NEWSLETTER
CHAIRMAN'S NOTES / Autumn 2003I am writing these notes at the beginning of September and the year is two-thirds gone! I hope you have all been able to make the most of the sunny summer and that your gardens are not as dried up as is ours. I know that all of you who participated in our varied summer outings found them interesting and enjoyable. Time seems to fly by and one of the theories why it races faster as you get older is that, when you are six, a year is a large part of your experience. When you get to sixty-six a year is only a tiny fraction of your life!
Your Committee is concerned that total membership is falling - as it seems to be doing in many other organisations. We now have just over 300 members when a decade ago it was more like 500. We need a thriving membership to sustain our programme and I commend to you the Membership Secretary's item in this Newsletter asking you to try to enrol your friends. Over the years we have found that word-of-mouth is by far the best recruiting tool.
The bookings for the Autumn Programme are coming in steadily and I must thank the many people who have offered to help with refreshments at meetings. Margaret has taken over from Sheila as refreshments organiser and will be contacting folk in turn as help is needed.
With best wishes to all.
Eric Tanner
NEW MEMBERS
We are pleased to welcome the following new members who have joined the Centre since the Summer 2003 issue of the Newsletter:-
Mrs S. Edwards / LichfieldMrs P. Evans / Lichfield
Mr Mrs J.L. Haddock / Stafford
Mrs J. Middleton / Stafford
Mrs R.C. Troth / Lichfield
YOUR CENTRE NEEDS YOU!
Have you any friends who are National Trust members but not members of the Staffordshire Centre?
Your committee have long been considering the most effective way of attracting new members and have come to the conclusion that the best way is by personal recommendation. This is certainly the way that the most recent members have been introduced to the Centre.
The membership of the centre has been as high as 500, but now stands at 301. The more members we have the more choice we have in supporting the events arranged by the committee, which then gives more heart to continually think of topics which would be of interest to the members.
During the last couple of years there has been a slight change in the make-up of the committee, in that Gordon and Sheila Burgess and Eric Haylock retired last year and Dennis Boote and Les Ashton retired a couple of years ago. The new members have already started to make their mark in organising events and walks, as well as contributing to the lively running of the committee. However the relatively small committee (12) cannot know more people than the present membership, so are appealing to you all to get your thinking caps on and use your best persuasion so that our membership can increase.
You will note from your Newsletters that there is a steady trickle of new members, what it does not show is those members who, for any reason, do not renew their membership, so we need to continue to get new members even to stand still in the numbers game.
Enclosed with this Newsletter is an application form. Please use it and your own copies of the current programme and Newsletter (Cliff Ricketts will willingly replace them if you let him know what you have done). Your friends will automatically get a copy of the latest programme and Newsletter when Cliff receives the completed membership form.
We have been advertising our talks in the 'freebie papers' of the area in which the talks are to take place to attract anyone interested in the subject matter and reminding members who have not registered their intention to attend a particular event. From this we seek to attract people who are already National Trust members as well as the general public.
Peter Jobling
(Committee Member responsible for publicity
REMINDER - COACH VISITS
As many of you already know, some of our coach visits can be very popular with the result that I have a long waiting list for places in the event of cancellations. This was particularly so in the case of the recent excellent visit to the Anderton Boat Lift and Biddulph Grange Garden. An unusually large number of Members cancelled before the event and I was able to fill all the seats from the waiting list. However, on the morning of the visit another five Members did not board the coach at the appointed time and place. This meant we went with empty seats which I might have been able to fill if I had known as late as the evening before. Please, if it is possible let me know if you are not able to go, even if it does seem rather late in the day. There may be someone who would be glad of the offer of a place!
Cliff Ricketts
Bookings and Membership Secretary (01543 264260)
BUT DON'T BE PUT OFF!!
This is an extract from Peter Rhodes' column which appeared in a recent edition of the Express & Star newspaper.
'Twenty odd years ago Mrs Rhodes and I cancelled our membership of the National Trust. In the intervening years we had forgotten why.
.
And then, during a trip last week to a NT stately home we suddenly
remembered. It was BOBs.
"Have you come up that staircase?" demanded a harridan guarding the first floor.
We pleaded guilty.
"Well, you should have come up the other staircase, through the gallery and into the library," she said, briskly ushering us back down the stairs.
Below, we were cornered by another sixty something female guide who barred the drawing room, suggesting "you'll get a much better idea of things" if we approached it from the other side.
At the other side a third NT volunteer tried to order us in the approved direction. At which moment we decided to get bolshie and ignored her.
"You'll get terribly confused," was her parting shot, in an acid blend of indignation and pity.
