Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
First to Blackpool Illuminations (good) and World Fireworks championships (disappointing). Next day we erwe off to 'Morgan and West Unbelievable Science' at Sale's Waterside Theatre. Much enjoed by all. The great tram system took us next to Manchester Ancoats where we walked along the Ashton Canal.......... .....to Flawd on the Marina. Small but with a powerful punch. Everman Cinema and Duck Bowling at The Mill also featured on our agenda.......a lovely feew days.
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Last month we had bought an annual pass to Astley so we were looking forward to going there again. We had hoped to pick up a bit of fruit and veg from the kitchen garden, but by the time we had had our house tour it was all gone. Better luck next time. The 'memorial gardens' are tastefully done and appropriate given that the house was a gift to Chorley from a man who wanted the war sacrifices to be remembered. In this wall are shell cartridges recovered from the area of the Somme where Chorley men went over the top. The way the house is entered now you make your way from a side door to the Morning Room (1625). The ceilings are some of the oldest in the house. The panelling dates from the late Seventeenth Century and is brought from elsewhere. The female figures are earlier than the rest of the panelling. The thing about the plasterwork (and woodwork) in this house is that it is overwhelmingly abundant as we shall see but also that it can be remarkably crude. In the inner courtyard the earliest timber-framed sections of the house are seen, and the use of wooden pegs and wattle and daub. Of the Great Hall behind the front door country Life in 2014 put it thus..."To walk through the front door of Astley Hall on the edge of Chorley in Lancashire is to enter a completely unexpected architectural fantasy. For behind the regimented grids of windows, there lurks one of the most overwhelming displays of plasterwork ever created. Here, the visitor is not merely presented with larger-than-life displays of foliage, fruit and flowers, but also a wild carnage of cherubs cavorting around the hall and its adjacent drawing room. The effect is of an unsupervised children’s party that is just about to descend into playful murder." The painted panelling is remarkable. It dates from the Sixteenth Century and comes originally from Duxbury Hall Chorley. The notable characters depicted were presumably specifically chosen by the Standish family who lived there then and highlight their knowledge and maybe experience of travel. in the 1850's a redesign of Duxbury led to them coming to Astley. We had longer in The Remembrance Room this time in particular talking to the interesting guide. She explained that Chorley after WWI was not going to gather information on its soldiers who had died. The compilation of comprehensive Remembrance Albums (on show) was down to one lady Susannah Knight. Good on her. The Album was compiled between 1919 and 1921 and comprises 777 entries of men of Chorley and District that were killed in the Great War. It provides a uniquely printed biography for each individual and groups them by the church they belonged to. 495 of the entries are accompanied by a photograph. Susannah was a primary school teacher who taught some basic French to the local recruits to the East Lancashire and Loyal North Lancashire Regiments before they went to the front line. This is why my Grandad sometimes dropped a little French into his talk. It never occurred to me that he might have been taught it before he went. There is also a moving collage of all Chorley personnel who have died serving their country in the Twentieth Century. My favourite bedroom by far is the fanciful Stucco Room rather Strawberry Hill Gothick. Lovely. Recently there has been interest in local houses (including Hoghton) in noting so-called witches' marks thought to be used as charms against witchcraft and evil spirits. These marks here were deliberately made by a tallow candle as it has been estimated the flame would have to have been held close for at least fifteen minutes. Today was more of a day for walking in the grounds rather than the Long Gallery.......... We came across the lovely play area called the Royalists Retreat, very well done. And we were interested to see a new Elm tree one of ten planted by Chorley with hopefully protection against Dutch Elm Disease.
