Day out (Part 2)

Good morning all. Welcome to the eagerly-awaited follow up to last Wednesday’s post from my guest blogger….

After the climb to St Winefride’s Well and descent to our cars we drove a couple of miles to our next port of call on our day out. Abakhan Fabrics is one of those places that have everything you could ever want for knitting, sewing & craft making. We had a look round each of the shops in this little enclave before setting out on the next part of our excursion into North Wales. A brief walk along the main road brought us to the path which leads down to the sea. This was a much shorter flatter walk than the St Winefride’s bit but the path did go under a rather low bridge. Here are two ladies walking under it and you can see how low it is. Some of the gents had to dip their heads to avoid the roof.

Just beyond the bridge was this next pic – A ship, apparently abandoned.

It is called the Duke of Lancaster but is obviously past its sell-by date. How did it get there? Why was it there and obviously not likely to move? In fact it looks like local vandals have sprayed graffiti along the side. Our leader informed us that the council had actually employed someone to do the artwork. The intention was to convert the vessel for use as something else. For a time it became a shopping centre with traders bringing their stuff to it to sell from inside the ship. However they moved on and due to our modern health and safety regulations further plans had to be shelved. This is because any use involving the public nowadays would have to have access for emergency vehicles; and of course neither ambulances nor fire engines would get under that low bridge (probably clearance of barely 6ft/1.83m) on the path into the berth. Given that, it is unlikely permission would be granted for anything like a visitor attraction of any kind.

The ship was originally built, in 1956, as a passenger ferry and was also used for cruises. (It could carry 1,800 passengers.) That was until about 1966 when it became a car ferry doing the Belfast to Heysham run. However demand dropped and with no other apparent employment for the vessel it was moved to Mostyn in 1979 and was concreted in. If you fancy a watch of some info about it there’s a YouTube clip (5 mins) which is part of a series of programmes called “Coast” which ran in the UK a few years ago. (The BBC2 programme is in its 8^th series now with a 9^th planned for next year.) It shows you the guy who lives on board (or lived on board at one time). He’s got a very emotional tie to the ship which you can see in the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2rZWtX844w

We walked a little further past the ship along what is now part of the North Wales Coast Path enjoying the sunshine.

Then we returned and just before passing under the low bridge back to our cars we saw this little boat. Its name, as you can see on the hull, is Girl Al.

I couldn’t find out much about it but when I checked Flickr I found this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58735253@N03/6892776955/

Now you can see it actually looks like a completely different boat. The cabin is boarded up; the hull has a fair number of barnacles; the paint on deck is peeling; however, as you can see, it has the same name (Girl Al) and the same registration number (CH101). This means it must have either have been extensively re-built and repainted or it’s actually a new boat after the old one was scrapped. And what’s the reason for the name? I’m sure there’s a story there if only I could find out who knows about it.

Next stop was a very ancient village inland for a drink on the way home – The Red Lion at Llanasa, a place with, at the latest count, just 240 residents. And very nice it was too. (The pub dates back to around 1600.) Despite the Bank Holiday the place was not too crowded and we got the drinks far quicker than the cup of tea episode earlier in the day (mentioned last week).

The village & church have a history dating back to about 600AD (and possibly even earlier than that). It used to be called Llanasaph because it was where the remains of St Asaph were kept; they were moved to St Asaph Cathedral in the late 13^th century. The other interesting thing is that the church is the burial place of the guy who was the father of Owain Glyndwr. (You may remember my post of 13.3.13 which mentioned Owain and the Welsh Revolt he led, during the reign of Henry IV, at the start of the 15^th century.) His tombstone is still there with the words “here lies Gruffudd Fychan” engraved in Welsh.

If you go to this site and scroll down to the 4^th image you can see an outline drawing of the tombstone with a brief and interesting explanation of the markings on it:

http://llanasaconservationsocie.homestead.com/page2.html

Just across from the pub was the local parish church so we decided to have a quick look.

On the way over I spotted this sign outside a house which clearly had had a significant former life.

It was a real reminder of how, in all the cutbacks the The Post Office has had to make over the years, so many village post offices were closed down. It was nice to see the owners had, at least, hung on to the name so there’s a reminder for future generations of what the building used to be. I wonder how far the village folk have to travel now to get the services it used to provide.