Quite where the NT recruits this army of BOBs (Bossy Old Biddies) is anyone's guess. But 20 years after we quit in protest about being ordered around by BOBs, there seems to be an endless supply of them.'
NATIONAL TRUST LIBRARIES
When I arrived at Walton Village Hall last Wednesday I wasn't really sure what to expect, though my wife had commented just before we set out, that it was likely to be a really interesting and unusual talk - and so it turned out to be. Mark Purcell proved to be an excellent and energetic speaker supported by a series of fascinating slides of library buildings, interiors, furnishings, the books themselves, bindings, texts and a wide range of book illustrations.
Since joining the National Trust as Curator of Libraries about three years ago Mark has undertaken numerous tasks including cataloguing, studying, compiling and making accessible the contents of a range of libraries found in National Trust properties in England and Wales. Before his appointment Mark claimed no one really knew how many books were held within these libraries. Someone guestimated 600,000 but Mark's more realistic figure turned out to be about a quarter of a million.
Mark took us on an imaginary tour of some of these collections - to Blickling Hall in Norwich which contains a remarkable collection inherited from Sir Richard Ellys, a distinguished 18th century theologian. Among the 12,000 volumes housed here is a very rare Eliot Indian Bible printed in Massachusetts in 1663.
Further delights followed: Charlecote Park in Warwick with its wonderful collection of books, the nucleus of which was formed by Sir Thomas Lucy III in the early 17th century and increased by George Hammond who bought from the Victorian bookseller, William Pickering; A la Ronde near Exmouth with its attractive miniature children's library, and Dunham Massey whose Library, Mark admitted, was his own personal favourite. Our tour also took us to the libraries at Nostell Priory, Saltram, Anglesey Abbey, Felbrigg Hall, Lanhydrock, Shugborough, Wightwick Manor, each of which was worthy of mention. No doubt more treasures will be revealed as Mark's work progresses.
The hour had flown by and the evening concluded with a warm note of thanks from Eric Tanner and the usual welcome refreshments.
Tony Adcock
ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL - A TALK BY
MR. J. MOXHAM
When I read the Spring programme, my immediate reaction was that there could be only one Mr John Moxham, who would be qualified to give such a talk - an erstwhile friend and fellow Great Western Railway apprentice of the 1940' s. I was not disappointed in both meeting a former colleague again and in the excellent quality of the presentation. Brunel has always been a hero of mine, but this talk introduced me to new facets of this most remarkable and far sighted man of ingenuity (the true meaning of "engineer"); of courage, both physical and moral; of leadership; of tact and good humour and of a great propensity for hard work.
I. K. Brunel was born in 1806, the son of a naturalised French engineer of note (Sir Mark Isambard Brunel, a Royalist émigré); Kingdom was his English mother's maiden name. The career of I. K. Brunel was determined almost from the cradle; at the age of four he was a competent draughtsman and at six, had mastered the elements of Euclid 's Geometry. He was educated partly in France, in Normandy and then Paris where he served one year's apprenticeship as a clock maker. Back in England at the age of seventeen, he entered his father's office and subsequently became the resident engineer on his father's Thames Tunnel Project - the first driven underwater, which presented many problems and acts of bravery when flood waters broke into the workings. Today, the tunnel carries a branch of the London Underground Railway.
The young Brunel then turned to the Clifton Bridge Project, set to span the Avon Gorge at Bristol. His accepted design we see today was erected as a memorial to him after his death. His growing reputation led him to be appointed as the Engineer of the nascent Great Western Railway initially linking London to Bristol. The whole project required much ingenuity and originality of thought, insight and leadership. The brick built Wharncliffe Viaduct and Thames Bridge at Maidenhead; Box Tunnel; Saltash Bridge over the River Tamar and Paddington Station are testimonies of Brunei 's engineering acumen which not only continue in their original function today, but are architecturally elegant too.
His wider vision of linking to the New World led him into the construction of the first steel ships powered by steam driven propellers, establishing the principles of modern ship design. The S.S. Great Britain rescued from oblivion has been restored in its original dock in Bristol. He set the standards for hospital design and hygiene in his prefabricated hospital shipped to Scutari in the Crimean War.
Brunei had his failures too, the atmospheric railway in S. Devon was one such and he lost the argument over the 7 ft broad gauge track on the G. W.R. having to revert to what became the standard 4 ft 8½” gauge.
