Poor old Ripon Spa Baths. A hundred and twenty years old, and now – quite literally – put out to grass. We have a new Leisure Centre here in town now. These Edwardian baths are now surplus to requirements and up for sale. Meanwhile, doughty seedlings and saplings commandeer cracks in the mortar and gaps in the tiling: putting down roots that will let water in and begin to crumble brickwork.
The header image is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Brian Shore.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew
Take one felled tree. Give it another life. A boat. A house. Floorboards. There’s still a lot left. A table. Chairs. Cupboards. And still there’s more. Look what one woman was making with the tree’s detritus at a country fair last year. Simply spoons.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew.
Here’s a view of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool. In the background is HMS Trincomalee, built in Mumbai (Bombay then) just after the Napoleonic Wars. Then there is a row of Georgian buildings, now housing many of the museum’s displays. And in front of them is … the car park.
For Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.
A day in Dijon provided a visual feast of windows – on the houses of the once-rich and powerful, churches, palaces , the Palais de Justice….
For Ludwig’s Monday Window.
La Sardana is the traditional dance of Catalonia. It’s been around in one way or another since the 1600s, but really came into its own in the 19th century. Back in the fascist era, Franco did his best to ban it, as he tried to ban all forms of regionalism, or worse, independence. He suppressed the distinct languages within Spain: Catalan, Basque, Galician, with the result that they have now sprung back stronger than before.
Anyway, la Sardana. It’s a circle dance, with men and women, neighbours, friends, strangers joining hands, moving slowly in a circle following the fairly complex foot moves of the leader. When the circle starts getting too big, a second circle starts, then a third ..
On Sunday morning, we took ourselves down into town to watch the mini-Sardana festival. We immediately noticed that I fitted the age-profile the best. Every single dancer was over 60. Anaïs’ friend’s granny immediately wanted to put that right, and appointed herself Anaïs’ personal Dance Mistress. With not much success.
A few younger citizens took themselves off to practice in a quiet corner …
And after a slow start, the event got going. Not having a single dance gene in my body, I wasn’t tempted to get involved, despite being The Right Age. But it’s rather sad that this seems to be the general view among the young. Would Franco get his wish after all, and see the Sardana vanish a hundred years after he tried to banish it?
This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, set by Donna, asks us to look at Time. So … I’ve decided to focus on traditions: traditions about celebration – long enjoyed, long maintained, and still meaningful in the communities where they take place.
Transhumance for instance. It’s that time of year when in the Pyrénées (and in other mountain regions too), near where we lived in France, the cattle and sheep are moved from the lush summer pastures in the mountains down to their winter quarters down on their lowland(ish) farms . They stay there till spring, and then they’re taken up again. And each time, it’s the excuse for a party. Here are some scenes from Seix a few years ago, of the upward part of the year.
They were dancing in Seix. We dance to celebrate wherever we live – always have. Here are Morris Dancers in England, traditional dancers in Catalonia (and more of them in the featured photo) and dancing for the big Harvest celebration of Chuseok in South Korea.
What next? How about Shrove Tuesday, the day when it’s the last excuse to have a bit of fun before the privations of Lent? The day when eggs and butter and other indulgences get used up in the making of pancakes, some of which end up in a race. Participants run the course, pan in hand, tossing their pancakes as they run towards the finishing line. It’s part of every Shrove Tuesday, as it has been for hundreds of years here in Ripon, and in towns and villages throughout the land.
Street entertainers have engaged out attention as long as there have been streets. Jugglers, Punch and Judy shows … anything goes.
Anyway, let’s finish off with a dance, the Sardana, dear to Catalonians for … well, centuries. It’s easy enough – join in the circle and just copy the person opposite you. Come on – you don’t even need a partner!
I sent a postcard from Heysham in Lancashire on Monday (pronounced Heesham, by the way, not Haysham). And I found myself drawn to this spot time and again during our short stay.
A scrub-tangled cliff-side looked across the stony, muddy shoreline of Morecambe Bay and to the mountains beyond. This was the view the Vikings had as they landed and began to make their homes here. This was the view the early English had as, in the eighth century, they built a chapel right here at the edge of the cliff, and dedicated in to Saint Patrick. Yes, THAT Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. Born in Cumbria, he was captured and enslaved in Ireland. After six years, he escaped and fled on a ship bound for France. But the ship blew off course and wrecked on the English coast – here in Heysham . From here he went to France as planned to continue his religious education before returning to Ireland to convert the population there. The reason for the chapel was probably as a place of rest for those pilgrims who visited the rock-cut graves I showed you in my postcard – and now again, here. As the years went by, the chapel was enlarged and the ground around it became a burial place – over 80 bodies have been found.