Here’s the path leading round the back of the church.

What you probably can’t see from the pic is that all those stones laid as edges to the path are actual gravestones. I could only assume they must have been ones that were falling over and had been laid flat. Cemetaries have to be very careful now because if a gravestone is loose or leaning and it falls and injures someone they are liable for compensation. Thus there are lots of gravestones which have been laid flat to avoid claims being made. One of my own family ancestor’s grave has had this done to it and I can’t read the inscription because it was put face down! Well done the council. I was told I could pay someone to come along and lift it so I could get a picture of the information but that it would have to be laid flat again for “health & safety” reasons.

Next I went to find out if it was possible to see inside the church. It wasn’t. However there was a notice pinned to the door and here it is:

Well there’s a curious one. I wonder why swallows seem to be the main culprits. Where I live it’s pigeons that get in these kinds places and cause mess & havoc.

If you don’t know what a swallow sounds like have a listen to this:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/radio4/science/birdsong_swallow.mp3

A local property website has a couple of places up for sale in Llanasa: one for £750,000 (approx $1,152,000) and a 7-bedroom one for £1,000,000 ($1,537,000) if you fancy splashing out!

And so it was home time. We joined the queues as everyone else thought it was a good time to go home as well but at least it kept moving. Great day!

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? – No!

It’s Wednesday so it’s over to the guest blogger again for a visit to Scarborough…

I suppose the title gives it away. Yep, I visited Scarborough. I didn’t go to the fair and I didn’t see one. I didn’t see any parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme and no-one lives there who’s a true love of mine!

Let’s start with the accommodation: a Youth Hostel (means any age allowed, in fact). Here’s the approach road (lane?) and the hostel at the far end.

Arriving somewhat hungrily around 5pm, I decided to go for the full monty and booked an evening meal and a breakfast for the morning to go along with my plush bunk bed. Both were well cooked and I enjoyed someone else cooking for me. There were two of us for evening meal; the rest self-catered or went to the nearby pub. My co-eater, it turned out, was a cyclist down from Tyneside to do some trips out on the Moors. This 70 year old had cycled over 35 miles up hill and down dale that day!

So if I didn’t go to the fair, had I found it, and I didn’t get any spices, why was I there?

It’s a story that goes back over 200 years. I’m doing some family history research and have traced a set of great-great-great grandparents to an address in Scarborough. Now just so you get the idea on these relatives think of this: biologically, we each have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great-great grandparents & 32 great-great-great grandparents. So I’ve found 2 of those 32! I had an address from the Census of 1841 and I wanted to see if anything remained of the area or even the street. Also I wondered if there might be any other local info about the time when they lived there.

My research day started with a walk from the Youth Hostel up the hill to the bus stop. I arrived in plenty of time and checked with the local who was already there that I was on the correct side of the road for where I wanted to go. The bus route was a circular one so I wanted to make sure I was not going to go the long way round. Then surprise, surprise we just started talking and ended up talking the whole time we were waiting for the bus to arrive. Seems like a friendly place I thought.

Once I’d arrived in the town centre, my first stop was the library for the academic research. I gave the lady in the library the name I was looking for and told her that I’d rung about 18 months ago to make some inquiries. She said she remembered the call! When I sounded surprised she said the name I’d asked about was very unusual for the town and that’s why she remembered it. I had a good 3 hours digging about in the old records and then set off for some sight-seeing looking for some of the places which would have been familiar to my distant relatives.

First stop was street where the folks from long ago lived. It was still there although the original housing has gone. However some features are still there and it was interesting to see that the steps leading to the upper part of town and to the church where they got married are still there. They must have walked them many times. It somehow felt as if I had some connection although I’d never been there before and no-one in the family knew of this link to Scarborough all those years ago.

This picture is Edwardian so is about 60 years later than when my ancestors were there but it gives a feel for the place. This upper part of the street is called Church Stairs St. for obvious reasons. The original flight of steps dates back to the 14th cent but they were replaced later with stone and there are 199 of them. Why didn’t they make one more? Just off the bottom of the picture the street crosses a junction and on the other side becomes St Mary’s St which is the street where my far off ancestors lived for a while. Here’s a present day view of the lower part of the street.

