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This is some sort of experimental, or test pressing, of a Craig Douglas 45 from 1963 (I can't remember which one, I'll have to look it up!)!? It should be on a red & white Top Rank label, but it's got Ember Records LP labels with no artist/title/cat.no. details!! I didn't think there was a connection between the two labels!? The multi-coloured wax/ vinyl, is very unusual for the time, except perhaps on children's records!!??
the glue is all dry now it's time to add the skirt. having cut a piece wide enough to go to the floor and also fold over quite aways, i press it the right length. the extra fold will be in the center back. the fabric i used had enough selvedge edge for both skirts so i didn't have to hem it - bonus!
The Castle has been fully assembled. The Castle is opened up to show the interior. Flags and various other accessories have been added. They include the furniture, staircase, platform, and bridge. Tinker Bell has been attached to the flagpole of the highest tower. The other figures have been placed in various spots in and around the Castle.
The Disneyland Resort 60th Anniversary Diamond Celebration Sleeping Beauty Castle Playset. Disneyland purchase on Sunday May 31, 2015, from the World of Disney store. It was released in Disneyland on May 20, 2015. Detailed photos boxed, during deboxing, and fully deboxed, in various configurations.
The Castle is in a large box, requires assembly, and costs $84.95.
The Castle has lights and sounds, powered by included batteries. Pressing the left button on the steps of the entrance causes a light show with various towers being lit up in white and blue. Pressing the right button causes one of four short musical segments to be played.
There are 10 mini figures included, all of which can free stand (some more stably than others). Prince Phillip also comes with separate sword and shield, both of which attach to him. I had difficulty getting the sword to stay in his hand, and broke the handle off the sword in trying. But I super glued the handle to his hand, then the blade to the handle, and the fix worked. Tinker Bell comes with a transparent post that looks like a long double sided wrench, which enables her to hang in the air off one of the tower flag poles. Some of the mini figure's faces are a bit off, especially their eyes, but overall they are good representations of the animated characters.
The Castle can be displayed closed (as it comes in the box), or can be opened up to be able to use the interior spaces. The gate of the front entrance can slide up and down. Two of the doors in the towers can open and close. Included is a tall staircase, a low platform. and a bridge, all of which are sturdy. The eight flags are made of wavy vinyl with poles that stick into the towers. Then decals are applied to the flags that say Disneyland on one side, and have the D60 logo on the other side.
The Castle was fun and easy to put together. The sound and light show is short but impressive up close. This is a very good value with the quality of construction and the number and variety of figures and accessories included. It is on a par with the Frozen Arendelle Castle playset, which was $15 more expensive.
I'm saving some of the other colors to do for my youtube tutorial. :P Most of them I will not record. Have to get magnets to glue to the back tho...Anybody have any ideas where to get thin sheet metal and magnets? Maybe the hardware store...
I had never thought of making one of these until TODAY when I saw this: www.flickr.com/photos/megvs/6027524646/ and saw the Oh Fransson tutorial, love it!
My reason for making this is that my ironing board takes up too much space in the sewing room. This way I can iron right on the table without having to move the ironing board when I need to get something or get around the room.
On the way back from Oxfordshire, I thought about stopping off somewhere to take some church shots.
I'm sure Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Sussex have fine churches just off the motorway, but one had stuck in my head, back in Kent, and that Hever.
What I didn't realise is how hard it was to get too.
I followed the sat nav, taking me off the motorway whilst still in Sussex, then along narrow and twisting main roads along the edge of the north downs, through some very fine villages, but were in Sussex.
Would I see the sign marking my return to the Garden of England?
Yes, yes I would.
Edenbridge seemed quite an unexpectedly urban place, despite its name, so I didn't stop to search for an older centre, just pressing un until I was able to turn down Hever Road.
It had taken half an hour to get here.
St Peter stands by the gate to the famous castle, a place we have yet to visit, and even on a showery Saturday in March, there was a constant stream of visitors arriving.
I asked a nice young man who was directing traffic, where I could park to visit the church. He directed me to the staff car park, meaning I was able to get this shot before going in.
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Near the grounds of Hever Castle, medieval home of the Bullen family. Sandstone construction with a nice west tower and spire. There is a prominent chimney to the north chapel, although this is not the usual Victorian addition, but a Tudor feature, whose little fireplace may be seen inside! The church contains much of interest including a nineteenth-century painting of Christ before Caiphas by Reuben Sayers and another from the school of Tintoretto. The stained glass is all nineteenth and twentieth century and includes a wonderfully evocative east window (1898) by Burlisson and Grylls with quite the most theatrical sheep! The south chancel window of St Peter is by Hardman and dated 1877. In the north chapel is a fine tomb chest which displays the memorial brass of Sir Thomas Bullen (d. 1538), father of Queen Anne Boleyn. Just around the corner is a typical, though rather insubstantial, seventeenth-century pulpit with sounding board.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Hever
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HEVER.
