Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
It's always worth the drive over to Lytham to see the annual display of snowdrops..... After a pleasant stroll through the grounds, and spotting two woodpeckers which was nice, we had another look around the interiors of the Hall. Lytham Hall was very lucky in being bought by the Guardian Assurance Company who, whilst adjusting it to their needs, kept it in one piece, and were careful with any changes (a very enlightened chairman). The whole thing is now run by a Trust with volunteers doing most things. And an excellent job they have made in restoring the rooms to something like their Victorian heyday. England is famous for its volunteer organisations and more informal groups - with good reason. This time there was an interesting exhibition on the architect John Carr of York with some other of whose buildings we are familiar.......... ........including Swarland Hall where we used to live. Lytham has been so lucky in being able to draw on some terrific experts who give their time for free. An example is this new garden planned by an expert designer and being constructed by volunteers. Absolutely amazing.
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It just so happened that we had to travel to Bolton and Manchester (twice) on consecutive evenings. Not easy when you are catching the last train back from Manchester. The opera was The Barber of Seville screened at Reel Bolton from the Royal Opera House. The singer playing Dr Bartolo was ill but he mimed on stage and his part was sung from the side of the stage by a stand-in. It didn't really affect the performance (although his miming wasn't very good). Particularly good were Rosina and Figaro. Bryn Terfel was playing Don Basilio. I think his applause was more for who he was than how well he sang. Still an excellent production of an opera we had not see before. The first part of our evening with the Halle was a discordant Wrath of God, followed by a Benjamin Britten piece Serenade matching horn and tenor. The tenor's rendering of nocturnal poems was ponderous, the horn was amazing. We were much more into the main event Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony which he wrote after a savage, very public, dressing down by Stalin who hadn't liked his previous piece - not New Russia apparently. In fact Shostakovich was in danger of losing his life, and later said that he was forced to end the piece with optimism and joy. Whatever, it was magnificent. I have since listened to the Fifth on Amazon and I still find it incredible what a poor experience listening to recordings is compared to a live event. There really is no substitute to hearing music live. We then went for our first time to the Stoller Hall just opposite Victoria Station to hear Chetham's talented young musicians. The first part of the programme had a Nordic theme, beginning with Helena Munktell’s Breaking Waves, a piece with strong Swedish influence that paints a picture of a horizon with both gentle, rolling waves as well as waves crashing onto the shore. Very like Fingal's Cave I thought and just as dramatic. This was followed by a stunning performance of Sibelius’ passionate and virtuosic Violin Concerto in D minor, performed by Chetham’s soloist Yixuan Ren. She was absolutely incredible. At times she appeared to be playing two tunes at once and how anyone has the ability to play and play and play a musical piece of length with no music in front of her....well. Stupendous. But then came the turn of the whole orchestra who played Brahms' Symphony Number 4. This was magnificent. What an amazing place Chetham's is. We ran for our train and caught it - just.
