Three Stops At Stotfold

While I had some internal argument with myself about going to the Bedfordshire Steam Rally recently, there was never any doubt that I'd go to Stotfold Working Steam Weekend if at all possible. Although it's fairly small it's my favourite steam event of the year. The only problem was whether I'd find anything new to put on the blog. Here are three exhibits that tempted me to linger.

The Biggest Little Sawmill

One corner of the showground is set aside for steam-driven sawmills:

First you need to select your log and move it into position using a steam crane. The beauty of this show is that you see many of the machines being used for their original purpose.

Then you need to build up a head of steam in this engine which is going to power one of the sawmill set-ups. You'll notice that it has no cab or place for the driver; that's because it's the old type of "stationary engine". That's a slight misnomer as it was obviously mobile, but needed to be pulled around by a team of horses, or these days probably another engine.

And here's the mighty steam bandsaw, which could produce boards and beams from very large lumps of wood. On the side it says "Hadrian W. Spooner & Sons" which sounds like an excellent name for a nineteenth-century entrepreneur. When I got home I Googled "Hadrian Spooner" - I mean, there can't be many folk about with that name. 

Far from being a Victorian gent he turns out to be a very alive TV personality who has appeared on Scrapheap Challenge, The Biggest Little Railway In The World and other shows which highlighted his eccentric engineering expertise. I'm fairly certain he's the man in the white T-shirt in the above photos.

Meanwhile the crane is moving another log for a different saw. But I found myself more drawn to a smaller arrangement....

Meet "Steady Eddie" and his steam-powered saw-bench. As you can see he's utilising a small model steam engine to run his saw. It just shows you how much power can be generated by such tiny machines. But it's time to move on....

Another Mini Machine

Here's a charming little model of a thrashing machine. Its full-sized cousins were widely used on farms to separate the grain from the straw and chaff before the advent of the combine harvester. There's a sign to tell you its story:

                "This is a fully working, 3 inch to the foot ( 1/4 size ), model of a

                Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies AM54 Medium thrashing machine.

                     It was built over a period of about 12 months, starting from

                purchased drawings. However, it soon became apparent that the

                drawings were both inaccurate and lacking in detail & so were

                abandoned. The model was finished by studying pictures, books & the

                internet, as well as climbing over a full-size machine living nearby.

                    All castings ( nearly 200 ) were home cast from patterns produced

                by 3D printing."

And this is the little engine that powers the model (and, I presume, that's the man who built it). Although it's small, and although there are demonstrations by restored, full-size thrashing machines at most shows, I think this serves a vital educational purpose. The real things are noisy, dusty and too big to take in easily from a single vantage point, especially for little people. This one is an ideal teaching resource. It can get very cluttered and confusing around a real thrashing machine....

See what I mean?

Memories Of Monty

There are also some exhibits which have no connection to steam. Most of these shows attract a few old military vehicles....

Impressive though some are, I rarely photograph them. Not very colourful and just not something which attracts me. And this small, wooden caravan would never have caught my eye had Les not been involved in protracted negotiations about the price of a jacket.

It's not even the original, just a replica of one which is kept at the Imperial War Museum in nearby Duxford. It was first used by General Annibale "Electric Whiskers" Bergonzoli of the Italian army. But it was stolen (or in army-speak "liberated") at the battle of Beda Fomm in Libya.

It was later used as living accommodation for General Montgomery when commanding the 8th Army's desert campaign. Churchill even stayed in it when visiting Monty. When another caravan was captured, the original of this one was then used as Montgomery's office.

And here comes Les. It turned out that they didn't have the jacket in his size anyway!

Take care.

Covering The Waterfront

We'll start off today just south of the city of Ely. The country scene in the first photo is just a hundred yards or so (or metres if you like) south of the railway bridge and after that you're in a busy, built up area of pubs, restaurants and everything to do with leisure boating and holidays afloat.

We're going to stroll right through the riverside area of the old city and out the other side. It's only about half a mile, Britain's Olympic gold medalist, Keely Hodgkinson, can cover the distance in one minute 56.72 seconds. We'll take a bit longer than that. 

We'll pass boatyards and marinas, all looking very peaceful and relaxed. It wasn't always like this; Ely, although a tiny settlement and a long way from the sea, was once a thriving  port with ships making their way though the fens along the Great Ouse river.

The white building on the left of the view above is the Cutter Inn, which gets its name, not from a type of boat as I used to think, but from "the cut", a man-made channel which brought the river right next to the higher ground that Ely was built on to make a more convenient dockyard.

We pass The Boatyard, which specialises in rebuilding and refitting canal boats and making them suitable for modern leisure cruising.

The City of Ely takes great pride in their colourful floral displays which brighten every corner. It's also one of the few places I know where almost all the car parks offer free unlimited parking.

The Maltings now operates as an entertainment, conference and wedding venue for the city, and there's also a restaurant attached to it. But as the name suggests it was once a factory producing malt, from wheat brought in through the docks, for the local brewing industry. The weather-vane is in the shape of a malt-shovel.

Nearby other buildings which were clearly once warehouses have been put to new uses. That strange, sticky-outy wooden structure would have housed the pulley system which winched goods into the upper part of the building.

Overlooking this former hive of activity are the grand houses of the entrepreneurs of the day who liked to keep a close eye on their investments and profits.

Today the main business making a profit during the summer months is the ice-cream van. In his working days Les often used to deliver to businesses around here and got to know the ice-cream man - not saying that my brother is fond of ice-cream or anything like that!

The art gallery was just one of Les's customers.

I expect the giraffe is something to do with the gallery.

Right opposite is one of the entrances to the modern marina. It's called Cathedral Marina and I suspect it has views of the great building which are similar to those from the train, which runs just behind the picture above (you can just see the railway's overhead wires). Annoyingly you only get occasional glimpses of the cathedral from our riverside path.