SOUTH-EASTWARD from Eatonbridge lies Hever, called in the Textus Roffensis, and some antient records, Heure, and in others, Evere.
This parish lies below the sand hill, and is consequently in that district of this county called The Weald.
There is a small part of it, called the Borough of Linckbill, comprehending a part of this parish, Chidingstone, and Hever, which is within the hundred of Ruxley, and being part of the manor of Great Orpington, the manerial rights of it belong to Sir John Dixon Dyke, bart. the owner of that manor.
THE PARISH of Hever is long, and narrow from north to south. It lies wholly below the sand hills, and consequently in the district of the Weald; the soil and face of the country is the same as that of Eatonbridge, last described, the oak trees in it being in great plently, and in general growing to a very large size. The river Eden directs its course across it, towards Penshurst and the Medway, flowing near the walls of Hever castle, about a quarter of a mile southward from which is the village of Hever and the parsonage; near the northern side of the river is the seat of Polebrooke, late Douglass's, now Mrs. Susannah Payne's; and a little farther, the hamlets of Howgreen and Bowbeach; part of Linckhill borough, which is in the hundred of Ruxley, extends into this parish. There is a strange odd saying here, very frequent among the common people, which is this:
Jesus Christ never was but once at Hever.
And then he fell into the river.
Which can only be accounted for, by supposing that it alluded to a priest, who was carrying the bost to a sick person, and passing in his way over a bridge, sell with it into the river.
Hever was once the capital seat and manor of a family of the same name, whose still more antient possessions lay at Hever, near Northfleet, in this county, who bore for their arms, Gules, a cross argent. These arms, with a lable of three points azure, still remained in the late Mote-house, in Maidstone, and are quartered in this manner by the earl of Thanet, one of whose ancestors, Nicholas Tuston, esq. of Northiam, married Margaret, daughter and heir of John Hever of this county. (fn. 1)
William de Heure. possessed a moiety of this place in the reign of king Edward I. in the 2d of which he was was sheriff of this county, and in the 9th of it obtained a grant of free warren within his demesne lands in Heure, Chidingstone, and Lingefield.
Sir Ralph de Heure seems at this time to have possessed the other moiety of this parish, between whose son and heir, Ralph, and Nicholas, abbot of St. Augustine's, there had been, as appears by the register of that abbey, several disputes concerning lands in Hever, which was settled in the 4th year of king Edward I. by the abbot's granting to him and his heirs for ever, the land which he held of him in Hever, to hold by the service of the fourth part of a knight's fee.
William de Hever, in the reign of king Edward III. became possessed of the whole of this manor, and new built the mansion here, and had licence to embattle it; soon after which he died, leaving two daughters his coheirs; one of whom, Joane, carried one moiety of this estate in marriage to Reginald Cobham, a younger son of the Cobhams of Cobham, in this county; (fn. 2) whence this part of Hever, to distinguish it from the other, acquired the name of Hever Cobham.
His son, Reginald lord Cobham, in the 14th year of that reign, obtained a charter for free warren within his demesne lands in Hever. (fn. 3) He was succeeded in this manor by his son, Reginald lord Cobham, who was of Sterborough castle, in Surry, whence this branch was stiled Cobhams of Sterborough.
The other moiety of Hever, by Margaret, the other daughter and coheir, went in marriage to Sir Oliver Brocas, and thence gained the name of Hever Brocas. One of his descendants alienated it to Reginald lord Cobham, of Sterborough, last mentioned, who died possessed of both these manors in the 6th year of king Henry IV.
His grandson, Sir Thomas Cobham, sold these manors to Sir Geoffry Bulleyn, a wealthy mercer of London, who had been lord mayor in the 37th year of king Henry VI. He died possessed of both Hever Cobham and Hever Brocas, in the 3d year of king Edward IV. leaving by Anne, his wife, eldest sister of Thomas, lord Hoo and Hastings, Sir William Bulleyn, of Blickling, in Norfolk, who married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Thomas Boteler, earl of Ormond, by whom he had a son and heir, Thomas, who became a man of eminent note in the reign of king Henry VIII. and by reason of the king's great affection to the lady Anne Bulleyn, his daughter, was in the 17th year of that reign, created viscount Rochford; and in the 21st year of it, being then a knight of the Garter, to that of earl of Wiltshire and Ormond; viz. Wiltshire to his heirs male, and Ormond to his heirs general.
He resided here, and added greatly to those buildings, which his grandfather, Sir Geoffry Bulleyn, began in his life time, all which he completely finished, and from this time this seat seems to have been constantly called HEVER-CASTLE.
He died in the 30th of the same reign, possessed of this castle, with the two manors of Hever Cobham and Brocas, having had by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, one sonGeorge, executed in his life time; and two daughters, Anne, wife to king Henry VIII. and Mary, wife of William Carey, esquire of the body, and ancestor of the lords Hunsdon and the earls of Dover and Monmouth.