We had passed through Lymm in the North of Cheshire but now decided to explore it. We parked by the pub where we would have lunch and wandered down to the dam where in the sixties I had gone fishing. It was much nicer than I remember and the circuit round it was beautiful, a little quirky and very well-used on such a great day. St Mary's Church was built in 1850–52 to a design by John Dobson of Newcastle. The nave and aisles from an older church dating from the 15th century were blown up with gunpowder prior to the rebuilding. They did things properly the Victorians! On circuiting the dam we just had to cross the main road to enter the Dingle a beautiful copse leading to the town centre. What a stunning first view of Lymm when coming out of the Dingle. Lymm was delightful full of character and independent shops. The cross dates from the early to mid-17th century and is built of sandstone, like everything round here. An extension of the Bridgewater Canal is another charming facility for the village. Having enjoyed Lymm very much, we made our way to Warrington where I wanted to see the impressive Town Hall and its Golden Gates. We parked in what is called Warrington's Cultural Quarter near a College. The Town Hall didn't disappoint. It was designed and built in 1750 by James Gibbs as an elegant Georgian mansion, known as Bank Hall and was a home for local merchant Thomas Patten and his family. As more traffic started to use Sankey Street, the Patten family built a high brick wall in front of the building to give them privacy. But when the council bought Bank Hall in 1870 and turned it into Warrington’s new town hall, local people started to complain that they were paying rates which helped to look after the building – but they couldn’t even see it! So Frederick Monks, one of the town’s earliest councillors, came up with an idea. As a local ironmaster, he could give the town hall a fitting entrance. As a young man, Monks was an apprentice of P P Carpenter of Cairo Street. He worked his way up and then helped to create Monks Hall and Company, which became one of the country’s leading manufacturers of iron and steel. Through his business, he heard about a magnificent pair of iron gates made by the famous Coalbrookdale works at Ironbridge. The gates were made for the International Exhibition of 1862, and then intended for Queen Victoria’s Sandringham home in Norfolk. The Queen was meant to see them for the first time at the exhibition but, clearly visible through the gates, was a statue of Oliver Cromwell. As Cromwell had signed King Charles I’s death warrant, royalty didn’t like him very much. The Queen’s courtiers realised she wouldn’t be amused to see the statue, and diverted her. Coalbrookdale found it hard to find a buyer for such grand gates, so Monks was able to buy and bring them to Warrington to stand at the front of the town hall lawn. Monks also presented the cast iron Cromwell statue, designed by John Bell, to Warrington in 1899. It now stands on Bridge Street and is Grade II Listed. An interesting story! We wandered back through the Cultural Quarter to Palmyra Square where are some of Warrington’s finest eateries – Las Ramblas, San Lorenzo, Mr. Laus, Grill on the Square, and the recently-opened Vandal Bar and Kitchen, housed inside the grand Treasury Building. We popped inside - quite posh! The Parr Hall and Pyramid Arts Centre forms virtually the whole of one side of this very pleasant square, so nice we started looking at the cost of the apartments there.
To explore more of the Lune valley West of Kirkby Lonsdale we went straight on at The Hark To Bounty in Slaidburn and crossed the whole of the Trough of Bowland on minor roads. The countryside was spectacular At this stop I disturbed a pheasant and was lucky enough to capture it in flight - rare enough for these birds. Our destination was Wray once a local textile centre with silk mills, tanners and coopers, clog and basket makers, all taking advantage of the fast flowing waters of the Roeburn and Wenning. The sublime mix of 17th century yeoman's houses with cottages and alleys dating from the 18th century, give this village considerable character, as do the cobbles and corbelled doorways. The house builders were proud enough to almost always insert the date of build above the doorways. We then drove through more pretty villages, all unspoilt, to get to Kirkby Lonsdale in time for lunch. Having watched the Fire and Rescue people on an exercise under Devil's Bridge we strolled as usual along the river............ Very unusually the toilets are outside, but when you have to go along a passageway like this, who's complaining. And if toilets are a good indication of the quality of an establishmen (I often think they are) then these were out of this world. The hotel is currently up for sale. I just hope that the new owners will be equally as good as the present ones. A post-lunch wander around Kirkby Lonsdale was the usual pleasure. The next day we had booked lunch at the newly re-opened Assheton Arms on their first day. We are so glad to see it back to something like its old standards (which were a large part of the equation in bringing us to live here). We went by bus which also goes on to Barley where there are a further three good pubs waiting for us to explore.
