Monthly Archives: October 2012

Soutra Aisle

Soutra Aisle is situated halfway between Edinburgh and the Abbeys of the Scottish Borders, it is all that remains of a Hospital, Monastery and Church which was founded in 1164 and was run by Augustinian Monks.

Soutra Aisle, The Borders Scotland

The Hospital was known as the House of the Holy Trinity and is believed to have been the largest hospital in medieval Scotland. The founders intention was that it was a hospital for the poor as well as travellers and pilgrims visiting the shrines of The Scottish Borders.

The remote location reflects medieval society’s suspicion and fear of sickness, but its locality to one of the few major routes in southern Scotland at that time shows that it was an essential institution for the support of the sick.

Soutra Aisle, The Borders Scotland

The church was built at the top of a hill where there were often fierce winds and frequent cold spells.

The winds still below today but these are now harnessed by a 26 turbine wind farm on Dun Law.

Soutra Aisle, The Borders Scotland

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LAURENCE STERNE Coxwold North Yorkshire

LAURENCE STERNE was born on November the 24th 1713 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland and died in London on March the 18th 1768, he was 52.

Thirsk Bank

He was the author of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman which is widely considered the first postmodernist novel, well ahead of its times and a true forerunner to his fellow countryman James Joyce. He also was the author of A Sentimental Journey.

Rev Laurence Sterne

He was Vicar of the North Yorkshire village of Coxwold for eight years were he was laid to rest in 1969 when his body was exhumed when his London resting place St George’s, Hanover Square was sold for redevelopment.

“I am persuaded that every time a man smiles – but much more so when he laughs – it adds something to this fragment of life.”
Rev. Laurence Sterne

“But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.”
Rev. Laurence Sterne

St Michael's Church


 

Edwin Muir. Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire.

Born in Orkney in 1887.

Socialist, Critic, Contributor to The New Age Magazine, Translator, one of Scotland’s best poets and perhaps a counter balance to Hugh MacDiarmid vision of Scotland and poetic language?

Laid to rest in Swaffham Prior churchyard Cambridgeshire along with his beloved wife Willa Anderson who was an author in her own right.

Edwin Muir's Cottage Swaffham Prior

In 1919 he married Willa Anderson and said not long after that “my marriage was the most fortunate event in my life”. They collaborated on English translations of such writers as Franz Kafka, Gerhart Hauptmann, Sholem Asch, Heinrich Mann, and Hermann Broch.

Ewin Muir' Last Resting Place

We were a tribe, a family, a people.

Wallace and Bruce guard now a painted field,

And all may read the folio of our fable,

Peruse the sword, the sceptre and the shield.

A simple sky roofed in that rustic day,

The busy corn-fields and the haunted holms,

The green road winding up the ferny brae.

But Knox and Melville clapped their preaching palms

And bundled all the harvesters away,

Hoodicrow Peden in the blighted corn

Hacked with his rusty beak the starving haulms.

Out of that desolation we were born.

Edwin Muir From Scotland 1941.

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Little Gidding Cambridgeshire

 

Little Gidding has history running through its environs, it sits nestled down sleepy lanes in Huntingdonshire were an effort has to be made to seek out its secrets.

In 1625 Nicolas Ferrars, his mother and family moved from London to Little Gidding to live a more simpler life setting up a community of religious observance. They set too and restored the manor house and chapel on the site.

 

Charles I visited Little Gidding a number of times the last was in 2nd May 1646 when he sought refuge from Cromwell’s men after the battle of Naseby.

The Ferrars family lived on at Little Gidding until the mid-eighteen century but the practice of the religious community ended with the death of John, Nicolas Ferrars brother and his wife in 1657.

William Hopkinson a Stamford Solicitor bought the property in 1848 becoming Lord of the manor, he built the house (Ferrars House) which stands today and restored the chapel after years of neglect.

There has been a few prominent poets associated with Little Gidding, George Herbert who was a close friend of Nicolas Ferrars, Richard Crashaw styled “the divine″, was part of the Seventeenth-century Metaphysical School of poets and visited Little Gidding often and one of the greatest twentieth century poets T. S. Eliot who visited on the 25th May 1936 inspiring the final poem in the Four Quartets, Little Gidding.

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T S Eliot. Four Quartets

from Little Gidding.

 


Tickencote Rutland

Just off the busy Great North Road the turning into Tickencote can easily be missed but to say that it is well worth the effort of decreasing the speed and bearing left is under estimating the impression the church of St Peter’s makes on the edge of this little village on the edge of Rutland.

John Clare would walk from Great Castlerton along the river to Tickencore while working as a Lime Burner in the area, he believed he had written some of his best early poetry here and spent a few of his Sundays frequenting The Flower Pot Inn in the village.

Martha (Patty) Turner the future Mrs Clare was born on the 3rd March 1799 in Tickencote, he meet her while on his way to The Flower Pot Inn. The Flower Pot Inn today is a private house and the only evidence of it previous existence is the name on the fence of The Flower Pot Cottage.