He recruited able assistants chosen with great care who made notable contributions in their own rights, Sir Daniel Good, the locomotive man of the G. W.R. was one such person. Inthe Great Western Railway, Brunei and his colleagues left a culture of seeking the best in designs and performance and in pushing forward the boundaries of technology coupled with a humanity and consideration for subordinates and work force in general and loyalty. The culture existed into the early days of the Nationalised Western Region of British Rail. Mr Moxham concluded his talk with an appreciation, which I too share, of being nurtured in this environment.
Altogether a stimulating and interesting talk about the life of a truly "Great Briton".
Norman Day
ANDERTON BOAT LIFT AND BIDDULPH GRANGE
On 20th August 2003, on a warm fine day, about fifty people made the trip to Northwich in Cheshire to visit the recently restored Anderton Boat Lift. It was the first such boat lift in the world, although now there are many others including some in Belgium and the Falkirk Wheel. It fell into disuse soon after the Second World War, and has been restored for the Millennium.
The boat lift is an impressive engineering structure built in the l870s to transport
barges between the river Weaver and the Trentand Mersey canal which is 50ft higher than the river. The lift chamber has two wrought iron tanks, or caissons, each 75 feet long and wide enough for two narrow boats or one thirteen foot wide barge. Each caisson with water and with or without or boats weighs about 250 /
Anderton Lift: Mr Ricketts admiring the structure
tons, and the two tanks balance each other, thus as one rises from the river to the canal and the other is lowered to the river.
After about an hour's journey from Stafford, the last pick up, we arrived at the boat lift with time for coffee before our trip. We joined the trip barge on the canal ready to enter the lift and go down to the river. Our boat driver gave us lots of information about the lift, its original construction, use and restoration. Normally two boats use
/ the lift at the same time, one ascending and one descending so they balance, but one of the lifts was not working. The trip took about forty minutes, with plenty of opportunity to see the structure and reflect on the skill of the designers and craftsmen who built the original lift.A barge leaving the Anderton Boat Lift and moving onto the canal
The exhibition hall gave information about the building and running of the lift, and a video showed the restoration in progress. 110st of us had lunch in the snack bar and looked at the exhibition or walked round the site before it was time to leave.
We then travelled to Biddulph Grange Garden where we were met by the head/ gardener who gave us a very interesting talk on the origins and history of the garden. It was created nearly 150 years ago, about 30 years before the lift was built. James Bateman designed it with a series of gardens for his wide ranging collection of plants. He helped develop the box used to transport plants to England in good condition. While we were there a National Trust Theatre group were performing a play in the grounds.
Biddulph Grange: The Chinese Garden
We had time to explore the gardens and to obtain either a cup of tea or an ice-cream to finish off the day.
The journey back to Stafford was slow because we encountered the Stoke rush hour, but we arrived back at Stafford soon after 6:30pm, having had a very enjoyable day. Thanks to Eric and Margaret Tanner for organising the trip.
Joyce Rowe /
Biddulph Grange: The dahlia walk
RAMBLE FROMDRAYCOTT-IN-THE-CLAY
On a beautiful sunny morning a group of 20 lucky souls met at the Swan in Draycott-in-the-Clay for "morning coffee" in the conservatory, provided free of charge by the landlady. What a pleasant start to the day.
Our walk took us by fields, styles, paths, styles, lanes and yet more styles, but with glorious views all around as we climbed to the "Oh so tranquil" village of Hanbury for
/ a coffee break and to enjoy the peaceful volunteered to rest and keep an eye on the locality whilst exploring the church and its surroundings.We pressed on and the scenery flattened as we crossed over to the area around Fauld, the scene of the enormous arms dump explosion during the war. All that now remains is a huge crater covered in shrubs and trees but fenced off and posted with notices warning of the danger of unexploded munitions. A small memorial stood at one end giving a brief explanation of the tragedy together with the names of the people killed on that fateful day. It is difficult to comprehend that in addition to the workers on site who died but also that a complete farm including all the buildings, equipment and animals as well as the farmer and his family disappeared without trace.
We pressed on and the scenery flattened as
The 300-foot deep Fauld crater, now filled with mature trees
we crossed over to the area around Fauld, the scene of the enormous arms dump explosion during the war. All that now remains is a huge crater covered in shrubs and trees but fenced off and posted with notices warning of the danger of unexploded munitions. A small memorial stood at one end giving a brief explanation of the tragedy together with the names of the people killed on that fateful day. It is difficult to comprehend that in addition to the workers on site who died but also that a complete farm including all the buildings, equipment and animals as well as the farmer and his family disappeared without trace.
After looking over the area and its memorials we took a different route back to Hanbury where we picked up our "rester" who had found the best way out of the village down across fields, through a farmyard down a lane and along a valley towards Draycott but were recalled near the end for not following our leader's instructions and had to retrace our steps somewhat.