October 2, 2018 by heavenhappens

As sure as God’s in Gloucester

I could write about the beauty of the Cotswolds at any time of the year because there is always something to enjoy whatever the weather. From cosy cottages to magnificent manor houses, castles and cathedrals, the Cotswold stone oozes strength and security, and promises a warm welcome. The landscape too, never disappoints . There are rolling hills, lush pastures, rivers, lakes and woodland enough to please anyone who enjoys the outdoors. The towns and villages between them have enough festivals, events and attractions to keep locals and visitors entertained all year round.

But for history it is hard to beat Gloucester City.

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During the recent History Festival in the city, every aspect of its past was celebrated and I was lucky enough to go to many talks, walks and events.

Gloucester’s history goes back at least 2000 years. In fact it was such an important place in Roman times that it was granted colonial status by Emperor Nerva. This meant that the citizens of Gloucester had the same rights and privileges as the citizens of Rome. There are parts of the Roman city walls still visible in the heart of the shopping centre.

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Some local historians believe that Christianity was brought to Gloucester by the Roman soldiers. After the fall of the Roman Empire many of the soldiers did not return home but retired to villas around Gloucester. It is thought that ‘churches’ grew from the grass roots up, with people getting together to celebrate and share their faith.

By Saxon times Briton had a Christian King, Alfred. He was succeeded by his daughter, Aethelflaed, who was a major influence on Gloucester’s development. She designed the layout of the city so that it was easily defended from invaders. The basic layout still exists and is very easy to navigate. There are four main roads; Northgate, Southgate, Eastgate and Westgate, which radiate out from ‘the Cross’. The actual cross no longer exists but it used to be a very important focal point. The monks of Greyfriars laid pipes from nearby Robinswood Hill, to provide fresh drinking water for the townsfolk. Running off these four main roads are fascinating narrow lanes. Many with names alluding to the enormous influence of the church in the city.

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By the Middle Ages, Gloucester was among the most important towns in Britain along with London and Winchester. King Edward the Confessor held his great councils in Gloucester every year. And, after 1066, William the Conqueror continued the tradition. It was here in Gloucester, probably at Kingsholm, that in 1085 William commissioned the Domesday Book as a comprehensive survey of the country.

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Gloucester’s strategic importance continued, and, as I wrote in an earlier blog, the boy king Henry 111 was crowned in what was St Peter’s Abbey in 1216. This is still the only coronation that has taken place outside London.

Gloucester city went from strength to strength in the following centuries: Iron ore, coal and timber were readily available nearby in the Forest of Dean, and Gloucester had a busy inland port and ship canal. This led to thriving business and trade. Dry docks and large warehouses were built alongside the canal. Then later, the railway made the movement of goods even easier. I wrote about Butler’s Wharf once before and I am so glad that I saw it before it was damaged due to fire. It has now been renovated and is starting a new life as small apartments which are currently for sale.

Warehouses

For me, the best part of the History Festival was learning about all the fascinating characters who came from Gloucester and left their mark on the world. It is almost unbelievable that just one relatively small city could have produced so many influential people.

As I have a daughter who lives in America, I was particularly interested in how far back our strong links go. For instance, did you know that the oldest bells in North America were made in a Gloucester foundry in 1744 by one of the Rudhall family? Abraham Rudhall (1657-1736) was the first of a whole family of bell founders in Gloucester. The peel of bells was transported, free as ballast, by sailing ship, and hung in Old North Church in Boston. These bells, which still ring out today, were rung by one of America’s greatest folk heroes – Paul Revere. The bell tower actually played a crucial role in the American War of Independence. A coded signal was arranged, one lantern in the tower would warn that British were advancing overland, while two lanterns meant they were coming by sea. Paul Revere rode through the night to warn troops in Concord that the British were advancing overland from Boston.

Another Gloucester man, George Whitefield (1714-70), became an itinerant preacher and evangelist. At Oxford University he met the Wesley brothers and joined their Christian Society, becoming a Methodist. He travelled to America several times and was famous, although not always popular, for his preaching abilities. He was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and to this day he is more famous in the states than here in the UK.

Here is one man’s assessment of George Whitefield:

From time to time until his death his whole life was taken up in travelling and preaching not only in Britain but in Ireland and America.

Thirteen times altogether he did cross the Atlantic.

His journeyings by land amounted to tens of thousands of miles. The number of sermons he preached almost exceeds belief – nine, ten, twelve, fourteen in a week – sometimes four in a day, on one occasion seven!