On the death of the earl of Wiltshire, without issue male, who lies buried in this church, under an altar tomb of black marble, on which is his figure, as large as the life, in brass, dressed in the robes of the Garter, the king seised on this castle and these manors, in right of his late wife, the unfortunate Anne Bulleyn, the earl's daughter, who resided at Hever-castle whilst the king courted her, there being letters of both extant, written by them from and to this place, and her chamber in it is still called by her name; and they remained in his hands till the 32d year of his reign, when he granted to the lady Anne of Cleves, his repudiated wife, his manors of Hever, Seale, and Kemsing, among others, and his park of Hever, with its rights, members, and appurtenances, then in the king's hands; and all other estates in Hever, Seale, and Kemsing, lately purchased by him of Sir William Bulleyn and William Bulleyn, clerk, to hold to her during life, so long as she should stay within the realm, and not depart out of it without his licence, at the yearly rent of 931. 13s. 3½d. payable at the court of augmention. She died possessed of the castle, manors, and estates of Hever, in the 4th and 5th year of king Philip and queen Mary, when they reverted again to the crown, where they continued but a short time, for they were sold that year, by commissioners authorised for this purpose, to Sir Edward Waldegrave and dame Frances his wife; soon after which the park seems to have have been disparked.
This family of Waldegrave, antiently written Walgrave, is so named from a place, called Walgrave, in the county of Northampton, at which one of them was resident in the reign of king John, whose descendants afterwards settled in Essex, and bore for their arms, Per pale argent and gules. Warine de Walgrave is the first of them mentioned, whose son, John de Walgrave, was sheriff of London, in the 7th year of king John's reign, whose direct descendant was Sir Edward Waldegrave, who purchased this estate, as before mentioned. (fn. 5) He had been a principal officer of the household to the princess Mary; at the latter end of the reign of king Edward VI. he incurred the king's displeasure much by his attachment to her interest, and was closely imprisoned in the Tower; but the king's death happening soon afterwards, queen Mary amply recompensed his sufferings by the continued marks of her favour and bounty, which she conferred on him; and in the 4th and 5th years of that reign, he obtained, as above mentioned, on very easy terms, the castle and manors of Hever Cobham and Brocas; and besides being employed by the queen continually in commissions of trust and importance, had many grants of lands and other favours bestowed on him. But on the death of queen Mary, in 1558, he was divested of all his employments, and committed prisoner to the Tower, (fn. 6) where he died in the 3d year of queen Elizabeth. He left two sons, Charles, his heir; and Nicholas, ancestor to those of Boreley, in Essex; and several daughters.
Charles Waldegrave succeeded his father in his estates in this parish; whose son Edward received the honour of knighthood at Greenwich, in 1607, and though upwards of seventy years of age, at the breaking out of the civil wars, yet he nobly took arms in the king's defence, and having the command of a regiment of horse, behaved so bravely, that he had conferred on him the dignity of a baronet, in 1643; after which he continued to act with great courage in the several attacks against the parliamentary forces, in which time he lost two of his sons, and suffered in his estate to the value of fifty thousand pounds.
His great grandson, Sir Henry Waldegrave, in 1686, in the 1st year of king James II. was created a peer, by the title of baron Waldegrave of Chewton, in Somersetshire, and had several offices of trust conferred on him; but on the Revolution he retired into France, and died at Paris, in 1689. (fn. 7) He married Henrietta, natural daughter of king James II. by Arabella Churchill, sister of John duke of Marlborough, by whom he had James, created earl of Waldegrave in the 3d year of king George II. who, in the year 1715, conveyed the castle and these manors to Sir William Humfreys, bart. who that year was lord mayor of the city of London. He was of Barking, in Essex, and had been created a baronet in 1714. He was descended from Nathaniel Humfreys, citizen of London, the second son of William ap Humfrey, of Montgomery, in North Wales, and bore for his arms two coats, Quarterly, 1st and 4th, sable, two nags heads erased argent; 2d and 3d, per pale or and gules, two lions rampant endorsed, counterchanged.
He died in 1735, leaving by his first wife, Margaret, daughter of William Wintour, of Gloucestershire, an only son and heir, Sir Orlando Humfreys, bart. who died in 1737, having had by Ellen, his wife, only child of colonel Robert Lancashire, three sons and two daughters; two of the sons died young; Robert, the second and only surviving son, had the castle and manors of Hever Cobham and Brocas, and died before his father possessed of them, as appears by his epitaph, in 1736, ætat. 28.
On Sir Orlando's death his two daughters became his, as well as their brother's, coheirs, of whom Mary, the eldest, had three husbands; first, William Ball Waring, of Dunston, in Berkshire, who died in 1746, without issue; secondly, John Honywood, esq. second brother of Richard, of Mark's-hall, who likewife died without issue, in 1748; and lastly, Thomas Gore, esq. uncle to Charles Gore, esq. M.P. for Hertfordshire; which latter had married, in 1741, Ellen Wintour, the only daughter of Sir Orlando Humfreys, above mentioned.
