Kinver

Sometimes it just happens in this electronic age - you write a whole lot of stuff for your blog and then it disappears. It wasn't all plain sailing writing it either - I got some html code mixed up in the blog and couldn't save it for a while until I figured out how to delete the code 'go to the edit html button and delete all the bits that are highlighted blue' I discovered- Mike would be so proud of his Mum - but maybe not as I managed to delete everything without intending too. It has been a mixed up week weather wise - hopes of a warm sunny week after one warmish day were squashed when black thunder clouds, rain storms, mists all appeared during the week with the occasional breeze thrown in for good measure. We managed a couple of walks during the week - one where I finally found the house where Cary Grant was born (walked past it numerous times - but only now looked up to see the little blue plaque telling us of the house's history). Funny, after seeing the house I began to romanticise about the history of this little late 19th century house where Archibald Alec Leach - but it wasn't romantic really at all he had quite a sad childhood. In this house, not far from where we live, Archie lived a fairly non-eventful life until he was 9, when he came home from school to discover his mother had gone to a seaside resort - never to return (other reports said he was told she had died). He later found out (in his late 20's) that she had been seriously depressed and put into an institution - a very misunderstood health problem back in those days. When he was 14 he joined a group of comedians (obviously keen to leave Bristol and not a happy chappie as he forged his father's signature and lied about his age). Here the actor to be began to learn some of those acting skills and in 1920 he went with the troupe to Broadway to star in the 'Good Times' - I guess the rest is history as the saying goes - except that he did come back to visit his mother and stayed at the big hotel overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge. He was married 5 times (that is one wife less than Henry VIII - but to my knowledge none of them were beheaded so I guess that's a positive). Anyway, we've walked past his statue a few times (including when we went for the Bristol bike race recently) and so obviously Bristolians are proud to have bred such an important person even if he became an American citizen later on in life.

Given the weather was a bit up and down I also thought about the history of that wonderful invention - the umbrella. Last weekend we drove past the crowds waiting to go into the Banksy exhibition (won't put any more details about him until we get to the exhibition). The queues continue to be long - up to a 2-3 hour wait. It rained last Sunday and as we were driving along, we looked at each other hopefully and thought that the queue might have gone to have a coffee instead...but we had forgotten about the tenacity of the English and their willingness to queue for anything... and we didn't stop...except at a red light to take a photo. They have opened the museum for one late night a week now, to cope with the crowds so maybe next week we'll give it a go. Anyway, back to the history lesson -the umbrella was invented over four thousand years ago (there has been many discovered in archaelogical sites in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and China). Initially given the warmth of those countries they provided shade but then the Chinese decided to waterproof their sun umbrellas to make them rain umbrellas (as we know it does rain quite heavily in parts of China). They waxed and lacquered their paper parasols long before the wet European continent and England thought about it. Initially in this part of the world they were only seen as 'suitable for women'. It was around the 1700's that famous people such as the writer Jonas Hanway (I hadn't heard of him till now which just goes to show I still have lots to learn about famous people) used an umbrella in public and a number of English gentleman followed suit - carrying their "Hanway" in inclement weather (I can just imagine them saying "Have you brought my Hanway, Jeeves?"). The first umbrella shop was opened in London in 1830 and was called "James Smith and Sons" (no relation to the old James Smiths in Wellington that I could find).
On Thursday while I went to work Harry went to Donington where the British Round of the Moto GP was held - that's motorbike racing for those of us who didn't know. He went with a crowd of his work mates as work sponsors a rider. It was a practise day, and a bit of a race day, spoilt a little bit by the intermittent showers - a challenge for the racers but not for Harry as he had remembered his Hanway.
On Friday we went to Chris's for takeaways and on Saturday we headed off to Kinver which was very exciting as I had seen it in a pamphlet a while ago (I have a new hobby - collecting pamphlets - so on rainy days or boring evenings I go through them to work out where we can go - I ditch them after we have visited them otherwise we would need rather a large cardboard box). I had read about the Kinver Edge and Rock Houses and was just waiting for a weekend when we could take off back up to the Worcester area. It was a lovely sunny and warm day and we walked for around 3 hours along the top of the hill past a very old Iron Age Hill Fort (so old it looked like a sloping field) and through tree lined hill tops and sometimes blackberry, bracken and stinging nettle. In books and on the net the 'Edge' is described as a 'spectacular high sandstone ridge once home to Britain's last cave dwellers'. During our wander, we stumbled across what I thought was a landing site for UFOs and Harry thought were beehives, but finally we realised it was the reservoir we had been searching for - underground lake with vents and not the picturesque watery sight we were expecting. So we clambered down quite a steep path (after couple of wrong turnings) and walked back along the bottom of the ridge and found Nanny's Rock where people used to live.
Then onto the Holy Austin rock houses(the real point of all that exercise). The rock is named after a 16th century monk who lived near the site and the houses have been around for sometime. J Heely in his book 'The Beauties of Enville' (another famous person I hadn't heard of until this weekend) described walking from Hagley to Enville in 1777.
"I now stood on the very edge of the awful declivity looking with giddy head into the deep hollow below, lingering irresolute whether I should attempt the almost perpendicular side of it or stand the fury of the storm...I hastened therefore down the tremendous steep slope to some smoke (it wasn't that steep for kiwis as fit as us but I guess we had a path to follow) I saw issue from a romantic rock near the foot of it...I found this exceedingly curious rock inhabited by a clean and decent family who entertained me...how long they had lived there and the immense trouble they had been at in excavating the rock for their purposes...the rooms are curious warm and commodious and the garden extremely pretty...".
Here people lived until the 1950's when they were forced to leave when "officialdom decreed that the cave village no longer met the requirements of modern living and moved the remaining occupants into council houses" - I think that meant that they weren't on the town sewage system (funny how things change because the septic tank is a common thing in many countries including here). Actually I think it would have been a nice place to live. Cool in the summer (not sure you need that), warm in the winter with the fires burning with a bit of subsistence living thrown in. It is easy for me to understand the attraction when you compare the industrial 'black country' not far away. After they were evacuated the houses stood empty for a number of years until gifted to the National Trust who spent quite a while and lots of money renovating them - basing their work on old paintings including one by Alfred Rushton of Sarah and Joshua Fletcher sitting in their front room by the fire). The families living in the houses were actually considered well off, not poor at all, and apparently lived quite good lives - reasonably self sufficient). At their peak there were 12 families comprising of over 80 people living there, practising all sorts of trades like iron foundry workers, agricultural labourers and broom makers. The families according to historians lived quite comfortably with piped gas (in later years), water collected from a well, and a 'fridge' in the deepest part of the cave (constant 11 degrees in caves we've learnt).
Under the houses and the Edge there is a huge maze of tunnels we were told - these are followed around by lots of rumours - some suggest that in the Second World War the tunnels were excavated to take large modern articulated lorries to create a factory. There were many smaller interconnecting tunnels and the factory was managed by Rover to make aircraft engine parts. During the cold war the complex became a nuclear bunker or RSG (Regional Seat of Government) and later on it included things like a BBC Studio, Telecommunications, operatIng theatre. I'll probably never find out the truth cos it is all bathed in secrecy and mystery.