In churches – and when turned out of churches, in chapels, drawing rooms, barns, streets, fields; at early morning, noon and night, his voice was lifted up, proclaiming to rich and poor the glad tidings of salvation.

These labours were often carried on amidst opposition from Bishops and clergymen, magistrates, mobs and buffoons. Again and again his life was in danger from the fury of wicked men. He was abused, slandered, beaten, stoned.

His constitution was feeble and his sickness frequent; yet, not withstanding all, his zeal glowed with a flamewhich no flood of opposition could quench, and for thirty four years he toiled on, fearless and unflagging, in the service of his Lord.’

A third Gloucester man who is better known in the States than the UK is John Stafford Smith (1750-1836), the musician and composer. He was the son of the Cathedral organist and he is best known for composing ‘The Anacreontic Song’. This tune became very popular and in 1814 was set to a poem by Francis Key called “The Defense of Fort McHenry”. In 1931 both the music and lyrics were adopted as the National Anthem of the United States with the title of ‘The Star-Spangled banner’. John Stafford Smith is buried in Goucester and there is a memorial plaque to him in the Cathedral which is very well tended and has both the Union Flag of the UK and the Stars and Stripes flag of the USA above it.

There were many other fascinating men and women that I heard about during the history festival, including Hubert Cecil Booth (1871-1955). He invented the vacuum cleaner. His machines were used at the request of King Edward V11 to clean the carpets of Westminster Abbey for the Coronation in 1902. I was surprised to learn that he was offered a Knighthood but turned it down! He also designed ‘Great Wheels’ and suspension bridges.

But surely, the most amusing Gloucester character must be James (Jemmy) Wood (1756-1836). Jemmy inherited Gloucester Old Bank in Westgate Street in 1802. He was a mean and miserly man and such a shrewd businessman that he was one of the richest commoners in the land, a millionaire when he died. It is said that he was the inspiration for the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’, a ‘Christmas Carol’. Charles Dickens often visited his friend, the writer and social activist, Sir Arthur Helps, in Gloucester, so he would have known of Jemmy. In fact he actually mentioned him by name in his book Our Mutual Friend. It is said that there were crowds cheering in the streets of Gloucester on the day of Jemmy’s funeral. I’m sure he must have been turning in his grave when most of his fortune was wasted on legal actions to sort out the disputes over his will! The disputes were well documented and it is believed that they inspired Charles Dickens to write Bleak House.

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By the way, in case you were wondering, the title of this post is a very old proverb about Gloucester, which was well known and recorded from the Middle Ages right up to the 17th century. It probably refers to the large number of churches which existed in the city. By Tudor times, when the population of Gloucester was about 3000 people, there were 300 churches to cater for them!

I will leave you to enjoy some of the photos I took during the History Festival.

I have written several times about Gloucester and there are lots more photos on these posts. You can see them by clicking on the word Gloucester in the tags and categories.

July 24, 2017 by heavenhappens

What are the streets that have no memories

This unusual public art by Wolfgang Buttress is a 22-metre-high beacon and landmark on the way between Gloucester Docks and the city centre. It symbolises a candle as a reference to the nearby Cathedral, or a flame to remind us of the many fires which have devastated the old buildings over the years. The most recent fire was at Bakers Quay, which I wrote about a couple of years ago.

The structure is made of ‘Cor-ten’ steel, which I’m not a great fan of! It seems to be cropping up all over the place on public buildings and local businesses such as restaurants. It is supposedly a ‘high strength, low alloy, weldable structural steel, which possesses excellent weathering resistance due to the formation of a protective oxide coating which seals the surface’. This is supposed to give an attractive finish, but to me it just looks rusty! I think it is a case of the ‘king’s new clothes’. I can’t imagine what my old dad would have thought of it, as he spent his life in the steel industry and presumably was not a great fan of rusty structures!

The structure is etched with the words of Ivor Gurney’s poem, Requiem;

Requiem

Pour out your light, O stars, and do not hold
Your loveliest shining from earth’s outworn shell
Pure and cold your radiance – pure and cold
My dead friends face as well.

Requiem

Pour out your bounty moon of radiant shining
On all this shattered flesh, on all these quiet forms;
For these were slain, so quiet still reclining
In the noblest cause was ever waged with arms.

I have written about Ivor Gurney (1890-1937, a gifted composer, musician and poet, in a previous post. He was born in Gloucester and became a chorister at the Cathedral. Later, he played the organ at the Mariners’ Chapel which I also wrote about recently.

While serving in the trenches during the first world war Ivor wrote very moving poetry about his experiences, and memories of his beloved Gloucestershire, the people, the history and the beauty of its nature.