They, with their husbands, in 1745, joined in the sale of Hever-castle and the manors of Hever Cobham and Hever Brocas, to Timothy Waldo. He was descended from Thomas Waldo, of Lyons, in France, one of the first who publicly opposed the doctrines of the church of Rome, of whom there is a full account in the Atlas Geograph. vol. ii. and in Moreland's History of the Evangelical Churches of Piedmont. One of his descendants, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, to escape the persecution of the duke D'Alva, came over to England, where he and his descendants afterwards settled, who bore for their arms, Argent a bend azure, between three leopards heads of the second; of whom, in king Charles II.'s reign, there were three brothers, the eldest of whom, Edward, was knighted, and died without male issue, leaving two daughters his coheirs; the eldest of whom, Grace, married first Sir Nicholas Wolstenholme, bart. and secondly, William lord Hunsdon, but died without issue by either of them, in 1729. The second brother was of Harrow, in Middlesex; and Timothy, the third, was an eminent merchant of London, whose grandsons were Edward, who was of South Lambeth, esq. and died in 1783, leaving only one daughter; and Timothy, of Clapham, esquire, the purchaser of this estate, as above mentioned, who was afterwards knighted, and died possessed of it, with near thirteen hundred acres of land round it, in 1786; he married, in 1736, Miss Catherine Wakefield, by whom he left an only daughter and heir, married to George Medley, esq. of Sussex, lady Waldo surviving him is at this time intitled to it.
The castle is entire, and in good condition; it has a moat round it, formed by the river Eden, over which there is a draw bridge, leading to the grand entrance, in the gate of which there is yet a port cullis, within is a quadrangle, round which are the offices, and a great hall; at the upper end of which, above a step, is a large oak table, as usual in former times. The great stair case leads up to several chambers and to the long gallery, the cieling of which is much ornamented with soliage in stucco; the rooms are all wainscotted with small oaken pannels, unpainted. On one side of the gallery is a recess, with an ascent of two steps, and one seat in it, with two returns, capable of holding ten or twelve persons, which, by tradition, was used as a throne, when king Henry VIII. visited the castle. At the upper end of the gallery, on one side of a large window, there is in the floor a kind of trap door, which, when opened, discovers a narrow and dark deep descent, which is said to reach as far as the moat, and at this day is still called the dungeon. In a closet, in one of the towers, the window of which is now stopped up, there is an adjoining chamber, in which queen Anne Bulleyn is said to have been consined after her dis grace. The entrance to this closet, from the chamber, is now by a small door, which at that time was a secret sliding pannel, and is yet called Anne Bulleyn's pannel.
In the windows of Hever-castle are these arms; Argent, three buckles gules, within the garter; a shield of four coasts, Howard, Brotherton, Warren, and Mowbray, argent three buckles gules; a shield of eight coats, viz. Bulleyn, Hoo, St. Omer, Malmains, Wickingham, St. Leger, Wallop, and Ormond; and one, per pale argent and gules, for Waldegrave. (fn. 8)
It is reported, that when Henry VIII. with his attendants, came to the top of the hill, within sight of the castle, he used to wind his bugle horn, to give notice of his approach.
There was a court baron constantly held for each of the above manors till within these forty years, but at present there is only one, both manors being now esteemed but as one, the circuit of which, over the neighbouring parishes, is very extensive.
SEYLIARDS is an estate here which extends itself into the parishes of Brasted and Eatonbridge, but the mansion of it is in this parish, and was the antient seat of the Seyliards, who afterwards branched out from hence into Brasted, Eatonbridge, Chidingstone, and Boxley, in this county.
The first of this name, who is recorded to have possessed this place, was Ralph de Seyliard, who resided here in the reign of king Stephen.
Almerick de Eureux, earl of Gloucester, who lived in the reign of king Henry III. demised lands to Martin at Seyliard, and other lands, called Hedinden, to Richard Seyliard, both of whom were sons of Ralph at Seyliard, and the latter of them was ancestor to those seated here and at Delaware, in Brasted. (fn. 9)
This place continued in his descendants till Sir Tho. Seyliard of Delaware, passed it away to John Petley, esq. who alienated it to Sir Multon Lambarde, of Sevenoke, and he died possessed of it in 1758; and it is now the property of his grandson, Multon Lambarde, of Sevenoke, esq.
Charities.
A PERSON gave, but who or when is unknown, but which has time out of mind been distributed among the poor of this parish, the sum of 10s. yearly, to be paid out of land vested in the churchwardens, and now of that annual produce.
The Rev. JOHN PETER gave by will, about 1661, the sum of 10s. yearly, to be paid for the benefit of poor farmers only, out of land vested in the rector, the heirs of Wm. Douglass, and the heirs of Francis Bowty, and now of that annual produce.
The Rev. GEORGE BORRASTON, rector, and several of the parishioners, as appears by a writing dated in 1693, purchased, with money arising from several bequests, the names of the donors unknown, except that of WILLIAM FALKNER, to which the parishioners added 15l. a piece of land, the rent to be distributed yearly among the poor of the parish, vested in the rector and churchwardens, and of the annual produce of 3l. 12s.
