylam had to walk to nearby Ovingham to attend church, George and William Hedley, sons of Frances and William, the railway engineer, contributed most of the money needed to build the church so the Anglicans of Wylam could have their own place of worship. The church has six bells with regular Sunday ringing and a practice night on Mondays.
Wylam also has a Methodist chapel, located on Chapel Lane. The chapel was extended in the 1990s to extend the worship and meeting areas, and to also include a kitchen.
Churches in and around Wylam, notably Horsley and Crawcrook, of different denominations have a covenant to work together in the community, to share in youth work and some special services such as Harvest, Remembrance Day and some Christmas and Easter services.
Notable residents
Basil Bunting – poet
Antonia Byatt – novelist
Margaret Drabble – novelist
Archibald Matthias Dunn – Victorian architect
Greg Dyke – broadcaster
Timothy Hackworth – railway pioneer
William Hedley – railway pioneer
Helen McCallum - singer-songwriter, academic and writer
Charles Algernon Parsons – inventor of the steam turbine
George Stephenson – 'Father of the Railway'
Ken Traill – (1926–2002), rugby league player and coach, born in Wylam
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.
The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.
The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.
Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.
Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.
As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.
When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.
The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.
Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.
The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.
The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.
Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.
After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.
In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.
When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.
Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.
In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.
Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.
The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.
The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.
The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.
The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.
The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.
Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.
In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.
During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.
The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.
From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.
Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.
In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.
Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.
After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.
During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.
Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.
John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.
Stephenson's Rocket
Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons
This statue of Fame stands in Renishaw Hall gardens, the home of the Sitwell family. It was rescued by Osbert Sitwell in 1950 from the Poet's Fountain in London's Park Lane when it was removed to make way for a road widening scheme. The fountain was erected in 1875 and dedicated to the fathers of English Poetry; designed by Thomas Thorneycroft.
Fame comes from the Greek Pheme who was the voice or rumour that spreads reports among the people; much adored by mere mortals.
The house was built c1470, on 12th Century Knights Templar land. It started out as an historic pilgrim inn, and has had a remarkable royal and literary history. It is located near to the Castle in the downland village of Bramber, West Sussex. Visitors frequently comment on its picturesque charm, enjoying its tranquil atmosphere and friendly welcome. It also has a separate dedicated tearoom for light refreshments.
For over 40 years it has been the family home of Peter Thorogood and Roger Linton. Who saved the house in 1984, and set about extensive works to restore and enhance the estate. They were awarded MBE’s for their efforts by Queen Elizabeth II. Their mission and passion from the start has been to ensure St Mary’s can continue to remain open and accessible to the public.
Peter & Roger, at 97 & 85 respectively, are still working tirelessly to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy and learn about St Mary’s incredible history, with its important royal and literary connections. To do this they have brought together a dedicated group of friends and volunteers who share their passion. If you visit and meet them, please do take time to thank them for their valued contribution to helping keep the estate going, it would not be possible without them.
The main house includes fine panelled rooms include the unique Elizabethan trompe l’oeil Painted Room. A wonderful Victorian music room where they still hold concerts and events. There are intriguing literary connections with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the Sherlock Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual.
The five acres of beautiful gardens include an exceptional example of the prehistoric Ginkgo Biloba ‘living fossil’ tree, delightful animal topiary, and larger ‘Secret’ Gardens with their original Victorian fruit wall and pineapple pits. The gardens include a series of ‘garden rooms’: a beautiful Jubilee rose garden; a terracotta garden; King’s Garden; circular English Poetry Garden; and a Landscape Water Garden, with a lake and small island. There is also a Rural Museum, though this is currently closed.
Renishaw Hall
A Golden Moment!
A stroll down the lime avenue to see 'The Angel of Fame'.
This statue of Fame stands in Renishaw Hall gardens, the home of the Sitwell family. It was rescued by Osbert Sitwell in 1950 from the Poet's Fountain in London's Park Lane when it was removed to make way for a road widening scheme. The fountain was erected in 1875 and dedicated to the fathers of English Poetry; designed by Thomas Thorneycroft.
Fame comes from the Greek Pheme who was the voice or rumour that spreads reports among the people; much adored by mere mortals.
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A statue by Sir Hamo Thorneycroft. Gilded by Lady Sitwell in 2002.
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Renishaw Hall
Renishaw Hall is a country house in Renishaw in the parish of Eckington in Derbyshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building and has been the home of the Sitwell family for over 350 years. The hall is located south-east of Sheffield, and north of Renishaw village, which is north-east of Chesterfield.
History
The house was built in 1625 by George Sitwell (1601–67) who, in 1653, was High Sheriff of Derbyshire. The Sitwell fortune was made as colliery owners and ironmasters from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
Substantial alterations and the addition of the west and east ranges were made to the building for Sir Sitwell Sitwell by Joseph Badger of Sheffield between 1793 and 1808 and further alterations were made in 1908 by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Renishaw had two owners between 1862 (when Sir George Sitwell succeeded in his infancy) and 1965, when Sir Osbert Sitwell gave the house to his nephew, Sir Reresby Sitwell, 7th Baronet. He was the eldest son of Sir Sacheverell Sitwell brother of Edith and Osbert and owned the hall from 1965 until 2009 when he bequeathed it to his daughter, Alexandra Hayward. The house and estate are separated from the Renishaw baronetcy for the first time in the family's history. Sir George Sitwell lives at Weston Hall.
Architecture
The house was built in stages and has an irregular plan. It is constructed in ashlar and coursed rubble coal measures sandstone with crenellated parapets with pinnacles. It has pitched slate roofs.
Gardens
The gardens, including an Italianate garden laid out by Sir George Sitwell (1860–1943), are open to the public. The hall is open for groups by private arrangement. The park is listed in the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England as Grade II*.
The 1980 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice used footage shot at Renishaw Hall. D. H. Lawrence is said to have used the local village of Eckington and Renishaw Hall as inspiration for his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renishaw_Hall
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1054857
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000683
www.gardenvisit.com/gardens/renishaw_hall_garden
www.visitchesterfield.info/things-to-do/renishaw-hall-and...
www.kevinwgelder.com/renishaw-hall/
www.thegardeningwebsite.co.uk/renishaw-hall-and-gardens-c...
www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/GardenDetails/RENISHAW-HALL
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Renishaw Hall
Heritage Category: Park and Garden
Grade: II*
List Entry Number: 1000683
Location
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
County: Derbyshire
District: North East Derbyshire (District Authority)
Parish: Eckington
National Grid Reference: SK4345978378
Details
Gardens and a park of the late C19 and early C20 with C17 origins which were laid out by Sir George Sitwell.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
The Sitwell family appear in records of 1301 when they were resident at Ridgeway, c 2km from Renishaw. The family settled in Stavely Netherthorpe in the earlier C16 and the site at Renishaw was acquired by Robert Sytwell in the mid C16 when he bought fields and common land. By 1600 it had become the family seat. The family acquired wealth through their ironworks which by the end of the C17 were the largest producers of iron nails in the world. The estate passed through marriage to the Hurt family who changed their name to Sitwell in 1777. Sir George Sitwell (1860-1943), fourth baronet, was responsible for the layout of the formal gardens and wrote On the Making of Gardens in 1909. The estate has remained in the Sitwell family since that time and is in private ownership (1998).
DESCRIPTION
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING
Renishaw Hall lies to the west of the village of Renishaw from which it is divided by a railway line. The village of Eckington lies to the north-west, there are open fields to the north-east and west, and an opencast mine to the south. To the north and west the boundary is formed by Staveley Lane, the B6053, and to the east by the A616. Fencing divides the south side of the park from an opencast mine. The c 100ha site is on land which falls to the east.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
The main entrance is on the north-east side of the site where gates lead to a drive running south-west from the A616. Some 100m south-west of the entrance there is an early C19 lodge and entrance archway (listed grade II) which was designed by Sir Sitwell Sitwell and moved to this position in the mid C19. The drive turns north-west up a hill and continues westwards to the Hall and stables. An entrance with gates on the north side of the site runs south from the B6053. On the south-west side of the site there is an entrance from Staveley Lane from which a track leads north through Chesterfield Approach Plantation. The track continues north-east from the edge of the Plantation and from this point trees alongside it are the remains of an avenue shown on the large-scale OS map of 1875 which was probably part of a system of avenues shown on an C18 estate map.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING
Renishaw Hall (listed grade I) was built in c 1625 by George Sitwell as an H-plan house. The building was altered and extended 1793-1808 by Joseph Badger for Sitwell Sitwell, first baronet. Edwin Lutyens (1866-1944) was responsible for interior alterations in 1909. The Hall is in use as a private residence (1998).
Stables (listed grade II*) by Badger are ranged around a courtyard c 100m north-west of the Hall.
GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS
On the north side of the Hall there are lawns in an area shown on the C18 estate map as an enclosure. There are views north over parkland and agricultural land beyond. Formal gardens lie on the south side of the Hall axially aligned with its south front. They consist of rectangular compartments divided from one another by clipped hedges which are terraced down to the south in three stages, as well as occupying different levels as the land falls to the east. A terrace running along the front of the Hall overlooks a square lawn lined with topiary on the east and west sides which divides it from two smaller lawns called the First Candle on the west side and the Second Candle to the east. Each of these areas has a fountain, the appearance of which gave rise to the name. A bank divides the First Candle from an area of higher ground called Top Lawn where a lime avenue runs north/south along the length of the gardens. This is one of several avenues shown on the C18 estate map and probably represents one of the only surviving features of a layout instituted in c 1698 by George Sitwell which included walled orchards and yew hedges. To the west of the avenue, c 60m south-west of the Hall, there is a gothick temple (listed grade II) which was designed by Joseph Badger in the early C19 as an aviary and is now used as a pet cemetery (1998).
A second terraced walk lined with clipped hedges runs east/west across the garden, c 50m south of the Hall. At the east end the walk leads through a gateway into woodland called Broxhill Wood which is marked 'Little Old Orchard' on the C18 estate map. A classical temple of late C20 date lies c 120m south-east of the Hall in the woodland. The walk overlooks a central lawn with a circular swimming pool. In a compartment to the east called Lower Lawn there is a water garden which consists of a central sub-rectangular island with clipped hedges within a rectangular water-filled enclosure. On the west side of the swimming pool an enclosure with lawns is called the Buttress Garden for the buttressed wall which divides it from Top Lawn to the west. Clipped hedges divide these areas from a grass walk running along the top of a ha-ha, c 100m south of the Hall, which runs east/west across the bottom of the garden. This overlooks a central semicircular lawn divided from the park by railings. There are views to the south of the lakes and parkland.
The C18 map shows the Hall surrounded by gardens laid out in geometrical patterns with quartering paths, and the area south of these is marked 'Great Old Orchard'. The layout shown probably represents that instituted by George Sitwell in c 1698. The 1875 OS map shows that apart from a small area on the south-east side of the Hall, the formal gardens had been swept away, and a lawn, divided from the park by a ha-ha and flanked by the lime avenue, is shown on the south side of the Hall.