A truly thought provoking poem written by Gurney is Thoughts of New England. It really moves me as it speaks of the Gloucestershire people who emigrated to the New World. Three of my children emigrated, one to New England, so it has a special relevance to me. And, while I can see the appeal of a new life in a vast country with seemingly endless opportunities, like Gurney, I am tied to this tiny island country with it’s history and heritage. I feel the weight of the past in the rivers, the buildings, the countryside and the people. Hence the title I chose, which is a line from Gurney’s poem…

Thoughts of New England by Ivor Gurney

Gloucester streets walking in Autumn twilight,
Past Kineburgh’s cottage and old Raven Tavern,
That Hoare he kept, the Puritan, who tired
Or fired, and took a passage in the ‘Mayflower’,
Gloucester streets walking in frost-clear hour —
Of ‘Captains Courageous’ as a boy read, thinking,
And sea-ports, ships, and all that boy desired . . . .
Walt Whitman, history-scraps and Huck Finn’s cavern:
My thoughts went wondering how the New England Folk
Walked twilight now, watched stars steady or blinking —
If thoughts came Eastward as mine Westward went.
Of our ‘Citizen’, the ‘Massachusetts Times’,
And the boys crying them perhaps about their lanes.
But those no historied ground of Roman or Danes.

What are the streets that have no memories,
That are not underset by ancient rubbish?
Where gables overhang, and the quarters clang
From Cathedral towers, and the slops or dinner dish,
Hurried a man voids handily into the gutter:
And ghosts haunt the streets and of old troubles mutter.
Where steel and scarlet of the military
And routine use flash vivid momentarily;
Imagination stricken unaccountably
At full day into pictures not looked for even,
And children from their play by curfew driven.

Are there men of my blood over Atlantic
Wondering there what light is growing thick
By Severn and what real thing Cotswold is?
Are there men walking slow till tiredness leads in
To write or read till the night’s veil grows thin;
Insatiate desiring what hope would win?
Is the air clear there as Thoreau’s prose,
With frost and sparkling water, and day’s close
As mild, as soft as shows in ‘Evangeline’?
(Since all verse from the air or earth does win).

Do they hear tell of Domesday Book, and not
Think of this Gloucester where the scrivener wrote
Command of reeves first set their lists to begin?
Do they wish walk at evening where the earls went in
And William: Are there not crowns of England old
That first in Gloucester’s Abbey showed their gold?
Can villas contain man in unloving hold
As here the cornered, the nooked low-ceilinged beetle-browed
Houses cloak man in; or the strict thoroughfares
Stone or asphalt-paved ally to man?

Are there great joys in April her high days
For those who cannot high imaginations see
Of other men builded, stirred to a great praise?
Cotswold earthing profound for white material,
Masses of stone gone slender as a silver birch,
Upwards in dazzle to an arching azure.

O where in the new towns shall recompense come,
For the market-days, the week-end trouble without measure,
The crowded four ways and cattle markets boom,
And country faces seen often with so much pleasure?

Can New England think deep thoughts of her bye-ways,
Is Abana and Pharpar a balance for
Severn receiving Avon, at her knot of highways,
Her Abbey township, beneath so high a cloud floor?

But nevertheless one would go very willingly
At the year’s turn, where Washington or Lincoln walked,
Or praise ‘Drum Taps’ or ‘This Compost’, and hear talked
Speech of Lowell, or Hawthorne, or Holmes and be
Pleased with citizenship of Gloucester or Worcester
And companionship of veterans or veteran’s sons
Of the Wilderness or Richmond, see the old guns
That set Chattanooga’s thronged woods astir;
Or woke terror in steadfastness with red anger.

But not for longer than the strangeness lasted.
Severn yet calls not to be resisted:
And the mix of Dane thoughts, Roman, with Middle-Age
Calls all love out to mark on any page.

The glory of Peter’s Abbey high up in Summer,
Or low in Winter’s gloom, and a wavering shape,
Are more than is ever seen by foreign comer
To Connecticut, or Staten or Providence with its cape,
Being loveliness and history and height in one.

And there is nothing uprooted that is not changed.
Better to stay and wonder in the half light
How New England saunters where Kipling loved and ranged, so
And watch the starling flocks in first autumn flight.

The New World has qualities its own,
But the Old not yet decrepit or withered is grown,
And brick and timber of age five centuries known
Are consolation for poverty enough
Against New York, where they say Opera is brilliant,
And the byeways with five dollar notes are strown.
The stuff of Liberty is a varying stuff,
But from Grant’s men. Lee’s men, nobleness should never want.