On Saturday night we drove to Redditch to stay in a hotel (bits built in 1921, others in what appeared to be about the 40's and then one wing definitely in the 60's - the last definitely out of character). It was set in what would have been a lovely garden if they could find a gardener courageous enough to tackle the blackberry and the rather overgrown 17 acres of woodlands - but even a lawn mower would have made a huge difference. The room was very clean and spacious so we enjoyed putting our feet up after an energetic day culminating in following 6 signs, climbing 25 steps, going down another 24, through 6 doors and around 7 corners to Room 112. We picnicked in the sun on the side of a road in a suburb of Redditch called 'Headless Cross' and drove down a street called 'Other Street' to find a sunny patch of grass - the town seemed devoid of parks (or at least sunny ones). We had a fairly substantial breakfast in the morning and then off to Witley Court.
A hundred years ago, Witley Court was one of England's great country houses - a place where if you were important you were invited to party in the garden and conservatory in summer and the ball room in winter. Today it is a ruin, the result of a disastrous fire in 1937, and a demolition sale where all the 'special' things that make a home a home were sold. We the public, can now wander around a large ruin but only on the ground floor as the top storeys have no floors. The gardens are rather vast (we could send their gardener to the hotel for a few nights) and a very impressive (but ugly when the water wasn't flowing) fountain. The largest which did have an impressive display on the hour represents the story of Perseus and Andromeda - who you might ask...
" Cepheus and Cassiopeia the king and queen of Ethiopia had a daughter called Andromeda. Andromeda was beautiful. Cassiopeia was proud of her daughter and boasted about her beauty constantly. Cassiopeia even said that Andromeda was more beautiful than all the daughters of Poseidon the sea god. This made them very angry, so Poseidon decided to punish Cassiopeia. Poseidon sent a huge sea monster (called the Kraken) to ravage the land of Ethiopia. In order to calm Poseidon down, Andromeda was to be sacrificed to the monster. Unable to change Poseidon's mind, she was chained to a large rock by the seashore to await her fate.Luckily Perseus happened to be flying by. He had winged sandals! He was carrying with him the severed head of the Gorgon, Medusa. It had snakes for hair and was so ugly that any creature that gazed directly at it was turned to stone. Perseus saw Andromeda and the dangerous position she was in. With quick thinking he uncovered the head of Medusa, pointing it straight at the eyes of the sea monster. Just in the nick of time the sea monster turned to stone.Perseus and Andromeda fell in love and were married to save the kingdom. Andromeda's mother Cassiopeia was not very happy about the marriage! The Greeks imagined that when Perseus, Andromeda and Cassiopeia died their images were put into the night sky as constellations (groups) of stars."
Got all this from nmm.ac.uk including the picture below.

Anyway, a lot of people renovated the house over its life time including John Nash who was responsible for the Brighton Pavilion. We really enjoyed the wander around a huge ruin (it took 3 tonnes of coal to heat the house in one day when the roof was on and it was lived in) so quite a big place and then wandered to the little Great Witley Church attached to the house. It was surprisingly beautiful inside and immediately we thought 'European' and later read it as having "Italianate Baroque interior". We visited the tearoom down a little path and stopped to have a cup of coffee and Harry had a 'devonshire cream' (real cream not clotted cream) and I had a cheese scone (I was so excited when I saw them on the menu as that is something they don't do over here) - so we felt we had had a real treat. We then drove onto Great Malvern to the Morgan factory visitor centre (oops closed only open Monday to Thursday and Friday mornings). It is the 100th anniversary of the Morgan car and there's lots of festivities on next week which we can't go to.
And just when my heart needed a little warming Jill sent me these photos...