PARK
There is parkland on all sides of the Hall. To the north the land falls and the north-east part of the park is laid out as a golf course which was created in the early C20. Old Waterworks Plantation shelters part of the north-east boundary, and North Wood, which is to the west of the drive from Eckington, separates the golf course from parkland to the west. Some 350m west of the Hall is a set of walled paddocks, shown on the 1875 OS map, which probably originated as a stud farm and are now (1998) vineyards. Chesterfield Approach Plantation lies immediately south of the paddocks and in the area between this and the gardens there are the remains of at least one lime avenue, shown on the 1875 OS map, which survives from the formal layout shown on the C18 estate map and runs parallel to the avenue within the garden.
East and south of the Hall the land falls and in the valley there are two lakes. The northernmost is the smaller of the two, and the southern lake, which has an island near its south-east shore, is c 500m in length. Sir George Sitwell was MP for Scarborough and conceived of the scheme to construct the lakes as relief for the unemployed in his constituency and they were duly created by unemployed fishermen in the closing years of the C19. To the north of the lake is Renishaw Wood and Broxhill Wood, and along the east boundary Willowbed Plantation, designed to screen the railway and ironworks. The planting in this and possibly in other areas of the park was directed by William Milner who was employed by Sir George in 1890. The land rises up to the south and west from the lake with Halfmoon Plantation sheltering the south-east boundary. A patch of woodland on the sloping land c 800m south-west of the house is called Milner Plantation.
KITCHEN GARDEN
Some 200m south-west of the Hall are the remains of a kitchen garden. An orangery entered from the north side from a door with a pedimented doorcase is in ruinous condition (1998), as are the attached walls which have arched entrances. A tennis court lies south of the orangery. The 1875 OS map shows the garden with two compartments, the southern of which occupied the tennis court area. Another kitchen garden, also shown on the 1875 OS map, lies immediately west of the stable block. It is walled and has a number of free-standing glasshouses, some of which are probably of late C19 or early C20 date.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number: 1674
Legacy System: Parks and Gardens
Sources
Books and journals
Jellicoe, G, Jellicoe, S (at al), The Oxford Companion to Gardens, (1986), 519-20
Sitwell, R, The Garden at Renishaw Hall, (c1995)
Sitwell, R, Renishaw Hall, (c1995)
Other
Country Life (14 May 1948), pp 506-11
Country Life, 162 (1 September 1977), pp 522-5
Country Life, 83 (7 May 1948), pp 476-80
Estate Map, probably early C18 (private collection)
OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1875
OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1874-5
The Postcard
A Colourmaster postcard that was distributed by Dragon Publishing Ltd. of Llandeilo. The photography was by Roger Vlitos.
On the divided back of the card is printed:
'Dylan's Writing Shed,
Laugharne, Dyfed.
In this converted garage with
views over the Taf estuary and
Sir John's Hill, Dylan Thomas
wrote much of his finest poetry.
Along with his last home, The
Boat House, it is preserved in
memory of the poet.'
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas, who was born in Swansea on the 27th. October 1914, was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night' and 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion.'
Dylan's other work included 'Under Milk Wood' as well as stories and radio broadcasts such as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'.
He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a roistering, drunken and doomed poet.
In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later.
Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' caught the attention of the literary world.
While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara. They married in 1937, and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy and Colm.
Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found it hard to earn a living as a writer. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940's brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.
Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950's. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'.
During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on the 9th. November 1953, and his body was returned to Wales. On the 25th. November 1953, he was laid to rest in St Martin's churchyard in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.
Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. He is regarded by many as one of the great modern poets, and he still remains popular with the public.
Dylan Thomas - The Early Years
Dylan was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, the son of Florence Hannah (née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school.
Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home.
Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which means 'Son of the Sea', after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. Dylan's middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles.
Dylan caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the 'Dull One.' When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation, and gave instructions that it should be spoken as 'Dillan.'
The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.
Dylan's childhood featured regular summer trips to the Llansteffan Peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire, where his maternal relatives were the sixth generation to farm there.
In the land between Llangain and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem 'Fern Hill', but is portrayed more accurately in his short story, 'The Peaches'.
Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood, and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, and he was skilful in gaining attention and sympathy.
Thomas's formal education began at Mrs Hole's Dame School, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in Reminiscences of Childhood:
"Never was there such a dame school as ours,
so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with
the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons
drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom,
where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over
undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling
of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick
under the table during English literature".
In October 1925, Dylan Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading.
In his first year, one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. In June 1928, Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death.
During his final school years Dylan began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27th. April 1930, is entitled 'Osiris, Come to Isis'.
In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.
In his free time, Dylan joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles.
In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins.
1933–1939
In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.
Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published:
-- 'And Death Shall Have no Dominion'
-- 'Before I Knocked'
-- 'The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'.
'And Death Shall Have no Dominion' appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933:
'And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the
west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and
the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they
shall rise again
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion'.
When 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' appeared in The Listener in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London - T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas, and his first poetry volume, '18 Poems', was published in December 1934.
'18 Poems' was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that:
"The work is the sort of bomb
that bursts no more than once
in three years".
The volume was critically acclaimed, and won a contest run by the Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers, and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors, including Philip Larkin.
In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Dylan introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang".
In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt.
On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him.
In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem 'The Hand That Signed the Paper' to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse.
In 1936, Dylan's next collection 'Twenty-five Poems' received much critical praise. In 1938, Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.
In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–94), a 22-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish and French descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and at the age of 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium.
Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head on her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met.
Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with Augustus John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and by the second half of 1936 they were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall, on the 11th. July 1937.
In early 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on the 30th. January 1939.
By the late 1930's, Thomas was embraced as the "Poetic Herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. However Thomas refused to align himself with them, and declined to sign their manifesto.
He later stated that:
"They are intellectual muckpots
leaning on a theory".
Despite Dylan's rejection, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas's.
During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930's, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the communists, as well as being decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement, and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.
1939–1945
In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as 'The Map of Love'.
Ten stories in his next book, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in 'The Map of Love', and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.
Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.
Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire 'The Death of the King's Canary', though due to fears of libel, the work was not published until 1976.
At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "An Unreliable Lung".
Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.
Saddened to see his friends going on active service, Dylan continued drinking, and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.
In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a three night blitz. Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded:
"Our Swansea is dead".
Soon after the bombing raids, he wrote a radio play, 'Return Journey Home', which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on the 15th. June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.
In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry, and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After initially being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post. Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942.
In five film projects, between 1942 and 1945, the Ministry of Information (MOI) commissioned Thomas to script a series of documentaries about both urban planning and wartime patriotism, all in partnership with director John Eldridge:
-- 'Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain'.
-- 'New Towns for Old' (on post-war reconstruction).
-- 'Fuel for Battle'.
-- 'Our Country' (1945) was a romantic tour of Great Britain set to Thomas's poetry.
-- 'A City Reborn'.
Other projects included:
-- 'This Is Colour' (a history of the British dyeing industry).
-- 'These Are The Men' (1943), a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's verse accompanied Leni Riefenstahl's footage of an early Nuremberg Rally.
-- 'Conquest of a Germ' (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis.
In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.
In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.
The Thomas family made several escapes back to Wales during the war. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, Talsarn, in Cardiganshire. Plas Gelli sits close by the River Aeron, after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named. Some of Thomas’ letters from Gelli can be found in his 'Collected Letters'.
The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with the Thomases in nearby New Quay is portrayed in the 2008 film, 'The Edge of Love'.
In July 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs landing on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain, Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing 'Holy Spring' and 'Vision and Prayer'.
In September 1944, the Thomas family moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda, a wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay. It was here that Thomas wrote the radio piece 'Quite Early One Morning', a sketch for his later work, 'Under Milk Wood'.
Of the poetry written at this time, of note is 'Fern Hill', believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaencwm in mid-1945. Dylan's first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon wrote that:
"His nine months in New Quay were a second
flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the
earliest days, with a great outpouring of poems
and a good deal of other material".
His second biographer, Paul Ferris, concurred:
"On the grounds of output, the bungalow
deserves a plaque of its own."
The Dylan Thomas scholar, Walford Davies, has noted that:
"New Quay was crucial in supplementing
the gallery of characters Thomas had to
hand for writing 'Under Milk Wood'."
Dylan Thomas's Broadcasting Years 1945–1949
Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled 'Reminiscences of Childhood' for the Welsh BBC.
In December 1944, he recorded 'Quite Early One Morning' (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC), but when Davies offered it for national broadcast, BBC London initially turned it down.
However on the 31st. August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast 'Quite Early One Morning' nationally, and in the three subsequent years, Dylan made over a hundred broadcasts for the BBC, not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.
In the second half of 1945, Dylan began reading for the BBC Radio programme, 'Book of Verse', that was broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income, and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished.
On the 29th. September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided further opportunities for Thomas.
He appeared in the play 'Comus' for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's 'Agamemnon', and Satan in an adaptation of 'Paradise Lost'.
Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who stated:
"He is useful should a younger
generation poet be needed".
He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management, and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and well-known celebrity within Great Britain.
By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales, and were living with various friends in London. In December, they moved to Oxford to live in a summerhouse on the banks of the Cherwell. It belonged to the historian, A. J. P. Taylor. His wife, Margaret, became Thomas’s most committed patron.
The publication of 'Deaths and Entrances' in February 1946 was a major turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator:
"This book alone, in my opinion,
ranks him as a major poet".
From 'In my Craft or Sullen Art,' 'Deaths and Entrances' (1946):
'Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon, I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art'.
The following year, in April 1947, the Thomases travelled to Italy, after Thomas had been awarded a Society of Authors scholarship. They stayed first in villas near Rapallo and then Florence, before moving to a hotel in Rio Marina on the island of Elba.
On their return to England Thomas and his family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford, found for him by Margaret Taylor.
He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts, and worked further on his ideas for 'Under Milk Wood'.
In March 1949 Thomas travelled to Prague. He had been invited by the Czech government to attend the inauguration of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union. Jiřina Hauková, who had previously published translations of some of Thomas' poems, was his guide and interpreter.
In her memoir, Hauková recalls that at a party in Prague, Thomas narrated the first version of his radio play 'Under Milk Wood.' She describes how he outlined the plot about a town that was declared insane, and then portrayed the predicament of an eccentric organist and a baker with two wives.
A month later, in May 1949, Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor.
Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems. To see a photograph of the interior of Dylan's shed, please search for the tag 55DTW96
Just before moving into the Boat House, Thomas rented Pelican House opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents. They both lived there from 1949 until Dylan's father 'D.J.' died on the 16th. December 1952. His mother continued to live there until 1953.
Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on the 25th. July 1949.
In October 1949, the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow came to visit Thomas at the Boat House, who took him to his writing shed. Curnow recalls:
"Dylan fished out a draft to show me
of the unfinished 'Under Milk Wood'
that was then called 'The Town That
Was Mad'."