We were away for 2 days staying at a hotel in Manchester which enabled us to visit the Stockport Hat Works museum bright and early. At first glance Stockport with its famous viaduct left a lot to be desired. This area next to the hat works will be the new bus station and flats. Work on the viaduct began in March 1839 and despite its scale and flooding from the Mersey, the viaduct was completed in December 1840 and services commenced the same month. Roughly 11 million bricks were used in its construction; at the time of its completion, it was the world's largest viaduct and a major and almost unbelievable feat of engineering in the time given. We were shown round the hat works by a guide who had worked in the industry along with lots of her relatives. Incredible to think that there were once 80 factories in Stockport making hats. Now, not a single one. In the first years of Stockport's rise to becoming the hat making centre, beaver skins were used which processing turned to felt. Stockport’s hatting industry was unique because it specialised in making hats out of fur felt, not wool felt. Other local towns, such as Denton and Hyde, also made a lot of hats, but they made more wool felt hats. In hatting’s heyday (about 1875 to 1935) there were about thirty major hat factories in Stockport. A large factory could produce about 5000 felt hats a week. And because Stockport was the fur felt hatting town, most of those hats were made from rabbit skins once beavers were hunted to virtual extinction. Every process was clearly explained to us via the original machinery. Like many Victorian industries hat making was full of dangers, a lot of them hidden and not understood. Something particularly horrific was the prearation of the fur. The pelts were treated with a mixture of acid and mercury in vats like this from which they were extracted by hand. The mercuric nitrate applied to the pelts by the furriers was highly toxic. When inhaled, it found its way into the bloodstream. Sufferers began with shaking, slurring and forgetfulness, which led eventually to confusion, mental distress and death. Thus the expression 'as mad as a hatter' was the truth behind the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. The basic shape from felt was a large cone which emerged from a machine like this. It then had to be shrunk down to size. All kinds of hats were made, including expensive ones for the exclusive London firm of Christy's. All in all one of the most fascinating museums you could possibly visit. We then had chance to look round Stockport with its grand and sadly demised department store...... elegant market..... and Staircase House a beautifully restored 15th century townhouse situated in Stockport's historic Market Place. Robinsons Brewery which makes excellent beers and owns lots of good pubs is still bang in the town centre. Stockport Infirmary now Millenium House was designed as a hospital by Richard Lane in Greek Revival style, and was extended in 1870–72, and again in 1898–1900, then converted into offices in the 1990s. The town hall is just as magnificent as Manchester's. It was designed by Alfred Brumwell Thomas in what has been called free Baroque style (seems about right!). It has a front of Portland stone, and is in brick with Portland stone dressings elsewhere. The afternoon for me was given over to watching ManCity have yet another exciting victory over Southampton (4 - 0). In the evening Manchester heading towards Mr Sam's Chop House through the Halloween decorations. Mr Sam's was very atmospheric. I don't usually like downstairs restaurants, but this was great. Service terrific and food exceptional. There's even a statue of L S Lowry at the bar (this was one of his favourite haunts). Next day a drive to Lyme Hall - in Cheshire but bordering Derbyshire. We used our National Art Pass to gain access to this NT property. The house is cram bang full of interest but most memorable are perhaps the magnificent fireplaces and ceilings everywhere. Here in the Drawing Room the heavy overmantel which bears Elizabeth I’s coat of arms reaches almost up to the ceiling. Here the inside courtyard. Just to mention the house belonged to the Leghs and artefacts from one Legh in particular - Thomas (1792-1857) - who undertook an extensive Grand Tour are to be found all around the house. Notable were these original Fourth Century Greek steli (tomb coverings). The stained glass in the Drawing Room includes medieval glass that was moved from the original Lyme Hall to Disley Church and returned to Lyme in 1835. Thomas Legh was one of the excavators of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae and his plaster copy of the original which is displayed in The British Museum adorns the first floor corridors. The Sarum Missal at Lyme is the only surviving, largely intact, book of its kind. Printed by William Caxton in Paris 1487, the book is also unique in having belonged to one family for over five centuries and represents with its many handwritten notes by generations of the family the changing religious views of the country during that period. The family was Catholic and Royalist. In the Saloon a magnificent limewood pendant carving, part of a group of carvings by school of Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), about 1684, this carving representing 'music', with up-turned trumpets and flower wreaths at the top and winged-cherubs, further flower wreaths, a violin, recorders, manuscript sheets, a quill and a string of pearls below, all united by ribbons. Stylistically similar carvings survive at nearby Chatsworth, suggesting the maker may have been a local craftsman. When the carvings were moved from the New Parlour (now the Dining Room) to their current position in the Saloon by the architect Lewis Wyatt they were hung centrally as trophies rather than surrounding the panels, as would have originally been intended. Here Art and Science. Whether School of Grinling Gibbons or no, breathtaking. Unusually at Lyme you visit all three floors, and on the top floor the nursery..... and impressive Long Gallery...... We wandered around the grounds, lovely of course. ..........particularly the Italian Garden, and the Lake..... and, all of a piece with the house, the Conservatory. For lunch we drove to Disley, beautiful but houses beyond our price range. The Rams Head Inn in the centre of the village was built by the Legh family in c. 1640, though the current exterior was built around 1840. It was formerly a lodge belonging to the Lyme Park estate. It became a main coaching stop on the Manchester to London route. The sculpture is to Dame Sarah Joanne Storey, DBE (née Bailey; born 26 October 1977) and her husband Barney Storey (also Gold Medallist). She is a British Paralympic athlete in cycling and swimming, and a multiple gold medalist in the Paralympic Games and six times British (able-bodied) national track champion (2 × Pursuit, 1 × Points, 3 × Team Pursuit). Her total of 28 Paralympic medals including 17 gold medals makes her the most successful (by gold medals) and most decorated (by total medals) British Paralympian of all time as well as one of the most decorated Paralympic athletes of all time. She has the unique distinction of winning five gold medals in Paralympics before turning 19. Her major achievements include being a 29-time World champion (6 in swimming and 23 in cycling), a 21-time European champion (18 in swimming and 3 in cycling) and holding 75 world records. Amazing. The interior of the pub was somewhat Strawberry Gothic (just my style). The food was excellent. In the evening we were at Stockport's grand Plaza Theatre for the finale of its 90th Birthday Week of Celebrations. This was 'an affectionate and nostalgic romp through the first hundred or so years of cinema with Robert Powell and Liza Goddard. It was an old-fashioned evening all round even with flying organ for the Intro!