Using the birth records of their children, I know they moved out of this street to London some time between 1841-1846. It seems they moved there to find work and settled on the western side of Isle of Dogs. The street they lived in there is described as “a narrow way with a lay-by to enable two carts to pass each other; it was little more than an access to the iron works on either side.” That has to be narrow if they had to make a lay-by for carts to pass each other. And it has to be for very poor families. I looked on an old map of the area and it looked like living on an industrial estate between two factories. Anyway I stood in St Mary’s St for a few minutes just thinking about the conditions they left and what they thought they were going to and what I know they might have found in such an industrial area. I saw this plaque on the wall of a far newer property in the street where they had lived. I wondered if their parents had possibly heard the man himself preach.

John Wesley had preached at a chapel on the site 14 times between 1759-1790. It means he must have visited the town a number of times as he travelled extensively about the country on horseback. Sometimes he preached in the fields outside of towns because some churches would not let him into their pulpits and sometimes because there were just too many people to fit inside one building.

I went up to St Mary’s Church at the top of the steps, in the old pic, and made my way to the grave yard where I sat down on a bench seat to take in the view across the bay. I ate my sandwiches and looked at the grave I’d sat next to.

And here’s the transcription as the original gravestone was badly decayed

As you can see by the correction on the plain slate version, the original stone mason actually carved the wrong age for Anne. She was born 17.1.1820 & died 28.5.1849 so was definitely 29 years old not 28 as on the original stone. Interesting. Anne wrote the two novels Agnes Grey (which I’ve not read) & The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (which I have, and it’s good).

The Brontës endured tragedy after tragedy. Look below at the ages at death of their mother Maria and all six children:

Maria, mother of 6 Brontë children, aged 38 (Sep 1821)
Maria, aged 11 (6th June 1825)
Elizabeth, aged 10 (15th June 1825)
Branwell, aged 31 (Sep 1848)
Emily, aged 30 (Dec 1848)
Anne, aged 29 (May 1849)
Charlotte, aged almost 39 (Mar 1855)

So in the space of 8 short months Charlotte, having already lost her mother in 1821 & 2 sisters in the space of 10 days in 1825, lost two more of her sisters and brother in the period 1848-9; she survived them by just 6 years. Charlotte’s husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, lived to 3rd Dec 1906 surviving Charlotte by 51 years!
In this next pic, look at where the church decided to put the refreshments notice. Yep, that’s right, next to the most visited grave of the most famous person in the graveyard! I couldn’t help feeling it looked out of place and perhaps shouldn’t have been there.

I did, though, go and look inside the church, where my ancestors married, and then ended up buying a cup of tea and scone and chatting to the two ladies serving. I wondered if some kind of subliminal message had reached me from that notice in the graveyard! It was here that I got my old photo postcard. As I walked back down the hill I came to this scene and fully expected the sea gulls to fly away as I approached. They didn’t. It meant I got close enough for this photo. As I went into the shop just to the left of the blue car, I was surprised to hear a voice say, “I hope you’re not disturbing my friends.”

Friends? Yes apparently the lady who owns the shop has been feeding one of these birds since he was a baby! He comes every day, sometimes with a friend, to get some food from her. She calls them her “boys”. I’m not that good on determining the gender of gulls so I didn’t know if they were “boys” or “girls”. I’ll bet she shop lady is not popular with the car owners. Remember the post about bird droppings; the birds are standing on a silver car and silver formed only 3% of car colours which get hit. They appear to have ignored the blue one and yet blue comes second in the table of colours most hit. Perhaps my photo disproves the theory although when I looked at the roofs they hadn’t done any droppings so I wasn’t sure what to conclude.

As I walked back towards the town centre I saw this little alleyway with its name carved into the stone arch. I’ve not seen that done before. Didn’t seem like a route to be taken during the hours of darkness even today. Despite its name implying some delusion of grandeur (palace) I did wonder just what kind of life existed in alleyways like this 200 years ago.

A little bit further back into the town centre, at the top of the cliffs overlooking the beach was this.

To the right of the pic is the steeply-angled railway down to the beach and here is one of the carriages. It’s called a cliff railway or funicular railway.

Here’s the entrance just to the right of the picture above. Thanks to Wikipedia for this one as mine didn’t come out.

And so it was time to hit the road. I had to return to the Youth Hostel to pick up my gear and drive home. It had been a good day. I liked Scarborough. I will go back.