Rev. THOMAS LANCASTER, rector, gave by will in 1714, for buying good books for the poor, and in case books are not wanting for the schooling of poor children at the discretion of the mimister, part of a policy on lives, which was exchanged for a sum of money paid by his executor, being 20l. vested in the minister and churchwardens.
SIR TIMOTHY WALDO gave by will in 1786, 500l. consolidated 3 per cent. Bank Annuities, one moiety of the interest of which to be applied for the placing of some poor boy of the parish apprentice to a farmer, or some handicraft trade, or to the sea service, or in cloathing such poor boy during his apprenticeship, and in case no such poor boy can be found, this moiety to be distributed among such of the industrious poor who do not receive alms. The other moiety to be laid out in buying and distributing flannel waistcoats, or strong shoes, or warm stockings, among such of the industrious or aged poor persons inhabiting within this parish, as do not receive alms, vested in the Salters Company.
HEVER is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester, and being a peculiar of the archbishop, is as such within the deanry of Shoreham. The church, which stands at the east end of the village, is a small, but neat building, consisting of one isle and two chancels, having a handsome spire at the west end of it. It is dedicated to St. Peter.
Among other monuments and inscriptions in it are the following:—In the isle is a grave-stone, on which is the figure of a woman, and inscription in black letter in brass, for Margaret, wife of William Cheyne, obt. 1419, arms, a fess wavy between three crescents.—In the chancel, a memorial for Robert Humfreys, esq. lord of the manor of Heaver, only son and heir of Sir Orlando Humfreys, bart. of Jenkins, in Effex, obt. 1736. Against the wall is a brass plate, with the figure of a man kneeling at a desk, and inscription in black letter for William Todde, schoolmaster to Charles Waldegrave, esq. obt. 1585.—In the north chancel, an altar tomb, with the figure on it at large in brass, of Sir Thomas Bullen, knight of the garter, earl of Wilcher and earl of Ormunde, obt. 1538. A small slab with a brass plate, for ........ Bullayen, the son of Sir Thomas Bullayen.—In the belsry, a stone with a brass plate, and inscription in black letter in French, for John de Cobham, esquire, obt. 1399, and dame Johane, dame de Leukenore his wife, and Renaud their son; near the above is an antient altar tomb for another of that name, on which is a shield of arms in brass, or, on a chevron, three eagles displayed, a star in the dexter point. These were the arms of this branch of the Cobhams, of Sterborough-castle. (fn. 10)
This church is a rectory, the advowson of which belonged to the priory of Combwell, in Goudhurst, and came to the crown with the rest of its possessions at the time of the surrendry of it, in the 7th year of king Henry VIII. in consequence of the act passed that year for the surrendry of all religious houses, under the clear yearly revenue of two hundred pounds. Soon after which this advowson was granted, with the scite of the priory, to Thomas Colepeper, but he did not long possess it; and it appears, by the Escheat Rolls, to have come again into the hands of the crown, and was granted by the king, in his 34th year, to Sir John Gage, to hold in capite by knights service; who exchanged it again with Tho. Colepeper, to confirm which an act passed the year after. (fn. 11) His son and heir, Alexander Colepeper, had possession granted of sundry premises, among which was the advowson of Hever, held in capite by knights service, in the 3d and 4th years of king Philip and queen Mary; the year after which it was, among other premises, granted to Sir Edward Waldegrave, to hold by the like tenure.
Charles Waldegrave, esq. in the 12th year of queen Elizabeth, alienated this advowson to John Lennard, esq. of Chevening, and being entailed to his heirs male, by the last will of Sampson Lennard, esq. his eldest son, under the word hereditament possessed it, and it being an advowson in gross, was never disentailed by Henry, Richard, or Francis, lords Dacre, his descendants, so that it came to Thomas lord Dacre, son of the last mentioned Francis, lord Dacre, afterwards earl of Sussex, in 1673, and at length sole heir male of the descendants of John Lennard, esq. of Chevening, above mentioned; and the same trial was had for the claim of a moiety of it, at the Queen's-bench bar, as for the rest of the earl's estates, and a verdict then obtained in his favour, as has been already fully mentioned before, under Chevening.
The earl of Sussex died possessed of it in 1715, (fn. 12) whose two daughters, his coheirs, on their father's death became entitled to this advowson, and a few years afterwards alienated the same.
It then became the property of the Rev. Mr. Geo. Lewis, as it has since of the Rev. Mr. Hamlin, whose daughter marrying the Rev. Mr. Nott, of Little Horsted, in Sussex, he is now intitled to it.
In the 15th year of king Edward I. this church of Heure was valued at fifteen marcs.