We were booked to see ENB's Swan Lake in the evening and the Halle the following evening, so we booked an overnight in the Leonardo hotel. We got there via the Parsonage Gardens and the Fletcher Moss botanical gardens side by side in Didsbury. The Parsonage Gardens were very pleasant indeed even on a day of on and off heavy rain. .....and Fletcher Moss was a garden worth exploring further on another occasion. We enjoyed our brief visit. Leonardo uprated us to an Executive room (the first time in my life i have been uprated for anything), very spacious and well-equipped and with views of Manchester on the build. There was a packed audience at Swan Lake and we were treated to a powerful and well-staged performance. The audience was typically Manchester with everyone on our row talking to each other, me with an even older Manchester City fan. Drinks were welcomed in the stalls and the whole atmosphere was very very friendly and appreciative. The Palace Theatre is pretty special too. We used the Metro a lot and the journey through the cityscape is always interesting. Next day we enjoyed some of Manchester's Edwardian buildings....... and went loking for the Anthony Burgess cafe in an area with lots of development potential, some realised and some not as here...........the cafe was inexplicably closed. We then went looking for a boulder within the University precincts which were a nice surprise. The boulder in question is quite famous. Balanced on a stone plinth in front of the Beyer Building, the andesite boulder weighs over 20 tons and measures up at eight feet by nine feet by five feet. It’s understood to have made its way to the area from Borrowdale in the Lake District during the last Ice Age, around 20,000 years ago. Having journeyed over 80 miles, the well-traveled boulder remained at rest 28 feet below the surface for centuries. That is, until February 1888, when workers discovered the rock beneath the Oxford Road corridor while making excavations during the construction of new sewers. The rock has been on public display in its current position since the excavations. Impressive. Having lunched at the Art Gallery we went on another 2pm tour. The Guide was not as proficient this time but we did see areas not seen before ........... including the old theatre of what was the Manchester Athenaeum Club. It was wholly given over to an exhibition 'Trading Station : How Hot Drinks Shape Our Lives' I particularly enjoyed this majolica teapot, and this novelty coffin made by workers on a tea estate over two weeks..... We had time to look at some of the permanent collection before wandering to King Street and having tapas at El Gato Negro, as excellent as the reviews..... Our concert was amazing . ‘The chemistry between the Hallé and its music director bristles with spontaneity and colour,’ was the recent verdict of The Spectator. Whenever they make music together something special occurs – clearly Sir Mark Elder’s visits are not to be missed! Smetana’s portrayal of the river Vltava is a work Sir Mark ‘adores’, particularly for its depiction of its bubbling source, which will be exquisitely conveyed by the Hallé’s flautists. Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto is both fiendishly virtuosic and laden with his characteristic ardent, late-romantic lyricism. It will be performed by Siberian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov an artist, with whom Sir Mark has been keen to collaborate. Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) is, for him ‘a deeply affecting work’, a Hallé party-piece, full of orchestral solos that players and audiences love. Kolesnikov was, no other word for it, 'incredible' and the applause which greeted his performance elicited an unexpected impromptu playing of some Chopin which was delicious.
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