Dylan Thomas's American tours, 1950–1953
(a) The First American Tour
The American poet John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses.
The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium in the Poetry Centre in New York, took in a further 40 venues. During the tour, Thomas was invited to many parties and functions, and on several occasions became drunk - going out of his way to shock people - and was a difficult guest.
Dylan drank before some of his readings, although it is argued that he may have pretended to be more affected by the alcohol than he actually was.
The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicated a performer he could be, and how the tension would build before a performance:
"Would he arrive only to break
down on the stage?
Would some dismaying scene
take place at the faculty party?
Would he be offensive, violent,
obscene?"
Dylan's wife Caitlin said in her memoir:
"Nobody ever needed encouragement
less, and he was drowned in it."
On returning to Great Britain, Thomas began work on two further poems, 'In the White Giant's Thigh', which he read on the Third Programme in September 1950:
'Who once were a bloom of wayside
brides in the hawed house
And heard the lewd, wooed field
flow to the coming frost,
The scurrying, furred small friars
squeal in the dowse
Of day, in the thistle aisles, till the
white owl crossed.'
He also worked on the incomplete 'In Country Heaven'.
In October 1950, Thomas sent a draft of the first 39 pages of 'The Town That Was Mad' to the BBC. The task of seeing this work through to production was assigned to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon, who had been responsible for casting Thomas in 'Paradise Lost'.
However, despite Cleverdon's urgings, the script slipped from Thomas's priorities, and in early 1951 he took a trip to Iran to work on a film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The film was never made, with Thomas returning to Wales in February, though his time there allowed him to provide a few minutes of material for a BBC documentary, 'Persian Oil'.
Early in 1951 Thomas wrote two poems, which Thomas's principal biographer, Paul Ferris, describes as "unusually blunt." One was the ribald 'Lament', and the other was an ode, in the form of a villanelle, to his dying father 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night". (A villanelle is a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated).
Despite a range of wealthy patrons, including Margaret Taylor, Princess Marguerite Caetani and Marged Howard-Stepney, Thomas was still in financial difficulty, and he wrote several begging letters to notable literary figures, including the likes of T. S. Eliot.
Margaret Taylor was not keen on Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if he had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there. She bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat. Thomas described the flat as his "London House of Horror", and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.
(b) The Second American Tour
Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin - after she had discovered that he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems.
It was during this tour that the above photograph was taken.
The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements.
The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year. One of his works recorded during this time, 'A Child's Christmas in Wales', became his most popular prose work in America. The recording was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, which stated that:
"It is credited with launching the
audiobook industry in the United
States".
(c) The Third American Tour
In April 1953, Thomas returned alone for a third tour of America. He performed a "work in progress" version of 'Under Milk Wood', solo, for the first time at Harvard University on the 3rd. May 1953. A week later, the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York.
Dylan met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they put on their makeup.
During this penultimate tour, Thomas met the composer Igor Stravinsky. Igor had become an admirer of Dylan after having been introduced to his poetry by W. H. Auden. They had discussions about collaborating on a "musical theatrical work" for which Dylan would provide the libretto on the theme of:
"The rediscovery of love and
language in what might be left
after the world after the bomb."
The shock of Thomas's death later in the year moved Stravinsky to compose his 'In Memoriam Dylan Thomas' for tenor, string quartet and four trombones. The work's first performance in Los Angeles in 1954 was introduced with a tribute to Thomas from Aldous Huxley.
Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair.
During this time, Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, put his arm in plaster, and treated him for gout and gastritis.
After returning home, Thomas worked on 'Under Milk Wood' in Wales before sending the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on the 15th. October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America.
(d) The Fourth American Tour
Thomas flew to the States on the 19th. October 1953 for what would be his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record 'Under Milk Wood'. Richard Burton featured in its first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954, the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.
Thomas's last collection 'Collected Poems, 1934–1952', published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that:
"Thomas is the greatest living
poet in the English language".
There followed a series of distressing events for Dylan. His father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953, his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age, and Caitlin had an abortion.
Thomas left Laugharne on the 9th. October 1953 on the first leg of his trip to America. He called on his mother, Florence, to say goodbye:
"He always felt that he had to get
out from this country because of
his chest being so bad."
Thomas had suffered from chest problems for most of his life, though they began in earnest soon after he moved in May 1949 to the Boat House at Laugharne - the "Bronchial Heronry", as he called it. Within weeks of moving in, he visited a local doctor, who prescribed medicine for both his chest and throat.
Whilst waiting in London before his flight in October 1953, Thomas stayed with the comedian Harry Locke and worked on 'Under Milk Wood'. Locke noted that Thomas was having trouble with his chest, with terrible coughing fits that made him go purple in the face. He was also using an inhaler to help his breathing.
There were reports, too, that Thomas was also having blackouts. His visit to the BBC producer Philip Burton a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London, he had another in the company of his fellow poet Louis MacNeice.
Thomas arrived in New York on the 20th. October 1953 to undertake further performances of 'Under Milk Wood', organised by John Brinnin, his American agent and Director of the Poetry Centre. Brinnin did not travel to New York, but remained in Boston in order to write.
He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three-week romance early in the year. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance. He looked pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self:
"He was very ill when he got here."
After being taken by Reitell to check in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of 'Under Milk Wood'. They then went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.
(Bob Dylan, formerly Robert Zimmerman, used to perform at the White Horse; Dylan Thomas was his favourite poet, and it is highly likely that Bob adopted Dylan's first name as his surname).
The next day, Reitell invited Thomas to her apartment, but he declined. They went sightseeing, but Thomas felt unwell, and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of phenobarbitone to help him sleep, and spent the night at the hotel with him.
Two days later, on the 23rd. October 1953, at the third rehearsal, Thomas said he was too ill to take part, but he struggled on, shivering and burning with fever, before collapsing on the stage.
The next day, 24th. October, Reitell took Thomas to see her doctor, Milton Feltenstein, who administered cortisone injections. Thomas made it through the first performance that evening, but collapsed immediately afterwards.
Dylan told a friend who had come back-stage:
"This circus out there has taken
the life out of me for now."
Reitell later said:
"Feltenstein was rather a wild doctor
who thought injections would cure
anything".
At the next performance on the 25th. October, his fellow actors realised that Thomas was very ill:
"He was desperately ill…we didn’t think
that he would be able to do the last
performance because he was so ill…
Dylan literally couldn’t speak he was so
ill…still my greatest memory of it is that
he had no voice."
On the evening of the 27th. October, Thomas attended his 39th. birthday party, but felt unwell, and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day, he took part in 'Poetry and the Film', a recorded symposium at Cinema 16.
A turning point came on the 2nd. November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly, and exacerbated chest illnesses such as Thomas's. By the end of the month, over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog.
On the 3rd. November, Thomas spent most of the day in his room, entertaining various friends. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel, he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring:
"I've had eighteen straight
whiskies. I think that's the
record!"
However the barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have drunk more than half that amount.
Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on the 4th. November. When Todd telephoned the Chelsea that morning, Thomas said he was feeling ill, and postponed the engagement. Todd thought that Dylan sounded "terrible".
The poet, Harvey Breit, was another to phone that morning. He thought that Thomas sounded "bad". Thomas' voice, recalled Breit, was "low and hoarse". Harvey had wanted to say:
"You sound as though from the tomb".
However instead Harvey told Thomas that he sounded like Louis Armstrong.
Later, Thomas went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Dr. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the cortisone secretant ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of morphine sulphate, which affected Thomas' breathing.
Reitell became increasingly concerned, and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested that she get male assistance, so she called upon the artist Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11 pm. At midnight on the 5th. November, Thomas's breathing became more difficult, and his face turned blue.
Reitell phoned Feltenstein who arrived at the hotel at about 1 am, and called for an ambulance. It then took another hour for the ambulance to arrive at St. Vincent's, even though it was only a few blocks from the Chelsea.
Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1:58 am. He was comatose, and his medical notes stated that:
"The impression upon admission was acute
alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain
by alcohol, for which the patient was treated
without response".
Feltenstein then took control of Thomas's care, even though he did not have admitting rights at St. Vincent's. The hospital's senior brain specialist, Dr. C. G. Gutierrez-Mahoney, was not called to examine Thomas until the afternoon of the 6th. November, thirty-six hours after Thomas' admission.
Dylan's wife Caitlin flew to America the following day, and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were:
"Is the bloody man dead yet?"
Caitlin was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning, but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill John Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straitjacket and committed, by Feltenstein, to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island.
It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema before his admission to St Vincent's. In their 2004 paper, 'Death by Neglect', D. N. Thomas and Dr Simon Barton disclose that Thomas was found to have pneumonia when he was admitted to hospital in a coma.
Doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. Summarising their findings, they conclude:
"The medical notes indicate that, on admission,
Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very
extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung
fields, both left and right."
The forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, concurs:
"Death was clearly due to a severe lung infection
with extensive advanced bronchopneumonia.
The severity of the chest infection, with greyish
consolidated areas of well-established pneumonia,
suggests that it had started before admission to
hospital."
Thomas died at noon on the 9th. November 1953, having never recovered from his coma. He was 39 years of age when he died.
Aftermath of Dylan Thomas's Death
Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging, or even that Thomas had drunk himself to death. Later, speculation arose about drugs and diabetes.
At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death - pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite Dylan's heavy drinking, his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.
The publication of John Brinnin's 1955 biography 'Dylan Thomas in America' cemented Thomas's legacy as the "doomed poet". Brinnin focuses on Thomas's last few years, and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer.
Later biographies have criticised Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas's death. David Thomas in 'Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?' claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable.
FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas's demise.
Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days, and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death.
Many sources have criticised Feltenstein's role and actions, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr C. G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, the doctor who treated Thomas while at St. Vincent's, concluded that Feltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner was even more culpable than his use of morphine.
Caitlin Thomas's autobiographies, 'Caitlin Thomas - Leftover Life to Kill' (1957) and 'My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story' (1997), describe the effects of alcohol on the poet and on their relationship:
"Ours was not only a love story, it was
a drink story, because without alcohol
it would never had got on its rocking
feet. The bar was our altar."
Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the decline in Thomas's health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his extramarital affairs.
In contrast, Dylan biographers Andrew Sinclair and George Tremlett express the view that Thomas was not an alcoholic. Tremlett argues that many of Thomas's health issues stemmed from undiagnosed diabetes.
Thomas died intestate, with assets worth £100. His body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Dylan's funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on the 24th. November 1953.
Six friends from the village carried Thomas's coffin. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed, and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas's fellow poet and long-time friend Vernon Watkins wrote The Times obituary.
Thomas's widow, Caitlin, died in 1994, and was laid to rest alongside him. Dylan's mother Florence died in August 1958. Thomas's elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000, his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009, and his youngest son Colm in 2012.
Dylan Thomas's Poetry
Thomas's refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorise. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movements, he refused to follow such creeds. Instead, critics view Thomas as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful.