Which is not to say that there's no beauty to be had from where we are!

Our footsteps lead us through the little park on the left bank of the river which has many benches for anyone who's tiring towards the end of our half-mile stroll.

Even in a place like Ely there's some of the "picturesque unsightliness" which always seems to go hand in hand with any enterprise involving boats.

And then, having passed under another railway bridge, we're out in open country once more. Which of course brings up the question of how such a small settlement comes to be called "a city" at all. Having a cathedral has certainly helped in the case of Ely, but there's no rule that says that every town with a cathedral is a city - or that every city has a cathedral. Having a university doesn't necessarily elevate you to city status either. Nor does having a certain size or population. The only rule, as far as I can see, is that a place becomes a city if the king, or queen, says so.

Which only leaves one outstanding piece of business to be conducted before we leave. Les discovered that his friend, the ice-cream man, has retired and his daughter is now in charge - but the ice-cream is excellent as ever. So we'll go and sit by the river for a while, watching the swans glide and the swallows skim over the water, before heading for home.

Take care.

Church Fittings

 I couldn't resist. I just had to pop into Little Easton Church while we were in the area.

Exactly what do I like about these old buildings? Well, sometimes they are attractive buildings in their own right. Most date from a time before the trade of architect was invented, but those who built them put all their taste and skill into every aspect of construction. Then others, because of their situation and atmosphere, exude a deep sense of peace - even to an old heathen like me. But most of all they stand as monuments to the passing centuries and the people who have gathered here.

I could easily tell you that this church is twelfth century, but that doesn't tell you half the story; that's just the opening sentence in a long and mysterious tale that is peopled by a huge cast of curious characters.

At some stage, very soon after the nave of the church was built, it was decided that the walls should be decorated with icons. This is reckoned to be a representation of a prophet. Peering intently at it raises more questions than it answers. I'd like to know the person who painted it and from where he received his instruction and inspiration. We do know a little about the men who were in charge here in the early days.

A record of their names has been preserved and a board has recently been made for us to peruse. It seems that a lot of them were called "John", but one was known by the name of "John At Hell"(!) Now, what sort of name is that? What kind of rector might he have been? They also seem to have got through some dozen rectors in just over 50 years. Was that when the Black Death was visiting this tranquil backwater?

Perhaps the Rev At Hell would be able to help me out with my next conundrum. In the chancel there is an old tomb and on top of it reclines a knight in armour. You'll find something like it in many churches, but this one is different. All the others are life-size or thereabouts, but this chap is only about two feet (60cm) long. Now I've heard of the Elfin Knight, but that's ridiculous. 

After the church had stood for a couple of hundred years more wall paintings were needed, and this one is huge. You'll often read that these served as a Bible for those who were unable to read, which was pretty much everybody. But church services were very different in those days. There was no sermon - and no seating. There was a good deal of walking around to various icons painted on the walls. The priest intoned prayers in Latin and the layman can have had little understanding of what was going on.

It became the clergy's job to say prayers for the dead - or at least the wealthy among them - and some time in the fifteenth century the South Chapel was built for the purpose. It's to the left of the first picture I showed you of the church. The stained glass dates from 1621 when it was made for the Maynards' private chapel and wasn't moved here till 1857.

Sir Henry Maynard and his wife, Lady Susan Pearson both died in 1610 and had this enormous alabaster memorial erected so that we should not forget them. Their children are shown kneeling in prayer. Some are set further back from the others, representing those who pre-deceased their parents. Sir Henry's wealth could do nothing to protect them from that tragedy.

Sir Henry, despite his armour, was a politician rather than a fighting man and rose to become Deputy Lieutenant of Essex. He was born in Devon and presumably moved here when he married Lady Susan who had been born in Little Easton.

Frances Cavendish, who became another Lady Maynard on her marriage, has a memorial tucked into the corner of the chapel - and has the indignity of sharing the space with some plastic stacking chairs. She died at the age of just twenty as she gave birth to her third child. Her husband paid for this memorial.

And a huge memorial to him stands close by. And so these reminders of the great and wealthy of the parish pile up across the centuries.

1660 saw the artist of the village once more required to mount his step ladder and commit paint to plaster, much in the fashion of his medieval ancestors. This time it was King Charles I who needed his coat of arms to seen in every church in the land. The passing years have given a patina of shabby grandeur to the once brilliant hues.

The Victorian age was a great time of church restoration - sometimes saving buildings from decay and sometimes tearing down what was good and replacing it with the ugly and inappropriate. The colour of the glass, with lots of strong reds and blues, is typical of that age, as is the sentimental subject matter of Faith, Hope and Charity.

Charles Chambers of Balsham in Cambridgeshire made the wooden cover to this old font in the early years of the twentieth century and there's an unobtrusive notice recording this contribution to the fabric of the church.

As we saw in the previous post, many famous people visited the little village in the early years of the twentieth century. One such was the actress Ellen Terry who loved to visit the church. This odd little plaque was erected by her friends on her death in 1928.

And here's our friend Frances Evelyn Maynard, or Daisy Countess of Warwick, who died in 1938, just before the outbreak of the second world war and the coming of British and American forces to the peaceful scene.

And they are remembered too, through two colourful modern windows in the North chapel.

We've come a long way from the days of Rev John At Hell, but to bring our story round to an appropriate conclusion we need to go out into the churchyard and seek out a gravestone from the year 2000.

Another Rev John, this time John Michael Filby aka "The Rocking Reverend Jack Filby....Promoted to Glory 4th October 2000....Wearing his cross, his cowboy hat and boots....he played his guitar...🎸...Now sings my soul"

Take care.