By virtue of a commission of enquiry, taken by order of the state, in 1650, issuing out of chancery, it was returned, that Hever was a parsonage, with a house, and twelve acres of glebe land, which, with the tithes, were worth seventy-seven pounds per annum, master John Petter being then incumbent, and receiving the profits, and that Francis lord Dacre was donor of it. (fn. 13)
This rectory was valued, in 1747, at 1831. per annum, as appears by the particulars then made for the sale of it.
It is valued, in the king's books, at 15l. 17s. 3½d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 10s. 8¾d. It is now of the yearly value of about 200l.
¶The priory of Combwell, in Goudhurst, was endowed by Robert de Thurnham, the founder of that house, in the reign of king Henry II. with his tithe of Lincheshele and sundry premises in this parish, for which the religious received from the rector of this church the annual sum of 43s. 4d.
There was never any doubt I would go to Rob's funeral. Rob was born just two weeks before me, and in our many meetings, we found we had so much in common.
A drive to Ipswich should be something like only two and a half hours, but with the Dartford Crossing that could balloon to four or more.
My choice was to leave early, soon after Jools left for work, or wait to near nine once rush hour was over. If I was up early, I'd leave early, I said.
Which is what happened.
So, after coffee and Jools leaving, I loaded my camera stuff in the car, not bothering to program in a destination, as I knew the route to Suffolk so well.
Checking the internet I found the M2 was closed, so that meant taking the M20, which I like as it runs beside HS2, although over the years, vegetation growth now hides most of it, and with Eurostar cutting services due to Brexit, you're lucky to see a train on the line now.
I had a phone loaded with podcasts, so time flew by, even if travelling through the endless roadworks at 50mph seemed to take forever.
Dartford was jammed. But we inched forward, until as the bridge came in sight, traffic moved smoothly, and I followed the traffic down into the east bore of the tunnel.
Another glorious morning for travel, the sun shone from a clear blue sky, even if traffic was heavy, but I had time, so not pressing on like I usually do, making the drive a pleasant one.
Up through Essex, where most other traffic turned off at Stanstead, then up to the A11 junction, with it being not yet nine, I had several hours to fill before the ceremony.
I stopped at Cambridge services for breakfast, then programmed the first church in: Gazeley, which is just in Suffolk on the border with Cambridgeshire.
I took the next junction off, took two further turnings brought be to the village, which is divided by one of the widest village streets I have ever seen.
It was five past nine: would the church be open?
I parked on the opposite side of the road, grabbed my bag and camera, limped over, passing a warden putting new notices in the parish notice board. We exchange good mornings, and I walk to the porch.
The inner door was unlocked, and the heavy door swung after turning the metal ring handle.
I had made a list of four churches from Simon's list of the top 60 Suffolk churches, picking those on or near my route to Ipswich and which piqued my interest.
Here, it was the reset mediaeval glass.
Needless to say, I had the church to myself, the centuries hanging heavy inside as sunlight flooded in filling the Chancel with warm golden light.
Windows had several devotional dials carved in the surrounding stone, and a huge and "stunningly beautiful piscina, and beside it are sedilia that end in an arm rest carved in the shape of a beast" which caught my eye.
A display in the Chancel was of the decoration of the wooden roof above where panels contained carved beats, some actual and some mythical.
I photographed them all.
I programmed in the next church, a 45 minute drive away just on the outskirts of Ipswich, or so I thought.
The A14 was plagued by roadworks, then most trunk roads and motorways are this time of year, but it was a fine summer morning, I was eating a chocolate bar as I drove, and I wasn't in a hurry.
I turned off at Claydon, and soon lost in a maze of narrow lanes, which brought be to a dog leg in the road, with St Mary nestling in a clearing.
I pulled up, got out and found the air full of birdsong, and was greeted by a friendly spaniel being taken for a walk from the hamlet which the church serves.
There was never any doubt that this would be open, so I went through the fine brick porch, pushed another heavy wooden door and entered the coolness of the church.
I decided to come here for the font, which as you can read below has quite the story: wounded by enemy action no less!
There seems to be a hagioscope (squint) in a window of the south wall, makes one think or an anchorite, but of this there is little evidence.
Samuel and Thomasina Sayer now reside high on the north wall of the Chancel, a stone skull between them, moved here too because of bomb damage in the last war.
I drove a few miles to the next church: Flowton.
Not so much a village as a house on a crossroads. And the church.
Nothing so grand as a formal board outside, just a handwritten sign say "welcome to Flowton church". Again, I had little doubt it would be open.
And it was.
The lychgate still stands, but a fence around the churchyard is good, so serves little practical purpose, other than to be there and hold the signs for the church and forthcoming services.
Inside it is simple: octagonal font with the floor being of brick, so as rustic as can be.
I did read Simon's account (below) when back outside, so went back in to record the tomb of Captain William Boggas and his family, even if part of the stone is hidden by pews now.