And what about those rock-cut graves? Despite their human shapes, it’s thought the bones kept there were disarticulated, and may have been those of local saints and important Christians – even perhaps Saint Patrick himself? That’s why they became a place of pilgrimage. Once, they will have been topped off with heavy stone slabs, and those sockets at the head of the graves would each have held a cross
Almost next door is a church. This church, dedicated to Saint Peter also has 8th century origins. I wish we could have gone inside to explore, but we didn’t manage it. Now it’s the parish church, with a graveyard below sweeping down to the sea.
Something about the site ensnared me. Isolated, and with atmospheric light and views, it’s become my choice for Tina’s Lens-Artists Challenge #254 this week: Spiritual Sites.
It’s a mere 18 months or so since I reblogged my post about Beltane, but I’m doing so again because it fits so well with my last post celebrating Thornborough Henges.
May 1st 2016
Not much further than a mile from us as the crow flies lies Thornborough Henge. It’s a prehistoric monument consisting of three giant circular earthworks. Constructed 5000 years ago by the first Neolithic (New Stone Age) farmers, it was probably an enclosure for their ritual gatherings. The Henges became an important centre in Britain for pilgrimage and trade, although its exact purpose still remains a mystery.
It sends shivers down my spine to think that this ancient piece of our history lies just a short walk from our home.
We can visit it any time we choose, simply to tramp round and try to imagine it in its heyday, and we’ll have the place to ourselves. Not on May Day though. Today is the Gaelic feast of Beltane, half way between the spring and summer solstices. It’s a day to mark the beginning of summer. Sadly, today is very cold, rather windy and a bit wet.
Back in pre-historic times, rituals were held on this day to protect the cattle, crops and people, and to encourage growth. Bonfires, deemed to have protective powers, were lit. For many centuries these practices died out. But nowadays, at sites like Thornborough, pagans, Wiccans, New-Agers and lovers of history and tradition gather once more to celebrate the renewal of life and growth.
Today I was there too. For an hour at least, for the opening ceremony. Brrr! It was cold.
I was strangely moved. The Green Man, representing rebirth and the cycle of growth was our Master of Ceremonies. He invited us all to join hands, whether friends or strangers, in fellowship, and shout out three times the invocation to new life. We hailed Brigantia, Celtic goddess of Northern England. Then at his bidding and as he sounded his horn, we turned to the east and welcomed the summer rains. We turned south to welcome the sun (who was coyly absent today), to the west to welcome summer winds, and to the north where the wolves apparently are.
Then a man, naked from the waist upwards save for his covering of woad-coloured paint, leapt among us bearing the flaming torches which would offer us all protection over the coming months.
And that was the ceremony over. Dancers entertained us. They seemed to me to owe much to flamenco and to middle-eastern belly dancing traditions, but we all cheered them on with enthusiasm.
I shan’t be there this year for the closing ceremony. I’m still thawing out. But weather permitting, I’ll certainly go along next year. Will you come along too?
We haven’t been along since: cold May Days, Covid – all the usual tired excuses. But we definitely should make the effort this year.
For Fandango’s Flashback Friday
Just over a week ago, a couple of fields within two miles of our house hit the national news. Those of us who live round and about have long known about our very own piece of history: not as visually impressive from ground level at Stonehenge but still thrilling to think about. Now we can share it with the rest of you.
Thornborough Henges are two enormous, human made earth-circles – 200+ metres in diameter, from the neolithic/early bronze ages: somewhere between 3, 500 BCE and 2,500 BCE. Imagine the effort required to construct such circles, originally about 5 metres high, thought to have been coated with bright white gypsum, making them an extremely visible and potent part of the landscape. Why were they built? Nobody is sure, but they almost certainly had a spiritual purpose. Ritual is still important at this site. On Friday, I’ll re-blog a post I wrote one May Day about the ceremony of Beltane held here every year.
To walk here, with only the henge itself surrounding us, in an area normally busy with fields of crops or sheep, with woodland, and with gravel pits, is even now an almost unnervingly peaceful experience.
The henges have rather suffered from rabbits and livestock over the centuries. Now, the monuments have been gifted by Tarmac and by Lightwater Holdings to Historic England and to English Heritage and their future will be more secure.
There is a third henge too. This was planted up as woodland in the Victorian period. Though it’s not a large wood, it’s a peaceful place where I love to go and stroll and spend quiet moments, disturbed only by birdsong. Here it is in summer.
At ground level, it’s impossible (for me) to get decent photos of the henges. I offer you just one, as my feature photo, and then leave the rest to this YouTube video, courtesy of the Guardian.
Come and visit. You can pop in for a chat here afterwards. I’d love to meet you!
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me –
Seven swans a swimming …
Nobody said the seven swans couldn’t include cygnets. Or that they had to be real swans. The silver swan is a nineteenth century automaton at The Bowes Museum, whose story you can read here.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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