We decided to have a quiet weekend in England (my lack of sleep-ins was beginning to take its toll). I remembered a couple of weeks ago that my grandmothers birthday was on 6th Feb and then realised that it was 125 years since she was born and 120 since her parents decided to take her and their other 6 children to New Zealand. (Also in England 50 years ago on the 6th the Manchester United Football team were killed in an aircrash - so a bit history piece in the paper this week). Since without my grandmother I wouldn't be able to work in England she has become quite a special person to me - someone I admire - she did bring up 2 little girls alone in the 20's and 30's and owned her own home in Masterton - quite an admirable feat back then let alone now. She was born in Tettenhall so armed with maps, AA directions, and some history of the area we took off early on Saturday morning.
A little bit about Tettenhall... when Grandmother was born it was part of Staffordshire but sometime since then it has now become part of Wolverhampton city. 150 years ago it was described as a 'large and fertile parish' comprising some 8000 acres of land. It comprised 'many respectable houses on and near the Shiffnal road, at the foot and on the declivities (had to look that one up in the dictionary!!)of a lofty and picturesque eminence, which rises above the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. The houses were then 'chiefly occupied by gentry, and by persons engaged in the trade and commerce of Wolverhampton'.
It hadn't snowed in Bristol, but it was a pretty heavy frost and as we got closer to Birmingham the snow was sprinkled along the roads and in Tettenhall we got some nice photos, even though it was a bit cold standing having our morning cup of tea and bacon butties (I was shaking so much the tea kept spilling). My great Grandad was apparently a mining engineer - not surprising the family had something to do with mining as it is the black country (coal, limestone, iron ore) and the common saying is 'black by day and red by night' to signify the constant smoke and fires that polluted the sky. Clifton Road wasn't very populated by walkers at 10 o'clock on a snowy morning but I did manage to find one resident who told me a bit of history but nothing to do with my family. She said many of the houses had been demolished or properties subdivided with new houses in front. There was no 96 Clifton Road infact it only went up to about 50ish, but given that besides London it was the most heavily bombed area in England during the war, I guess there could have been a few houses hit and once rebuilding started the roads may have been altered. Anyway, we wandered around the road, took a few photos of houses (some of them made into residential care homes) and then walked to the cemetery with St Michael's church on the side of the hill. Still used, but most of the older grave stones were unreadable and broken, so we found no family names. I'll have to do some research because the family may have moved away at a similar time my greats came to NZ. We wandered around the village which had quite a character. Tettenhall has 2 greens (an upper and lower green) and proudly tell us on the internet that this is quite rare in small towns (or now suburbs of larger city's) and a clock tower (built in 1912 to commemorate the coronation of George V) which had inscribed on the sides ' I labour here with all my might to tell the hours all day and night to tell you', 'for every hour that passes there is a record' and the other two sides had things about peace and joy which we can't remember.
That was Tettenhall. If we did wonder why our greats came over to NZ the Black Country Museum (laid out like a mining town with shops, fish and chips, pubs) showed us the life that even the fairly 'well to do' had and it wouldn't have taken much to get people to think the open air and farm land of NZ was a temptation not to be missed. We had the rare opportunity to go down a coal mine (not down the lift which had no sides and the men had to hold on to the chains), but walked underground and heard about there life underground. 'Pitch black' - not sure if I have ever experienced it before -we couldn't see a thing - no movement either - and I must admit I clung onto Harry during our walk through the tunnels. Quite an eerie experience. I didn't realise that the miners were required to dig the coal from under the wall, by about 18 feet, with only bits of wood to prop up the roof and then crawl out knocking out the wood to capsize the roof. They called the miners role 'the biggest human exterminator in England besides the wars'. You could only imagine the dust, noise, frightened life these men must have had. We were told of how the houses built over the mines subsided - and people crawled through bedroom windows to get into the house (presumably on the so called 2nd floor), of the os's (after a while we realised they meant horses ie the pit ponies), how you could mine anywhere with the permission of the landowner (and obviously some cash). We learnt that iron is made from a mixture of iron ore, limestone and coke all mined locally - and went into a cast iron house (cold in winter?). In the 1920's the area had such a problem with slum housing that they experimented on different types of housing - there was wood, brick and cast iron (the latter cost twice as much to build and so wasn't really a goer but a few made it onto the market). Overcrowding was a problem, with the Victorian houses becoming quite delapidated and built close together so there was little light and open air the slums continued to grow as houses shared the water supply and the toilets. It was described in one notice as '... appalling housing conditions, squalor and disease'. The museum was built in an old swimming pool built in the 1920's where men and women could bathe separately, and where the water was changed once a week and it cost more to swim when the water was fresh and was the cheapest at the end of the week! Besides mining Wolverhampton did have some known celebrities including some car and motorbike works (Sunbeam) and builders, actors etc. We then had a drive through Birmingham (not a lot to see as we didn't stop and explore as it was getting dark) and went to visit a historic home (closed for winter - can't believe it).
Sunday after my sleep in we went to Bath - lots to explore there and it is quite quaint with a lovely botancial garden (the bulbs are just beginning to sprout). We wandered around the Royal Circle (some of the first town houses to be built) in a semi circle, went to the museum in one of the town houses (closed for winter) and visited the Jane Austin museum (what a surprise - it was open!). She had an interesting life, spent about 5 years in Bath in her late twenties, the family living beyond their means and moving progressively down to live in the lower part of town when her friends dismissed her. They then moved back to the country (mother and the 2 unmarried sisters) when a brother (adopted at 12 by a rich family that had no children to inherit their wealth) bought them a house to live in rent free. Although she enjoyed visiting Bath, living there was a different story with no money, requiring a chaperone (she was used to roaming the countryside freely) and she wrote no books while living there. On her return to the country she wrote I think 5 out of the 6 before dying an early death due to they think a rare hormone disease similar to Hodgkins.
No comments:
Post a Comment