Elder Olson, in his 1954 critical study of Thomas's poetry, wrote:
"There is a further characteristic which
distinguished Thomas's work from that
of other poets. It was unclassifiable."
Olson went on to say that in a postmodern age that continually attempted to demand that poetry have social reference, none could be found in Thomas's work, and that his work was so obscure that critics could not analyse it.
Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night'.
His images appear carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death, and new life that linked the generations.
Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite.
Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud. Explaining the source of his imagery, Thomas wrote in a letter to Glyn Jones:
"My own obscurity is quite an unfashionable one,
based, as it is, on a preconceived symbolism
derived (I'm afraid all this sounds woolly and
pretentious) from the cosmic significance of the
human anatomy".
Thomas's early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and some critics detected the influence of the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins, had taught himself Welsh, and used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work.
However when Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. Thomas greatly admired Thomas Hardy, who is regarded as an influence. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited some of Hardy's work in his readings.
Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence.
William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, 'A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas', finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas.
Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by the poet Roy Campbell.
Critics have explored the origins of Thomas's mythological pasts in his works such as 'The Orchards', which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion.
Thomas's poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in 'Fern Hill', 'In Country Sleep', 'Ballad of the Long-legged Bait' and 'In the White Giant's Thigh' from Under Milk Wood.
Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:
"I should say I wanted to write poetry in the
beginning because I had fallen in love with
words.
The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes,
and before I could read them for myself I had
come to love the words of them. The words
alone.
What the words stood for was of a very
secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is
the only expression I can think of, at once,
and am still at the mercy of words, though
sometimes now, knowing a little of their
behaviour very well, I think I can influence
them slightly and have even learned to beat
them now and then, which they appear to
enjoy.
I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began
to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later,
to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I
had discovered the most important things, to
me, that could be ever."
Thomas became an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940) and 'Quite Early One Morning' (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. His first published prose work, 'After the Fair', appeared in The New English Weekly on the 15th. March 1934.
Jacob Korg believes that one can classify Thomas's fiction work into two main bodies:
-- Vigorous fantasies in a poetic style
-- After 1939, more straightforward
narratives.
Korg surmises that Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.
Dylan Thomas as a Welsh Poet
Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his Collected Poems, he added:
"Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by
Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh."
Despite this, his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that:
"Dylan's inspiration and imagination
were rooted in his Welsh background".
Caitlin Thomas wrote that:
"He worked in a fanatically narrow groove,
although there was nothing narrow about
the depth and understanding of his feelings.
The groove of direct hereditary descent in
the land of his birth, which he never in
thought, and hardly in body, moved out of."
Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas's early radio talks, believed that the poet's whole attitude is that of the medieval bards.
Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a difficult enterprise to find traces of cynghanedd (consonant harmony) or cerdd dafod (tongue-craft) in Thomas's poetry. Instead he believes that Dylan's work, especially his earlier, more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation:
"Rural and urban, chapel-going and profane,
Welsh and English, unforgiving and deeply
compassionate."
Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of cynghanedd in Thomas's work were accidental, although he felt that Dylan consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics: that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine Fitzgibbon, who was his first in-depth biographer, wrote:
"No major English poet has
ever been as Welsh as Dylan".
Although Dylan had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote:
"Land of my fathers, and
my fathers can keep it".
While often attributed to Thomas himself, this line actually comes from the character Owen Morgan-Vaughan, in the screenplay Thomas wrote for the 1948 British melodrama 'The Three Weird Sisters'.
Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled:
"I only once heard Dylan express an
opinion on Welsh Nationalism.
He used three words. Two of them
were Welsh Nationalism."
Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas's friendship cooled in the later years because he had not rejected enough of the elements that Thomas disliked, i.e. "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality".
Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of the literary magazine 'Wales', Thomas's father wrote:
"I'm afraid Dylan isn't much
of a Welshman".
FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas's negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.
Critical Appraisal of Dylan Thomas's Work
Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York.
When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet, he opened by addressing the assembly:
"Dylan Thomas is now as much
a case history as a chapter in the
history of poetry".
He queried how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication 'Llareggub Revisited':
"The strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's
notoriety - not that he is bogus, but that
attitudes to poetry attached themselves
to him which not only threaten the prestige,
effectiveness and accessibility to English
poetry, but also destroyed his true voice
and, at last, him."
The Poetry Archive notes that:
"Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him
of being drunk on language as well as
whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that
the sound of language is central to his
style, he was also a disciplined writer
who re-drafted obsessively".
Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow, and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. However those who have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947:
"Nothing could be more wrongheaded
than the English disputes about Dylan
Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling
obscure writer who can be enjoyed
without understanding."
Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading 'Eighteen Poems':
"The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated
schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow
with one small book as Swinburne had with
Poems and Ballads."
Philip Larkin, in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that:
"No one can stick words into us
like pins... like Thomas can".
However he followed that by stating that:
"Dylan doesn't use his words
to any advantage".
Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in Dylan's work, and claiming that:
"He is frothing at the mouth
with piss."
In 1956, the publication of the anthology 'New Lines' featuring works by the British collective The Movement, which included Amis and Larkin amongst its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940's. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated:
"Dylan Thomas was made to stand for
everything they detest, verbal obscurity,
metaphysical pretentiousness, and
romantic rhapsodizing".
Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public.
In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th.
Several of Dylan's poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers.
The long-running BBC Radio programme, 'Desert Island Discs', in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.
John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common. He also cites that despite a brief period during the 1960's when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place.
Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970's and has become: "... an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism", his work failing to fit standard narratives, and thus being ignored rather than studied.
Memorials to Dylan Thomas
In Swansea's maritime quarter is the Dylan Thomas Theatre, the home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member. The former Guildhall built in 1825 is now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and which is a setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas by John Doubleday.
Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of Dylan's favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park, cut by and inscribed by the late sculptor Ronald Cour with the closing lines from Fern Hill:
'Oh as I was young and easy
in the mercy of his means
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like
the sea'.
Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is now a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas's writing shed is also preserved.
In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005, the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival.
In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The plaque is also inscribed with the last two lines of 'Fern Hill'.
In 2014, the Royal Patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival was Charles, Prince of Wales, who made a recording of 'Fern Hill' for the event.
In 2014, to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth, the British Council Wales undertook a year-long programme of cultural and educational works. Highlights included a touring replica of Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on 'Under Milk Wood', and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Thomas's work.
Towamensing Trails, Pennsylvania named one of its streets, Thomas Lane, in Dylan's honour.
List of Works by Dylan Thomas
-- 'The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The New Centenary Edition', edited and with Introduction by John Goodby. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014.
-- 'The Notebook Poems 1930–34', edited by Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1989.
-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Film Scripts', edited by John Ackerman. London: Dent 1995.
-- 'Dylan Thomas: Early Prose Writings', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent 1971.
-- 'Collected Stories', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent, 1983.
-- 'Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices', edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1995.
-- 'On The Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts', edited by Ralph Maud. New York: New Directions, 1991.
Correspondence
-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters', edited by Paul Ferris (2017), 2 vols. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Vol I: 1931–1939
Vol II: 1939–1953.
-- 'Letters to Vernon Watkins', edited by Vernon Watkins (1957). London: Dent.
Posthumous Film Adaptations
-- 2016: Dominion, written and directed by Steven Bernstein, examines the final hours of Dylan Thomas.
-- 2014: Set Fire to the Stars, with Thomas portrayed by Celyn Jones, and John Brinnin by Elijah Wood.
-- 2014: Under Milk Wood BBC, starring Charlotte Church, Tom Jones, Griff Rhys-Jones and Michael Sheen.
-- 2014: Interstellar. The poem is featured throughout the film as a recurring theme regarding the perseverance of humanity.
-- 2009: A Child's Christmas in Wales, BAFTA Best Short Film. Animation, with soundtrack in Welsh and English. Director: Dave Unwin. Extras include filmed comments from Aeronwy Thomas.
-- 2007: Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology (DDHE/IWM).
-- 1996: Independence Day. Before the attack, the President paraphrases Thomas's "Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night".
-- 1992: Rebecca's Daughters, starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson.
-- 1987: A Child's Christmas in Wales, directed by Don McBrearty.
-- 1972: Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole.
Opera Adaptation
-- 1973: Unter dem Milchwald, by German composer Walter Steffens on his own libretto using Erich Fried's translation of 'Under Milk Wood' into German, Hamburg State Opera. Also at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1977.
Final Thoughts From Dylan Thomas
"Somebody's boring me.
I think it's me."
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
"When one burns one's bridges,
what a very nice fire it makes."
"I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble; It is so sad and
beautiful, so tremulously like a dream."
"An alcoholic is someone you don't like,
who drinks as much as you do."
"I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me,
and my enquiry is as to their working, and my
problem is their subjugation and victory, down
throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-
expression."
"The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea
with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy.
Let me shipwreck in your thighs."
"Why do men think you can pick love up
and re-light it like a candle? Women know
when love is over."
"Poetry is not the most important thing in life.
I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading
Agatha Christie and sucking sweets."
"And now, gentlemen, like your manners,
I must leave you."
"My education was the liberty I had to read
indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes
hanging out."
"I'm a freak user of words, not a poet."
"Our discreditable secret is that we don't
know anything at all, and our horrid inner
secret is that we don't care that we don't."
"It snowed last year too: I made a snowman
and my brother knocked it down and I knocked
my brother down and then we had tea."
"Though lovers be lost love shall not."
"Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.
Then, when his soul is naked, is he one
with the man in the wind, and the west moon,
with the harmonious thunder of the sun."
"And books which told me everything
about the wasp, except why."
"We are not wholly bad or good, who live
our lives under Milk Wood."
"Love is the last light spoken."
"... an ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ...
by the side of a long and splendid curving
shore. This sea-town was my world."
"I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies.
They are better company, and their feelings
towards you are always genuine."
"This poem has been called obscure. I refuse
to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence,
or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime,
it is more compressed."
"One: I am a Welshman; two: I am a drunkard;
three: I am a lover of the human race, especially
of women."
"I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they've ever
questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn't
know, because I won't ever dare ask that question."
"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and
confusions, are written for the love of man and in
praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."
"Before you let the sun in, mind he wipes his shoes."
"Nothing grows in our garden, only washing.
And babies."
"Make gentle the life of this world."
"A worm tells summer better than the clock,
the slug's a living calendar of days; what shall
it tell me if a timeless insect says the world
wears away?"
"Time passes. Listen. Time passes. Come
closer now. Only you can hear the houses
sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt
and silent black, bandaged night."
"Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.
She did not hear him, but stood over his bed
and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold
my hand, he said, and then: Why are you
putting the sheet over my face?"
"Come on up, boys - I'm dead."
"Life is a terrible thing, thank God."
German autograph card by Kino.