We hadn't met friends Tony and Trine for a long time so we decided to meet half way between our respective homes at the delightful Devonshire Brasserie which is part of the Bolton Abbey estate. A lovely lunch (£49 for 2 with a glass of good wine) with a roaring fire on a rainy grey day, and excellent service, and a lot of good catching up. Perfect. Walking a short way up the road after lunch we went through what seemed to be a magic doorway to emerge with an incomparable and very English view of the Wharfe and the Priory ( for such it is). We had a pleasant stroll down to the river and then made our way to the Priory. One end of the Priory is still a church (Tony had attended a wedding here). Here is the inner doorway really the late Gothic west facade of the original Priory. The decorated roof, though much restored, is possibly the one installed by the canons shortly before the Dissolution.The unusual wall paintings are Victorian. The Priory’s only surviving ancient glass (fourteenth century), which probably escaped destruction during the Dissolution because it depicted figures from the English royal family, is found in the upper sections of these three windows. The King has not been positively identified, but he may well be Edward III; if so, the Queen would be Philippa of Hainault. The six soaring thirteenth century lancet windows, contain nineteenth century glass designed by Augustus Pugin, a particular hero of mine. Here are a couple of detailed views. The rain failed to spoil our enjoyment, and we all went away very happy with our meal and get-together at a magical location.
The area between David's flat in The Vale Acton and Chiswick is full of interest (and nice houses).....here film studios. But on our first full day we were off with him to Brighton - boarding our train at London Bridge. After a stroll through a dispiriting town centre and a bleak walk along the grey promenade we reached The Lanes which is a quirky and cheery area where we wandered looking for lunch. We made our way to the Royal Pavilion and paid a very hefty £51 for three of us to enter. And inside is the sumptuous fantasy palace built for the extravagant Prince of Wales later King George IV. In 1815, George commissioned John Nash to begin the transformation from modest villa into the magnificent oriental palace that we see today. This stage of the construction took a number of years. Nash superimposed a cast iron frame onto Holland’s earlier construction to support a magnificent vista of minarets, domes and pinnacles on the exterior. And no expense was spared on the interior with many rooms, galleries and corridors being carefully decorated with opulent decoration and exquisite furnishings. Our walk back to the station showed a different and much much better side to Brighton than that experienced on our walk down. On the Sunday we visited Richmond where we had booked lunch. It is always a pleasure to stroll round the very affluent town......... and along the river..... Lunch at the Rock and Rose was good........ Our post-lunch walk was to the top of Richmond Hill and its terrace. On Monday F and I made for the British Library to see its Treasures exhibition. An imposing building of course as it should be for perhaps the largest library in the world (certainly in terms of its collections). The busts show four individuals whose collections of bookks formed the basis of the Library....Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Joseph Banks, Thomas Grenville and Sir Hans Sloane. The exhibition was full of interest - here a leaf from the manuscript of Scott's 'Kenilworth' written in tiny hand (paper was expensive, and Victorians sometimes cross-hatched to make maximum use of their note paper). an annotated score by Handel...... Dickens' Pickwick Papers.... Here Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen with correcyions by Seigfried Sassoon - Owen's 'draught' replaced by 'draft' for instance..... A film script for My Beautiful Launderette...... The Fourth Century Codex Sinaiticus, priceless as it is the earliest surviving manuscript to contain the whole of the New Testament. I loved this almost cartoon version of the Bible from medieval Padua......these were very popular amongst wealthy laypeople apparently..... The Wycliffe Bible in English...... Tyndale's compact New Testament..... Modern illustrated books.... The Magna Carta exhibition was well done......... But we weren't finished.......Michelangelo Da Vinci's notes for a spiral staircase... A First Folio Shakespeare....and lots more. All gave us an appetite. A pity then that the Peyton restaurant within the Library was so uninspiring........ The streets of central London are always a joy to walk around with so many styles of buildings on display....... Next stop a very brief visit to the British Museum..... The display on Alexander The Great and the Assyrian civilisations was monumental...... and Greek and Roman statuary is always eye-stopping...... We thought we better see the Parthenon Friezes again before they disappear back to Greece! After an amazing display of late Roman silver...... We moved along to Medieval Europe....here the Lewis Chessmen of course...... The Sutton Hoo helmet....... and from the same burial more astonishing craftsmanship on this buckle...... The largest cache of gold coins ever discovered in Britain is the Fishpool Hoard (over 1200 coins). Costly medieval jugs.... On our way out we admired the platform shoes of this Roman. The statue was bought by Charles Towneley of Burnley.
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August 2023
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