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The landscape to the west of Ipswich rises to hills above the gentle valley of what will become the Belstead Brook before it empties itself into the River Orwell. The large villages of Somersham and Offton nestle below, but in the lonely lanes above are small, isolated settlements, and Flowton is one of them. I often cycle out this way from Ipswich through busy Bramford and then leave the modern world behind at Little Blakenham, up towards Nettlestead on a narrow and steep lane, down into Somersham and back up the other side to Flowton. It is unusual to pass a vehicle, or even see another human being, except in the valley bottom. In summer the only sound is of birdsong, the hedgerows alive in the deep heat. In winter the fields are dead, the crows in possession.
A hundred years ago these lanes were full of people, for in those days the villagers were enslaved to the land. But a farm that might support fifty workers then needs barely two now, and the countryside has emptied, villages reduced to half their size. Most of rural Suffolk is quieter now than at any time since before the Saxons arrived, and nature is returning to it.
In the early spring of 1644, a solemn procession came this way. The body of Captain William Boggas was brought back from the Midlands, where he had been killed in some skirmish or other, possibly in connection with the siege of Newark. The cart stumbled over the ruts and mud hollows, and it is easy to imagine the watching farmworkers pausing in a solemn gesture, standing upright for a brief moment, perhaps removing a hat, as it passed them by. But no sign of the cross, for this was Puritan Suffolk. Even the Church of England had been suppressed, and the local Priest replaced by a Minister chosen by, and possibly from within, the congregation.
William Boggas was laid to rest in the nave of the church, beside the body of his infant daughter who had died a year earlier. His heavily pregnant widow would have stood by on the cold brick floor, and the little church would have been full, for he was a landowner, and a Captain too.
The antiquarian David Davy came this way in a bad mood in May 1829, with his friend John Darby on their way to record the memorials and inscriptions of the church: ...we ascended a rather steep hill, on which we travelled thro' very indifferent roads to Flowton; here the kind of country I had anticipated for the whole of the present day's excursion was completely realised. A more flat, wet, unpleasant soil and country I have not often passed over, & we found some difficulty in getting along with safety & comfort.
But today it would be hard to arrive in Flowton in spring today and not be pleased to be there. By May, the trees in the hedgerows gather, and the early leaves send shadows dappling across the lane, for of course the roads have changed here since Darby and Davy came this way, but perhaps Flowton church hasn't much. James Bettley, revising the Buildings of England volumes for Suffolk, observed that it is a church with individuality in various details, which is about right. Much of what we see is of the early 14th Century, but there was money being spent here right on the eve of the Reformation. Peter Northeast and Simon Cotton transcribed a bequest of 1510 which pleasingly tells us the medieval dedication of the church, for Alice Plome asked that my body to be buried in the churchyard of the nativitie of our lady in fflowton. The same year, John Rever left a noble to painting the candlebeam, which is to say the beam which ran across the top of the rood loft and screen on which candles were placed. This is interesting because, as James Bettley points out, the large early 16th Century window on the south side of the nave was clearly intended to light the rood, and so was probably part of the same campaign. The candlebeam has not survived, and nor has any part of the rood screen. In 1526 John Rever (perhaps the son of the earlier man of the same name) left two nobles toward the making of a new rouff in the said church of ffloweton. The idiosyncratic tower top came in the 18th Century, and the weather vane with its elephants is of the early 21st Century, remembering a travelling circus that used to overwinter in the fields nearby.
The west face of the tower still has its niches, which once contained the images of the saints who watched over the travellers passing by. Another thing curious about the tower is that it has no west doorway. Instead, the doorway is set into the south side of the tower. There must be a reason for this, for it exists nowhere else in Suffolk. Perhaps there was once another building to the west of the tower. Several churches in this area have towers to the south of their naves, and the entrance through a south doorway into a porch formed beneath the tower, but it is hard to see how that could have been the intention here.
The Victorians were kind to Flowton church. It has a delicious atmosphere, that of an archetypal English country church. The narrow green sleeve of the graveyard enfolds it, leading eastwards to a moat-like ditch. The south porch is simple, and you step through it into a sweetly ancient space. The brick floor is uneven but lovely, lending an organic quality to the font, a Purbeck marble survival of the late 13th Century which seems to grow out of it. The bricks spread eastwards, past Munro Cautley's pulpit of the 1920s, and up beyond the chancel arch into the chancel itself. On the south side of the sanctuary the piscina that formerly served the altar here still retains its original wooden credence shelf. On the opposite wall is a corbel of what is perhaps a green man, or merely a madly grinning devil.
But to reach all these you must step across the ledger stone of Captain William Boggas, a pool of dark slate in the soft sea of bricks. It reads Here lyes waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ the body of William Boggas gent, deere to his Countrey, by whoes free choyce he was called to be Captayne of their vountaries raysed for their defence: pious towards God, meeke & juste towards men & being about 40 yeeres of age departed this life March 18: 1643. To the north of it lie two smaller ledgers, the easterly one to his young daughter, which records the date of her birth and her death in the next ensuing month. To the west of that is one to William, his son, who was born on April 11th 1644.