American actor Steve Martin (1945) is also known as a comedian, writer, and musician. Martin came to public notice in the 1960s as a writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and later as a frequent guest on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. Martin performed his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before packed houses on national tours. His collaboration with writer-director-actor Carl Reiner on the hit comedies The Jerk (1979), Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and All of Me (1984) established Martin as a film star of the first rank. Since the 1980s, Martin also became an author, playwright, pianist, and banjo player.
Stephen Glenn Martin was born in 1945 in Waco, Texas. He is the son of Mary Lee née Stewart and Glenn Vernon Martin, a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. Martin was raised in Inglewood, California, with sister Melinda Martin, and then later in Garden Grove, California, in a Baptist family. Martin attended State College in Long Beach, California. His first job was at Disneyland, selling guidebooks on weekends and during his school's summer break. During his free time, he frequented the Main Street Magic shop, where tricks were demonstrated to patrons. While working at Disneyland, he was captured in the background of the home movie that was made into the short-subject film Disneyland Dream, incidentally becoming his first film appearance. By 1960, he had mastered several magic tricks and illusions and took a paying job at the Magic shop in Fantasylan. There he perfected his talents for magic, juggling, and creating balloon animals in the manner of mentor Wally Boag. After high school, Martin attended Santa Ana College, taking classes in drama and English poetry. In his free time, he participated in comedies and other productions at the Bird Cage Theatre. Then he applied to the California State University, Long Beach, for enrollment with a major in philosophy. In 1967, Martin transferred to UCLA and switched his major to theatre. While attending college, he appeared in an episode of The Dating Game. Martin began working local clubs at night, to mixed notices, and at twenty-one, he dropped out of college.
In 1967, Steve Martin landed a writing job on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Along with the other writers for the show, Martin won an Emmy Award in 1969, aged 23. He also wrote for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969), and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971). Martin's first TV appearance was on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1968. Martin opened for groups such as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Carpenters, and Toto, and appeared at venues like San Francisco's The Boarding House. He continued to write, earning an Emmy nomination for his work on Van Dyke and Company in 1976. In the mid-1970s, Martin made frequent appearances as a stand-up comedian on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Gong Show, The Muppet Show, and Saturday Night Live (SNL). SNL's audience jumped by a million viewers when he made guest appearances, and he was one of the show's most successful hosts. His exclamations “Well, excuuuuse me!” and “I am a wild and crazy guy!” became national catchphrases. His TV appearances led to the release of the comedy albums his 'Let’s Get Small' (1977) and 'A Wild and Crazy Guy' (1978) comedy albums earned Grammy Awards, and his hit single 'King Tut' (1978) sold more than a million copies. 'A Wild and Crazy Guy' (1978) featured a character based on a series of Saturday Night Live sketches where Martin and Dan Aykroyd played the Festrunk Brothers; Yortuk and Georgi were bumbling Czechoslovak would-be playboys. On his comedy albums, Martin's stand-up is self-referential and sometimes self-mocking. It mixes philosophical riffs with sudden spurts of "happy feet", banjo playing with balloon depictions of concepts like venereal disease. With this kind of outstanding success, Martin's show soon required full sized stadiums for the audiences he was drawing. Concerned about his visibility in venues on such a scale, Martin began to wear a distinctive three piece white suit that became a trademark for his act. Martin stopped doing stand-up comedy in 1981 to concentrate on films.
By the end of the 1970s, Steve Martin had acquired the kind of following normally reserved for rock stars, but stand-up comedy was "just an accident" for him; his real goal was to get into film. Martin had a small role in the film Another Nice Mess (Bob Einstein, 1972). His first substantial film appearance was in a short titled The Absent-Minded Waiter (Carl Gottlieb, 1977). The seven-minute-long film, also featuring Buck Henry and Teri Garr, was written by and starred Martin. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Short Film. He made his first substantial feature film appearance in the musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Michael Schultz, 1978), where he sang The Beatles' 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. Then, Martin starred in the comedy film The Jerk (Carl Reiner, 1979) and written by Martin, Michael Elias, and Carl Gottlieb. He played a simple minded, sheltered country boy who suddenly decides to leave his family home to experience life in the big city. The film was a huge success, grossing over $100 million on a budget of approximately $4 million. It emboldened Martin to try his hand at his first serious film, Pennies from Heaven (Herbert Ross, 1981), based on the 1978 BBC serial by Dennis Potter. The film was a financial failure. Martin was in three more Reiner-directed comedies after The Jerk: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983) and All of Me (1984) with Lily Tomlin, his most critically acclaimed performance up to that point. In 1986, Martin joined fellow Saturday Night Live veterans Martin Short and Chevy Chase in ¡Three Amigos! (John Landis, 1986). He was also in the musical film version of Little Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz, 1986), playing the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello. The film was the first of three films teaming Martin with Rick Moranis. In 1987, Martin joined comedian John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (John Hughes, 1987). That same year, Roxanne (Fred Schepisi, 1988) with Darryl Hannah, the film adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac which Martin co-wrote, won him a Writers Guild of America Award. It also garnered recognition from Hollywood and the public that he was more than a comedian. His next film film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Frank Oz, 1988) was a remake of Bedtime Story, alongside Michael Caine. Also in 1988, he appeared at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in a revival of Waiting for Godot directed by Mike Nichols. He played Vladimir, with Robin Williams as Estragon and Bill Irwin as Lucky.
Steve Martin gave a tremendous performance in the wonderful comedy Parenthood (Ron Howard, 1989), with Mary Steenburgen and Rick Moranis . He later re-teamed with Moranis in the Mafia comedy My Blue Heaven (Herbert Ross, 1990). The next yearMartin starred in and wrote L.A. Story (Mick Jackson, 1991), a romantic comedy, in which the female lead was played by his then-wife Victoria Tennant. Martin also appeared in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon (1991), in which he played the tightly wound Hollywood film producer, Davis, who was recovering from a traumatic robbery that left him injured, which was a more serious role for him. Martin also starred in a remake of the comedy Father of the Bride (Charles Shyer, 1991) with Diane Keaton and Martin Short. It was followed by the sequel Father of the Bride Part II (Charles Shyer, 1995). With Goldie Hawn, he co-starred in the comedy Housesitter (Frank Oz, 1992), and a remake of the 1970 Neil Simon comedy, The Out-of-Towners (Sam Weisman, 1999). In the thriller The Spanish Prisoner, (David Mamet, 1997), Martin played a darker role as a wealthy stranger who takes a suspicious interest in the work of a young businessman (Campbell Scott). He went on to star with Eddie Murphy in the comedy Bowfinger (Frank Oz, 1999), which Martin also wrote. In 1998, Martin guest starred with U2 in the 200th episode of The Simpsons, 'Trash of the Titans', providing the voice for sanitation commissioner Ray Patterson. By 2003, Martin ranked fourth on the box office stars list, after starring in Bringing Down The House (Adam Shankman, 2003) with Queen Latifah, and Cheaper by the Dozen (Shawn Levy, 2003), each of which earned over $130 million at U.S. theaters. That same year, he also played the villainous Mr. Chairman in the animation/live action blend, Looney Tunes: Back in Action. In 2006, he starred in the box office hit The Pink Panther (Shawn Levy, 2006), as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. He reprised the role in The Pink Panther 2 (Harald Zwart, 2009). When combined, the two films grossed over $230 million at the box office. In It's Complicated (Nancy Meyers, 2009), he played opposite Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. After a three-year hiatus, Martin returned in 2015 when he voiced a role in the animated film Home (Rim Johnson, 2015). He played a supporting role in the war drama Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Ang Lee, 2016).
Steve Martin played banjo since an early age, and included music in his comedy routines from the beginning of his professional career. Since the 2000s, he has increasingly dedicated his career to music acting less and spending much of his professional life playing banjo, recording, and touring with various bluegrass acts, including Earl Scruggs, with whom he won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2002. He released his first solo music album, The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo, in 2009, for which he won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. Martin continued in that stylistic vein with Rare Bird Alert (2011), on which he performed with the bluegrass band the Steep Canyon Rangers, and Love Has Come for You (2013), a Grammy-winning collaboration with singer-songwriter Edie Brickell. The latter album inspired the musical Bright Star, which premiered in 2014 and made its Broadway debut two years later. The duo cowrote the score, and Martin penned the book for the sentimental play about two connected love stories in North Carolina during the 1920s and ’40s. It received five Tony Award nominations, including best musical, score, and book. He reteamed with the Steep Canyon Rangers on The Long-Awaited Album (2017). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Steve Martin was in a relationship with actress Bernadette Peters, with whom he co-starred in The Jerk and Pennies from Heaven. Martin married actress Victoria Tennant in, 1986; they divorced in 1994. In, 2007, after three years together, Martin married Anne Stringfield, a writer and former staffer for The New Yorker. In 2012, Martin became a father for the first time when Stringfield gave birth to a daughter.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Renishaw Hall
A Golden Moment!
A stroll down the lime avenue to see 'The Angel of Fame'.
This statue of Fame stands in Renishaw Hall gardens, the home of the Sitwell family. It was rescued by Osbert Sitwell in 1950 from the Poet's Fountain in London's Park Lane when it was removed to make way for a road widening scheme. The fountain was erected in 1875 and dedicated to the fathers of English Poetry; designed by Thomas Thorneycroft.
Fame comes from the Greek Pheme who was the voice or rumour that spreads reports among the people; much adored by mere mortals.
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A statue by Sir Hamo Thorneycroft. Gilded by Lady Sitwell in 2002.
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Renishaw Hall
Renishaw Hall is a country house in Renishaw in the parish of Eckington in Derbyshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building and has been the home of the Sitwell family for over 350 years. The hall is located south-east of Sheffield, and north of Renishaw village, which is north-east of Chesterfield.
History
The house was built in 1625 by George Sitwell (1601–67) who, in 1653, was High Sheriff of Derbyshire. The Sitwell fortune was made as colliery owners and ironmasters from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
Substantial alterations and the addition of the west and east ranges were made to the building for Sir Sitwell Sitwell by Joseph Badger of Sheffield between 1793 and 1808 and further alterations were made in 1908 by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Renishaw had two owners between 1862 (when Sir George Sitwell succeeded in his infancy) and 1965, when Sir Osbert Sitwell gave the house to his nephew, Sir Reresby Sitwell, 7th Baronet. He was the eldest son of Sir Sacheverell Sitwell brother of Edith and Osbert and owned the hall from 1965 until 2009 when he bequeathed it to his daughter, Alexandra Hayward. The house and estate are separated from the Renishaw baronetcy for the first time in the family's history. Sir George Sitwell lives at Weston Hall.
Architecture
The house was built in stages and has an irregular plan. It is constructed in ashlar and coursed rubble coal measures sandstone with crenellated parapets with pinnacles. It has pitched slate roofs.
Gardens
The gardens, including an Italianate garden laid out by Sir George Sitwell (1860–1943), are open to the public. The hall is open for groups by private arrangement. The park is listed in the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England as Grade II*.
