Rose window

The rooms above the hallway at East Riddlesden Hall have rose windows, one on either side of the house. They are simple, plain glass pieces set in a stone trellis, and each window is different. I decided I'd have a play with them, overlaying one above the other and making them more colourful. I ended up with a few different versions.

 

Lights, Camera, Brontë

The Spring exhibition at East Riddlesden Hall is: Lights, Camera, Brontë: East Riddlesden Hall on Screen. Capitalising, I suppose, on the current frenzy around the new film version of 'Wuthering Heights', it 'uncovers the Hall's starring role in over a century of film and television adaptations of Emily Brontë’s iconic novel'. 

It seems the first version of 'Wuthering Heights', filmed here in 1920, was a silent black and white movie, starring Milton Rosmer as the brooding Heathcliffe and Ann Trevor as the wild free-spirit, Cathy.  A bit of a bodice-ripper, by the looks of the still (below)...  Sadly, the film itself has been lost. Some of the rooms in the Hall have been reimagined for the exhibition using the surviving screenplay, still photos and the director's notes to recreate aspects of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. 

The Hall has a genuine connection to the Brontës, as it was saved from demolition (after a twenty year fight) and donated to the National Trust in 1934 by the Brigg brothers, local historians and philanthropists, who were also instrumental in setting up the Brontë Society and the first Brontë museum in Haworth in the 1890s. 

East Riddlesden was also used for filming in 1992 for the 'Wuthering Heights' version starring Ralph Fiennes, and in 2009 for an ITV version. It has featured too in Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life', 'Sharpe's Justice', 'Lost In Austen' and Channel 5's 'Anne Boleyn'. 

In the kitchen there's this huge grain ark, used for storing grain to make bread. It would have held enough to bake about 190 loaves. 

The Great Barn

In addition to the manor house itself, the East Riddlesden site holds two huge barns. The Great Barn is one of the finest in the north of England, built in the 1600s and testament to the importance of the estate as an agricultural concern. Its oak roof rises from aisle posts and covers an area 120 feet long by 40 feet wide. There are two sets of cart entrances, big enough to allow a pair of oxen pulling a fully loaded wagon to enter the barn. They still have their original doors and, between them, stone flagged floors where grain would have been threshed. You can see the stalls where cattle would have been kept in the winter, as well as a selection of old carts and ploughs.  

The adjacent Airedale Barn has been restored and is now used for weddings and events.

Standing among all the ancient timber and stone, I always find a surprising sense of peace. I like to think it takes me back to my roots, as many of my ancestors were agricultural workers and would have been familiar with these kinds of structures. 

 

Early Spring at East Riddlesden

Early spring at our local National Trust property, East Riddlesden Hall...  The daffodils were amazing. 

The gardens are very well cared for. Whether by volunteers or employed gardeners or a mixture of the two, I don't know, but the flowerbeds were weeded and the shrubs and trees pruned neatly.  Spring flowers were starting to bloom. There were some huge snowdrops, lots of hellebores, the pretty blue scilla and, of course, more daffodils and narcissi. 

The ruined Starkie wing was built as an extension to the hall in 1692 but became neglected and unsafe and so it was demolished in 1905. An adventurous mallard was exploring around the other side of the wall from the lake... 'and he went with a quack and a waddle and a quack'. 

A slow start to spring

A calm pond reflecting a string of lights along the entrance path, and a weeping willow coming into bud - a warm welcome to East Riddlesden Hall, our nearest National Trust property. Small and intimate compared to most National Trust estates, but nevertheless loved and cherished by local people. 

Its gardens showed that spring is on the way, though it seems a slow start this year as it has been quite cold. A sweep of naturalised daffodils looked really pretty on the grass between the Hall and the tithe barn. 

In the more formal gardens behind the Hall, bright blue scilla counterpointed the white hellebores. A flowering quince was just starting to blossom. It will have fruit in the autumn: tart yellow quinces shaped a bit like pears. They're not usually eaten raw but can be made into jam or jelly.  

Incidentally, this is the first successful 'macro' shot I've taken with my new camera. I actually managed to focus this one.  Progress...☺

 

Early music at East Riddlesden Hall

One Sunday recently, I decided to walk along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal towpath to East Riddlesden Hall, our local National Trust property. It's a 17th century manor house, extended and remodelled on the site of an earlier house by a wealthy wool merchant, James Murgatroyd, in the mid-1600s. In the 19th/early 20th century it fell into disrepair and the Starkie wing (below) was almost entirely demolished, leaving only the façade. The hall (though sadly not much of its estate and related buildings) was eventually rescued by far-sighted locals, the Brigg brothers, before being donated to the National Trust in 1938.  

My visit coincided with a performance by a local early music group, Dulciana. They were playing traditional 16th century music on a variety of authentic instruments including recorders, crumhorns, shawms, chalumeau and flutes. I enjoyed listening to them. The instruments take a lot of skill - and breath control - to master, but the resulting music was lyrical and soothing, occasionally breaking into what I imagined was music to accompany those stately court dances. It was a reminder of how music would have been a shared pastime for families around the fireplace in times gone by.

The instruments above are gemshorns, made from the horns of cows or goats. Below, the lady is playing a small wooden crumhorn. I always find it heartwarming when people, passionate about a hobby, are willing to share their enthusiasm and skills with others. It was most enjoyable to listen and learn. 

If you'd like to hear a crumhorn playing, try this video. It's a delight:  

Diwali garden lights

It wasn't only the inside of East Riddlesden Hall that was decorated and lit for Diwali. The gardens had floodlights, lanterns and strings of white LEDs looped in the trees, with rows of tea lights along the paths. It was all rather magical. 

 

Diwali

I noticed that our local National Trust (NT) property, East Riddlesden Hall, was putting on a special display to celebrate Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights. With religious significance for Hindus and several other faiths, it gets its name from the clay lights that people put around their homes for the festival, symbolising the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness, the triumph of good over evil. The Sanskrit word dīpāvali means 'a row or series of lights'.  

Homes are decorated with patterns called rangoli, using coloured powder, sand or - as here - brightly coloured pompoms.  

The Hindu festival is associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. I believe the little statue here represents the Goddess, surrounded by Diya lamps, their clay holders made by local schoolchildren. 

I must confess to knowing very little about the festival, though I know it is celebrated by our local Hindu communities with feasting and fireworks. It was good to see the NT getting into the spirit of things, in collaboration with various local Hindu community groups.  

As the nights draw in and winter encroaches, I felt it was fitting to go and enjoy the lights - and to see East Riddlesden Hall with a different look. It's not normally open at night.

Doors and apertures

I've visited East Riddlesden Hall, our most local National Trust property, lots of times and it still holds a fascination for me. It's a 17th century manor house, rebuilt in the 1640s around an older house for wealthy clothier, James Murgatroyd. (A good Yorkshire name there!) Originally an agricultural estate, it has a Great Barn near the entrance, which would have housed cattle in the winter as well as providing storage for food, fodder and tools. It's a magnificent oak-framed barn with a stone flagged floor and huge entrance doors. There's another old barn too, the Airedale Barn, now used for weddings and events. 

Every time I visit I seem to 'see' different things. This time my attention was focused on all the ancient doors. 

This one has a date stone of 1642 and family initials from when the Murgatroyds bought the estate.

At the rear of the house, across the garden, behind an unassuming little door, lies this old privy. Disconcertingly to our modern sensibilities, it has two latrine holes side by side!

Round the side of the house in a small walled garden, these holes in the wall would at one time have held straw skeps: upturned straw baskets in which bees would have made their honey combs.