At first sight it might seem odd that his son could have been born in April 1644 if William senior had died in March 1643, but in those days of course the New Year was counted not from January 1st, but from March 25th, a quarter day usually referred to as Lady Day, in an echoing memory of the pre-Reformation Feast of the Annunciation. So William Boggas died one month before his son was born, not thirteen. It would be nice to think that William Junior would have led a similarly exciting and possibly even longer life than his father. But this was not to be, for he died at the age of just two years old in 1645. As he was given his father's name, we may assume that he was his father's first and only son.
A further point of interest is that both Williams' stones have space ready for further names. But there are none. There would be no more children for him, for how could there be? But William's wife does not appear to be buried or even remembered here. Did she move away? Did she marry again, and does she lie in some other similarly remote English graveyard? Actually, it is possible that she doesn't. Boggas's wife was probably Flowton girl Mary Branston, and she had been married before, to Robert Woodward of Dedham in Essex. Between the time of William Boggas's death in 1644 and the 1647 accounting of the Colony, Mary's daughter and nephews by her first marriage had been transported to the Virginia Colony in the modern United States. Is it possible that Mary went to join them?
And finally, one last visitor. Four months after the birth of the younger William, when the cement on his father's ledger stone was barely dry, the Puritan iconoclast William Dowsing visited this remote place. It was 22 August 1644. The day had been a busy one for Dowsing, for Flowton was one of seven churches he visited that day, and he would likely have already known them well, because he had a house at nearby Baylham. There was little for him to take issue with apart from the piscina in the chancel which was probably filled in and then restored by the Victorians two hundred years later.
Dowsing had arrived here in the late afternoon on what was probably a fine summer's day, since the travelling was so easy. I imagined the graveyard that day, full of dense greenery. He came on horseback, and he was not alone.With him came, as an assistant, a man called Jacob Caley. Caley, a Portman of Ipswich, was well-known to the people of Flowton. He was the government's official collector of taxes for this part of Suffolk. Probably, he was not a popular man. What the villagers couldn't know was that Caley was actually hiding away a goodly proportion of the money he collected. In 1662, two years after the Commonwealth ended, he was found guilty of the theft of three thousand pounds, about a million pounds in today's money. He had collected one hundred and eighteen pounds of this from the people of Flowton alone, and the late John Blatchly writing in Trevor Cooper's edition of the Dowsing Journals thought that the amount he was found guilty of stealing was probably understated, although of course we will never know.
I revisit this church every few months, and it always feels welcoming and well cared for, with fresh flowers on display, tidy ranks of books for sale, and a feeling that there is always someone popping in, every day. The signs by the lychgate say Welcome to Flowton Church, and on my most recent visit in November 2021 a car stopped behind me while I was taking a photograph of the elephants at the top of the tower. "Do go inside, the church is open", the driver urged cheerily, "we've even got a toilet!" As with Nettlestead across the valley, the church tried to stay open throughout the Church of England's Covid panic of 2020 and 2021, whatever much of the rest of the Church might have been doing. And there was no absurd cordoning off of areas or imposition of the one-way systems beloved by busybodies in many other English churches. Instead, a simple reminder to ask you to be careful, and when I came this way in the late summer of 2020 there were, at the back of the church, tall vases of rosemary, myrtle, thyme and other fragrant herbs. Beside them was a notice, which read Covid-19 causes anosmia (losing sense of smell). Here are some herbs to smell! which I thought was not only useful and instructive, but rather lovely.
Simon Knott, November 2021
Pressing the M&Ms into the melted chocolate kisses (Get the recipe at a href="http://fromthegalley.blogspot.com/2009/01/holiday-leftover-treats.html">From the Galley)
When using black or dark fabric choose a contrasting fabric that will stand out. This inside ear has some blues and pinks in the blacks the outside is almost all black with white flecks in the fabric
I made a dryer today to process large quantities of herbarium material. It's detachable, so I can take it with me during field trips...
From Optimal in Germany, a white label test pressing of "Up In Smoke", the debut LP by Ese & The Vooduu People.
THE BEATLES: ABBEY ROAD UK 1ST PRESSING VINYL CD
Taken from the first UK pressing - audipophiles agree that this is the best sounding version of this album!
These transfers were done direct - no remastering of the sound - so you get what was actually mastered on vinyl,
thus you can adjust to your sound preference! SOUNDS AMAZING! THIS NOW YOUR "GO TO" CD!
Great article here too: theaudiophileman.com/stereo-beatles-vinyl/
17 TRACKS.
ABBEY ROAD (1969 Stereo First UK Pressing)
Apple PCS 7088
Released September 26, 1969
Matrix codes: YEX 749-2 // YEX 750-1
01 Come Together
02 Something
03 Maxwell's Silver Hammer
04 Oh! Darling
05 Octopus's Garden
06 I Want You (She's So Heavy)
07 Here Comes the Sun
08 Because
09 You Never Give Me Your Money
10 Sun King
11 Mean Mr Mustard
12 Polythene Pam
13 She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
14 Golden Slumbers
15 Carry That Weight
16 The End
17 Her Majesty