The 1980 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice used footage shot at Renishaw Hall. D. H. Lawrence is said to have used the local village of Eckington and Renishaw Hall as inspiration for his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renishaw_Hall
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1054857
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000683
www.gardenvisit.com/gardens/renishaw_hall_garden
www.visitchesterfield.info/things-to-do/renishaw-hall-and...
www.kevinwgelder.com/renishaw-hall/
www.thegardeningwebsite.co.uk/renishaw-hall-and-gardens-c...
www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/GardenDetails/RENISHAW-HALL
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Renishaw Hall
Heritage Category: Park and Garden
Grade: II*
List Entry Number: 1000683
Location
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
County: Derbyshire
District: North East Derbyshire (District Authority)
Parish: Eckington
National Grid Reference: SK4345978378
Details
Gardens and a park of the late C19 and early C20 with C17 origins which were laid out by Sir George Sitwell.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
The Sitwell family appear in records of 1301 when they were resident at Ridgeway, c 2km from Renishaw. The family settled in Stavely Netherthorpe in the earlier C16 and the site at Renishaw was acquired by Robert Sytwell in the mid C16 when he bought fields and common land. By 1600 it had become the family seat. The family acquired wealth through their ironworks which by the end of the C17 were the largest producers of iron nails in the world. The estate passed through marriage to the Hurt family who changed their name to Sitwell in 1777. Sir George Sitwell (1860-1943), fourth baronet, was responsible for the layout of the formal gardens and wrote On the Making of Gardens in 1909. The estate has remained in the Sitwell family since that time and is in private ownership (1998).
DESCRIPTION
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING
Renishaw Hall lies to the west of the village of Renishaw from which it is divided by a railway line. The village of Eckington lies to the north-west, there are open fields to the north-east and west, and an opencast mine to the south. To the north and west the boundary is formed by Staveley Lane, the B6053, and to the east by the A616. Fencing divides the south side of the park from an opencast mine. The c 100ha site is on land which falls to the east.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
The main entrance is on the north-east side of the site where gates lead to a drive running south-west from the A616. Some 100m south-west of the entrance there is an early C19 lodge and entrance archway (listed grade II) which was designed by Sir Sitwell Sitwell and moved to this position in the mid C19. The drive turns north-west up a hill and continues westwards to the Hall and stables. An entrance with gates on the north side of the site runs south from the B6053. On the south-west side of the site there is an entrance from Staveley Lane from which a track leads north through Chesterfield Approach Plantation. The track continues north-east from the edge of the Plantation and from this point trees alongside it are the remains of an avenue shown on the large-scale OS map of 1875 which was probably part of a system of avenues shown on an C18 estate map.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING
Renishaw Hall (listed grade I) was built in c 1625 by George Sitwell as an H-plan house. The building was altered and extended 1793-1808 by Joseph Badger for Sitwell Sitwell, first baronet. Edwin Lutyens (1866-1944) was responsible for interior alterations in 1909. The Hall is in use as a private residence (1998).
Stables (listed grade II*) by Badger are ranged around a courtyard c 100m north-west of the Hall.
GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS
On the north side of the Hall there are lawns in an area shown on the C18 estate map as an enclosure. There are views north over parkland and agricultural land beyond. Formal gardens lie on the south side of the Hall axially aligned with its south front. They consist of rectangular compartments divided from one another by clipped hedges which are terraced down to the south in three stages, as well as occupying different levels as the land falls to the east. A terrace running along the front of the Hall overlooks a square lawn lined with topiary on the east and west sides which divides it from two smaller lawns called the First Candle on the west side and the Second Candle to the east. Each of these areas has a fountain, the appearance of which gave rise to the name. A bank divides the First Candle from an area of higher ground called Top Lawn where a lime avenue runs north/south along the length of the gardens. This is one of several avenues shown on the C18 estate map and probably represents one of the only surviving features of a layout instituted in c 1698 by George Sitwell which included walled orchards and yew hedges. To the west of the avenue, c 60m south-west of the Hall, there is a gothick temple (listed grade II) which was designed by Joseph Badger in the early C19 as an aviary and is now used as a pet cemetery (1998).
A second terraced walk lined with clipped hedges runs east/west across the garden, c 50m south of the Hall. At the east end the walk leads through a gateway into woodland called Broxhill Wood which is marked 'Little Old Orchard' on the C18 estate map. A classical temple of late C20 date lies c 120m south-east of the Hall in the woodland. The walk overlooks a central lawn with a circular swimming pool. In a compartment to the east called Lower Lawn there is a water garden which consists of a central sub-rectangular island with clipped hedges within a rectangular water-filled enclosure. On the west side of the swimming pool an enclosure with lawns is called the Buttress Garden for the buttressed wall which divides it from Top Lawn to the west. Clipped hedges divide these areas from a grass walk running along the top of a ha-ha, c 100m south of the Hall, which runs east/west across the bottom of the garden. This overlooks a central semicircular lawn divided from the park by railings. There are views to the south of the lakes and parkland.
The C18 map shows the Hall surrounded by gardens laid out in geometrical patterns with quartering paths, and the area south of these is marked 'Great Old Orchard'. The layout shown probably represents that instituted by George Sitwell in c 1698. The 1875 OS map shows that apart from a small area on the south-east side of the Hall, the formal gardens had been swept away, and a lawn, divided from the park by a ha-ha and flanked by the lime avenue, is shown on the south side of the Hall.
PARK
There is parkland on all sides of the Hall. To the north the land falls and the north-east part of the park is laid out as a golf course which was created in the early C20. Old Waterworks Plantation shelters part of the north-east boundary, and North Wood, which is to the west of the drive from Eckington, separates the golf course from parkland to the west. Some 350m west of the Hall is a set of walled paddocks, shown on the 1875 OS map, which probably originated as a stud farm and are now (1998) vineyards. Chesterfield Approach Plantation lies immediately south of the paddocks and in the area between this and the gardens there are the remains of at least one lime avenue, shown on the 1875 OS map, which survives from the formal layout shown on the C18 estate map and runs parallel to the avenue within the garden.
East and south of the Hall the land falls and in the valley there are two lakes. The northernmost is the smaller of the two, and the southern lake, which has an island near its south-east shore, is c 500m in length. Sir George Sitwell was MP for Scarborough and conceived of the scheme to construct the lakes as relief for the unemployed in his constituency and they were duly created by unemployed fishermen in the closing years of the C19. To the north of the lake is Renishaw Wood and Broxhill Wood, and along the east boundary Willowbed Plantation, designed to screen the railway and ironworks. The planting in this and possibly in other areas of the park was directed by William Milner who was employed by Sir George in 1890. The land rises up to the south and west from the lake with Halfmoon Plantation sheltering the south-east boundary. A patch of woodland on the sloping land c 800m south-west of the house is called Milner Plantation.
KITCHEN GARDEN
Some 200m south-west of the Hall are the remains of a kitchen garden. An orangery entered from the north side from a door with a pedimented doorcase is in ruinous condition (1998), as are the attached walls which have arched entrances. A tennis court lies south of the orangery. The 1875 OS map shows the garden with two compartments, the southern of which occupied the tennis court area. Another kitchen garden, also shown on the 1875 OS map, lies immediately west of the stable block. It is walled and has a number of free-standing glasshouses, some of which are probably of late C19 or early C20 date.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number: 1674
Legacy System: Parks and Gardens
Sources
Books and journals
Jellicoe, G, Jellicoe, S (at al), The Oxford Companion to Gardens, (1986), 519-20
Sitwell, R, The Garden at Renishaw Hall, (c1995)
Sitwell, R, Renishaw Hall, (c1995)
Other
Country Life (14 May 1948), pp 506-11
Country Life, 162 (1 September 1977), pp 522-5
Country Life, 83 (7 May 1948), pp 476-80
Estate Map, probably early C18 (private collection)
OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1875
OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1874-5
Bolam Lake Country Park is a country park in Northumberland, England, near the village of Bolam and about 9 miles (14 km) west of Morpeth. It is signposted off the A696 road from Belsay.
History
The lake and woodlands were laid out by John Dobson for Reverend John Beresford, Baron Decies, the owner of the Bolam estate, who wanted to provide work for local people during a period of economic decline. The project, started in 1816, took three years to complete. The site was landscaped, and designed to provide picturesque views of nearby features in the countryside. The lake was created from a swampy area known as Bolam Bog.
By 1945 the grounds had grown wild; in 1972 the estate was purchased by Northumberland County Council in order to create a country park. In 2016 the lake and landscaped surroundings celebrated their 200th anniversary.
Description
The park, area 26.48 hectares (65.4 acres); has a lake, woodlands and open grassland. There are walks throughout the park, including a fully accessible path around the lake.
Wildlife in the park includes roe deer and red squirrels; there are swans and other waterfowl on the lake. Woodland birds to be seen include great spotted woodpecker, bullfinch, nuthatch and treecreeper.
There is a visitor centre and café next to the Boathouse Wood Car Park, to the north of the lake.
Bolam is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Belsay in the county of Northumberland, England. The village is about 20 miles (32 km) north-west of Newcastle upon Tyne, near Bolam West Houses. In 1951 the civil parish had a population of 60. On 1 April 1955 the parish was abolished and merged with Belsay.
History
The Church of England parish church of St Andrew has a late Saxon west tower and is a Grade I listed building.[3]
Shortflatt Tower, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south-west of the village, is a late 15th or early 16th century pele tower, with a 17th-century house attached, and is also Grade I listed.
Bolam is the burial place of Robert de Reymes, a wealthy Suffolk merchant, who in 1296 began the building of Aydon Castle, near Corbridge.
Landmarks
Bolam Lake Country Park is next to the village.
Three archaeological sites are nearby: Huckhoe Settlement, an iron Age and Romano-British defended settlement; Slate Hill Settlement, an Iron Age defended settlement; and The Poind and his Man, a Neolithic site.
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.
The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.
The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.
Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.
Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'.[1] Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.
Prehistory
As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.
Roman occupation
When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.
The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.
Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.
The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.
The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.
Archaeology
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.
Anglian Kingdoms of Deira, Bernicia and Northumbria
Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.
After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.
In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.
Monastic culture
When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.
Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.
In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.
Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.
Earldom of Northumbria
Main article: Earl of Northumbria
The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.
The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.
The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.
Norman Conquest
The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.
The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.
Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.
In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.
During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.
Council of the North
The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.
Border wars, reivers and rebels
From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill.[citation needed] This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.
Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.
In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.
Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.
Harbottle
Border Reivers
Peel tower
Union and Civil War
After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.
During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.
Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
Industrialisation
The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.
John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.
Stephenson's Rocket
Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons
Information copied from Steve Whiteley on Flickr: This statue of Fame stands in Renishaw Hall gardens, the home of the Sitwell family. It was rescued by Osbert Sitwell in 1950 from the Poet's Fountain in London's Park Lane when it was removed to make way for a road widening scheme. The fountain was erected in 1875 and dedicated to the fathers of English Poetry; designed by Thomas Thorneycroft.
Fame comes from the Greek Pheme who was the voice or rumour that spreads reports among the people; much adored by mere mortals. Gardens at Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire, June 2022
Alnwick is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116.
The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, 32 miles (51 km) south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish border, 5 miles (8 km) inland from the North Sea at Alnmouth and 34 miles (55 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The town dates to about AD 600 and thrived as an agricultural centre. Alnwick Castle was the home of the most powerful medieval northern baronial family, the Earls of Northumberland. It was a staging post on the Great North Road between Edinburgh and London. The town centre has changed relatively little, but the town has seen some growth, with several housing estates covering what had been pasture, and new factory and trading estate developments along the roads to the south.
Further information: History of Northumberland
The name Alnwick comes from the Old English wic ('dairy farm, settlement') and the name of the river Aln.
The history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its lords, starting with Gilbert Tyson, written variously as "Tison", "Tisson", and "De Tesson", one of William the Conqueror's standard-bearers, upon whom this northern estate was bestowed. It was held by the De Vesci family (now spelt "Vasey" – a name found all over south-east Northumberland) for over 200 years and then passed into the hands of the House of Percy in 1309.
At various points in the town are memorials of the constant wars between Percys and Scots, in which so many Percys spent the greater part of their lives. A cross near Broomhouse Hill across the river from the castle marks the spot where Malcolm III of Scotland was killed during the first Battle of Alnwick. At the side of the broad shady road called Ratten Row, leading from the West Lodge to Bailiffgate, a stone tablet marks the spot where William the Lion of Scotland was captured during the second Battle of Alnwick by a party of about 400 mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill.
Hulne Priory, outside the town walls in Hulne Park, the Duke of Northumberland's walled estate, was a monastery founded in the 13th century by the Carmelites; it is said that the site was chosen for some slight resemblance to Mount Carmel where the order originated.
In 1314, Sir John Felton was governor of Alnwick. In winter 1424, much of the town was burnt by a Scottish raiding party. Again in 1448, the town was burnt by a Scottish army led by William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas and George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus. There was a Church of Scotland congregation in Alnwick in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Sir Thomas Malory mentions Alnwick as a possible location for Lancelot's castle Joyous Garde.
A Royal Air Force distribution depot was constructed at Alnwick during the Second World War with four main fuel storage tanks (total capacity 1700 tons) and road and rail loading facilities. The tanks were above ground and surrounded by concrete. The site was closed in the 1970s, and its demolition and disposal were completed in 1980.
The Alnwick by-pass takes the A1 London–Edinburgh trunk road around the town. It was started in 1968.
Alnwick lies at 55°25′00″N 01°42′00″W (55.417, -1.700)1. The River Aln forms its unofficial northern boundary.
Historically, the town was partly within the Bamburgh Ward and Coquetdale Ward and later included in the East Division of Coquetdale Ward in 1832. Alnwick Town Hall was the home of the common council of Alnwick. By the time of the 2011 Census, an electoral ward covering only part of Alnwick parish existed. The total population of this ward was 4,766.
Some major or noteworthy employers in the town are:
Barter Books, one of the largest second-hand bookshops in England, set in the town's former railway station
Quotient Sciences Alnwick, a large pharmaceutical manufacturing, research and testing centre
NFU Mutual, provider of insurance, pensions, investments
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
House of Hardy, Fly Fishing Gear one of the most worldwide well known fly fishing gear brands.
Education
Secondary schools in Alnwick include The Duchess's Community High School.
The town's greatest building is Alnwick Castle, one of the homes of the Duke of Northumberland, and site of The Alnwick Garden.
The town centre is the marketplace, with its market cross, and the relatively modern Northumberland Hall, used as a meeting place.
The Alnwick Playhouse is a thriving multi-purpose arts centre that stages theatre, dance, music, cinema, and visual arts productions.
In 2003, the Willowburn Leisure Centre was opened on the southern outskirts of the enlarged town (replacing the old sports centre located by the Lindisfarne Middle School and the now-demolished Youth Centre).
Alnwick's museum, Bailiffgate Museum, is close to the Bailiffgate entrance to the castle. Its collection is specifically dedicated to local social history. The museum has recently had a major refit funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Its collection includes a variety of agricultural objects, domestic items, railway items, coal mining artefacts, printing objects, a sizeable photographic collection, paintings and a range of activities for children.
Other places of interest in and near the town include:
Brizlee Tower, a folly and observation platform overlooking Hulne Park, the Duke of Northumberland's walled estate by Alnwick Castle
Brizlee Tower, a Grade I listed folly tower on a hill in Hulne Park, the Duke's walled estate, designed by Robert Adam in 1777 and erected in 1781 for Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland.
Camphill Column, an 1814 construction celebrating British victories in Europe, and possibly erected as a reaction against the French Revolution.
the Bondgate Tower, also known as the Hotspur Tower, part of the remains of the ancient town wall and named after Sir Henry Percy, also called Harry Hotspur, the eldest son of the 1st Earl of Northumberland.
The Nelson Memorial, Swarland, emphasising a local link to the admired Admiral.
the Tenantry Column—much in the style of Nelson's Column, 83 feet (25 m) tall and topped by the Percy Lion, the symbol of the Percy family—designed by Charles Harper and erected for Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland in 1816 in gratitude to the Duke.
the White Swan Hotel, an 18th-century coaching inn that now houses the First Class Lounge and other fittings from the Titanic's near-identical sister ship RMS Olympic.
the Fusiliers Museum of Northumberland, found within Alnwick Castle.
St Michael's Church on Bailiffgate, a Grade II listed building dating from the 15th century with fragments from the 12th century.
RAF Boulmer was an airfield during World War II. It now has a role in early warning radar surveillance and communications.
The Fenkle Street drill hall converted from a library in 1887.
Sport
Alnwick RFC
Alnwick Town A.F.C.
Local media
Local news and television programmes is provided by BBC North East and Cumbria and ITV Tyne Tees. Television signals are received from the Chatton TV transmitter.
Alnwick’s local radio stations are BBC Radio Newcastle on 96.0 FM, Metro Radio on 102.6 FM and Lionheart Radio on 107.3 FM, a community based radio station.
Northumberland Gazette is the town’s local newspaper.
Alnwick Fair was an annual costumed event, held each summer from 1969 to 2007, recreating some of the appearance of medieval trading fairs and 17th century agricultural fairs. It has now been discontinued.
Alnwick lies adjacent to the A1, the main national north–south trunk road, providing easy access to Newcastle upon Tyne (35 miles (56 km) south) and Edinburgh (80 miles (130 km) north).
The East Coast Main Line between Edinburgh (journey time approximately 1:10) and London (journey time approximately 3:45) runs through Alnmouth for Alnwick Station – about 4 miles (6 km) away – with a weekday service of 15 trains per day north to Edinburgh and 13 trains per day south to London.
The Alnwick branch line formerly linked Alnwick's own station, close to the town centre, to Alnmouth station, but this line closed in January 1968. Since the 2010s, the Aln Valley Railway Trust have worked to reopen the branch as a heritage railway but, due to construction of the A1 Alnwick bypass removing a section of the original trackbed on the edge of the town, their purpose-built Alnwick Lionheart terminus is located near the Lionheart Enterprise Estate on the outskirts of the town. The reopening project is ongoing and, as of July 2020, the line's eastern terminus had reached a new station at Greenrigg Halt, approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Lionheart, although it is yet to carry passengers over the full length.
Newcastle Airport lies around 45 minutes drive-time away and provides 19 daily flights to (London Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and London City), with regular flights to other UK centres.
Alnwick is twinned with:
Bryne, Norway
Lagny-sur-Marne, France
Voerde, Germany
Notable people
Stella Vine
Born in Alnwick
William of Alnwick (c. 1275–1333), Franciscan theologian and Bishop of Giovinazzo
Martin of Alnwick (d. 1336), Franciscan friar and theologian
Henry 'Hotspur' Percy (1364?–1403), son of the 1st Earl of Northumberland
John Busby (1765–1857), mining engineer
William Davison (1781–1858), pharmacist, apothecary, publisher and printer
Prideaux John Selby (1788–1867), ornithologist, botanist and artist
William Henry Percy (1788–1855), naval commander and politician
James Catnach (1792-1841), publisher
George Biddell Airy (1801–1892), Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881
George Tate (1805–1871), tradesman, local topographer, antiquarian and naturalist
Thomas Turner Tate (1807–1888), mathematical and scientific educator and writer
James Patterson (1833–1895), Australian colonial politician, premier of Victoria, born in Alnwick in 1833
T. J. Cobden Sanderson (1840–1922), artist and bookbinder associated with the Arts and Crafts movement
Ralph Tate (1840–1901), botanist and geologist
Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923), philosopher
Jim Hilton (1894–1964), painter for Shell Oil and immigrant to Canada
David Adam (1936–2020), English minister and Canon of York Minster
Sid Waddell (1940–2012), commentator and television personality
Jeremy Darroch (born 1962), chief executive of Sky
Jonny Kennedy (1966–2003), spokesperson with the skin condition Epidermolysis Bullosa
Stella Vine (born 1969), artist
Kelland Watts (born 1999), professional footballer
Lived in Alnwick
Lucy Bronze (born 1991), footballer for Barcelona and England, played junior football in Alnwick and had plaque erected in her honour at Alnwick Town FC.
Died in Alnwick
Malcolm III of Scotland (died 1093)
Tip Tipping (1958–1993), actor, died in a parachuting accident at Brunton
Stan Anderson (1871-1942), English international rugby union player
Alnwick town has been used as a setting in films and television series.
Films
2012 Villains
2011 Your Highness
Television
1987 Treasure Hunt - Episode: Northumberland (1987)
1991–1993 Spender
1998-2011 History's Mysteries - Episode: Doomed Sisters of the Titanic (1999)
2011- All Over the Place - Episode: Tree Houses, Buses and Pie Eating! (2011)
2011- All Over the Place - Episode: Scary Castles, Teapots and Onion Eating! (2011)
2013- The Other Child<
2014 Vera, ITV murder mystery, Series 4, Episode 1: On Harbour Street (2014)
2015 Vera, ITV murder mystery, Series 5, Episode 3: Muddy Waters filmed a scene in Alnwick's market place; the filming took place while the market was going on and was not staged for the episode, except for two stalls that were created just for the episode.
2013- Tales from Northumberland with Robson Green - Episode: More Tales from Northumberland with Robson Green: Industrial Heritage (2015)
2018- The Heist
2012- Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railways - Episode: Chris Tarrant: Railways of the Somme (2019)
The following people have received the Freedom of the Town of Alnwick.
Bill Batey: 2019
Adrian Ions: 12 November 2021
William "Bill" Hugonin: 18 March 2022.
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.
The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.
The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.
Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.
Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.
As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.
When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.
The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.
Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.
The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.
The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.
Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.
After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.
In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.
When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.
Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.
In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.
Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.
The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.
The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.
The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.
The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.
The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.
Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.
In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.
During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.
The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.
From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.
Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.
In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.
Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.
After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.
During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.
Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.
John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.
Stephenson's Rocket
Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons
Bolam Lake Country Park is a country park in Northumberland, England, near the village of Bolam and about 9 miles (14 km) west of Morpeth. It is signposted off the A696 road from Belsay.
History
The lake and woodlands were laid out by John Dobson for Reverend John Beresford, Baron Decies, the owner of the Bolam estate, who wanted to provide work for local people during a period of economic decline. The project, started in 1816, took three years to complete. The site was landscaped, and designed to provide picturesque views of nearby features in the countryside. The lake was created from a swampy area known as Bolam Bog.
By 1945 the grounds had grown wild; in 1972 the estate was purchased by Northumberland County Council in order to create a country park. In 2016 the lake and landscaped surroundings celebrated their 200th anniversary.
Description
The park, area 26.48 hectares (65.4 acres); has a lake, woodlands and open grassland. There are walks throughout the park, including a fully accessible path around the lake.
Wildlife in the park includes roe deer and red squirrels; there are swans and other waterfowl on the lake. Woodland birds to be seen include great spotted woodpecker, bullfinch, nuthatch and treecreeper.
There is a visitor centre and café next to the Boathouse Wood Car Park, to the north of the lake.
Bolam is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Belsay in the county of Northumberland, England. The village is about 20 miles (32 km) north-west of Newcastle upon Tyne, near Bolam West Houses. In 1951 the civil parish had a population of 60. On 1 April 1955 the parish was abolished and merged with Belsay.
History
The Church of England parish church of St Andrew has a late Saxon west tower and is a Grade I listed building.[3]
Shortflatt Tower, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south-west of the village, is a late 15th or early 16th century pele tower, with a 17th-century house attached, and is also Grade I listed.
Bolam is the burial place of Robert de Reymes, a wealthy Suffolk merchant, who in 1296 began the building of Aydon Castle, near Corbridge.
Landmarks
Bolam Lake Country Park is next to the village.
Three archaeological sites are nearby: Huckhoe Settlement, an iron Age and Romano-British defended settlement; Slate Hill Settlement, an Iron Age defended settlement; and The Poind and his Man, a Neolithic site.
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.
The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.
The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.
Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.
Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'.[1] Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.
Prehistory
As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.
Roman occupation
When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.
The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.
Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.
The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.
The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.
Archaeology
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.
Anglian Kingdoms of Deira, Bernicia and Northumbria
Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.
After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.
In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.
Monastic culture
When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.
Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.
In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.
Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.
Earldom of Northumbria
Main article: Earl of Northumbria
The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.
The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.
The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.
Norman Conquest
The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.
The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.
Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.
In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.
During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.
Council of the North
The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.
Border wars, reivers and rebels
From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill.[citation needed] This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.
Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.
In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.
Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.
Harbottle
Border Reivers
Peel tower
Union and Civil War
After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.
During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.
Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
Industrialisation
The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.
John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.
Stephenson's Rocket
Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons
Stocksfield is a small village situated close to the River Tyne, about 14 miles (23 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne in the southern part of Northumberland, England. There are several smaller communities within the parish of Stocksfield, including Branch End, New Ridley, Broomley, Hindley and the Painshawfield Estate. Other villages in Stocksfield's postal district include Bywell, Newton, Mickley, and Hedley on the Hill.
Dere Street, a Roman road, passes through the parish to the south of Broomley, and Roman stone was used in the construction of St Andrew's Church in 803 AD. Bywell gained in importance in the 600 years following the Norman conquest as a centre of metalworking. It was in the hands of the Barony of Balliol until 1296 when it passed in turn to the Nevilles, the Fenwicks, and finally in 1809 to the Beaumont family.
The township of "Stokesfeld" was first mentioned in 1242, and was part of Bywell St Andrew's parish. The origins of the name are uncertain, but it may be derived from the Old English for "open land belonging to an outlying hamlet". in 1673 Birches Nook was home to Ann Armstrong, a "notorious witch-finder" whose accusations caused a great sensation throughout the county.
Stocksfield is in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham. Guy Opperman of the Conservative Party is the Member of Parliament.
For Local Government purposes it belongs to Northumberland Council a unitary authority. At a local level it is governed by Stocksfield Parish Council. On 11 January 2019 the name of the parish was officially changed from "Broomley and Stocksfield" to Stocksfield, reflecting developments in the area and changes in population over the years.
In the 2011 census the median age in Stocksfield and Broomhaugh was 49 years. 98.6 per cent of the population had white ethnicity and 68.8 per cent were Christian. No other religion exceeded 0.3 per cent with 23.9 per cent having no religion.
The village is served by the Tyne Valley Line, with trains running to Newcastle, Hexham and Carlisle. Stocksfield station was opened on 9 March 1835 by the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway. Passenger services are operated by Northern, with the line also being used for freight.
Stocksfield is linked to Newcastle upon Tyne and the A1 by the A695 which passes through the village. It is also linked to Leadgate and Stamfordham by the B6309. The A695 and B6309 meet near the railway station. The village is served by the 10 bus service operated by Go North East running from Hexham (25 minutes away) to Newcastle (1 hour).
Stocksfield has a school, Broomley First School, which is part of the Whittonstall and Broomley First Schools Federation. Stocksfield lies in the catchment area for Ovingham Middle School and Prudhoe High School. Mowden Hall School is a private prep school near Newton, north of the river.
There are four Christian places of worship in Stocksfield: a Church of England Church, Quaker Meeting House, Baptist Church and Methodist Church. Nearby are the twin churches of St Peter's and St Andrew's in Bywell.
Amenities in Stocksfield include two post offices, an Esso petrol station, Spar store, garage, newsagent, three hairdressers, chemist, day nursery, first school, convenience store, pottery and studio, ice cream parlour, doctor's surgery and veterinary surgery.
Stocksfield Community Centre is owned and managed by Stocksfield Community Association (formerly SICA) which is a charitable company limited by guarantee. The Association's objectives are to promote the benefit of the all inhabitants of Stocksfield and its neighbourhood, without distinction by associating with local authorities, voluntary organisations and inhabitants in a common effort to advance education and provide facilities, in the interests of social welfare for recreational and leisure time occupation, with the object of improving the conditions of life for residents. The Community Centre is available for hire by local groups and individuals for events, activities, meetings and private functions.
Stocksfield boasts many sporting facilities including a cricket club, tennis club, golf club. and a running club known as Stocksfield Striders. There are also two play areas and a well-utilised Community Centre. In 2012, Stocksfield was one of the official stop off points for the Olympic torch before it made its way to the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
The parish of Broomley and Stocksfield was officially crowned Calor Northumberland Village of the Year in November 2008. The competition is organised annually by Community Action Northumberland (CAN) with sponsorship provided by LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) supplier Calor.
Born in Stocksfield
Mabel Atkinson (1876–1958), feminist and socialist
Dame Veronica Wedgwood (1910–1997), historian
Lives (or lived) in Stocksfield
Rodney Atkinson (born 1948), academic and author
Rowan Atkinson (born 1955), actor and comedian
Edgar Bainton (1880–1956), composer
Francoise Boufhal (born 1988), actress and model
Alan Clark (born 1952), ex Dire Straits keyboard player
Brendan Foster (born 1948), ex athletics 10,000 m record holder
Frances Hardcastle (1866–1941), mathematician and women's activist
Richard Harpin (born 1964), businessman
Graeme Lowdon (born 1965), businessman and entrepreneur
Alan Milburn (born 1958), politician
Chris Paisley (born 1986), professional golfer
Sir Richard Pease, 3rd Baronet (born 1922), banker
Ethel Williams (1863–1948), physician and suffragist
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.
The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.
The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.
Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.
Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.
As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.
When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.
The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.
Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.
The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.
The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.
Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.
After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.
In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.
When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.
Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.
In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.
Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.
The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.
The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.
The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.
The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.
The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.
Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.
In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.
During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.
The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.
From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.
Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.
In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.
Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.
After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.
During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.
Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.
John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.
Stephenson's Rocket
Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons
Northumberland National Park is the northernmost national park in England. It covers an area of more than 1,050 square kilometres (410 sq mi) between the Scottish border in the north to just south of Hadrian's Wall. The park lies entirely within Northumberland, covering about a quarter of the county.
Of the thirteen National Parks in England and Wales, Northumberland is the most remote from large urban areas, the least populated, and the least visited.
The park covers several distinct areas. In the north are the Cheviot Hills, a range of hills that mark the border between England and Scotland. Further south, the hills give way to areas of rolling moorland, some of which have been covered by forestry plantations to form Kielder Forest. The southernmost part of the park covers the dramatic central section of Hadrian's Wall, dating from the Roman occupation.
The 10,000-year history of human habitation of the region is explored through the many archaeological sites, ranging from prehistoric monuments and Roman remains to Pele towers, constructed as a defence against invading Scots and Border Reivers.
Etymology
The Northumberland National Park takes its name from the English county of Northumberland. Northumberland means "country north of the River Humber" and is related to the name "Northumbria", referring to the former Anglo-Saxon kingdom which once covered much of Northern England. The national park lies totally within the boundaries of Northumberland.
Geography
The Northumberland National Park covers a large area of Western Northumberland and borders the English county of Cumbria and the Scottish council area of The Scottish Borders. The national park encompasses much of the Cheviot Hills and adjoins the Southern Uplands of Scotland, which the hills are sometimes considered a part of. Since the Pennine Way runs through the national park, the Cheviot Hills are also considered a part of the northern Pennines although they are separated from the Cheviot Hills by the Tyne Gap, part of which lies within the southern extent of the national park. Part of Kielder Forest lies within the park, and in other areas forms a forest park. Kielder Forest is the largest man-made forest in Europe and surrounds Kielder Water.
Otterburn Training Area
The Ministry of Defence in the United Kingdom owns much of the land in the national park as the Otterburn Training Area. Some parts of this training area are off-limits; others can be accessed only at certain times or with permission. The training area accounts for 23% of the Northumberland National Park.
Dark Sky Park status
In December 2013 the International Dark Sky Association conferred Dark Sky Park status on an area including Northumberland National Park and Kielder; it is the largest protected Dark Sky Park in Europe.
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.
The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.
The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.
Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.
Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'.[1] Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.
Prehistory
As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.
Roman occupation
When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.
The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.
Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.
The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.
The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.
Archaeology
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.
Anglian Kingdoms of Deira, Bernicia and Northumbria
Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.
After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.
In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.
Monastic culture
When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.
Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.
In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.
Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.
Earldom of Northumbria
Main article: Earl of Northumbria
The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.
The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.
The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.
Norman Conquest
The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.
The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.
Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.
In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.
During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.
Council of the North
The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.
Border wars, reivers and rebels
From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill.[citation needed] This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.
Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.
In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.
Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.
Harbottle
Border Reivers
Peel tower
Union and Civil War
After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.
During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.
Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
Industrialisation
The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.
John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.
Stephenson's Rocket
Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons