30th August 2018 Coke Hat or Bowler Hat?

Hi Dear Folk,

Today was our first, what I would call real day of winter.  Bright blue clear skies with white fluffy clouds, but very windy and quite cold.  I was out this morning on my volunteer work and got invited by Barb and John to go out for lunch with them to Amedeo's, a well priced down to earth Italian based restaurant.  I had a mushroom burger and fries, but took half of each home and had that for dinner, it was good.

Yesterday I drove over to Trader Joe's, I like their bread and a few other bits and pieces's.  It's a run I'll probably make about once a month since it's a little off my beaten track.  I also popped into the wine store and got a bottle of South African Pinotage, which is from a grape developed in South Africa back in the mid twenties.  I thought I'd give it a go.  Along with a bottle of Irish Cream.  Need a few goodies for those winter nights.

I was glad that I bought my mandevilla in yesterday, even though it was pouring with rain.   It is now located in my sitting room in front of one set of French doors.  I do hope it will get enough light.  The eternal problem of where to winter over the plants.

You might think that's a London Bowler businessmen's hat, but actually it's the hat that was designed for the gamekeepers at Holkham Hall.  When I was a child every city gent wore one, but not so much or really hardly at all now.  I think you will enjoy the history of this hat.

The plaid is a special plaid designed for Holkham Hall.

There are many theories as to why Holkham’s gamekeepers first came to wear ‘Bowler’ or ‘Coke’ hats, as they were commonly known in Norfolk. The original story is that in August 1849, William Coke, a nephew of the first Earl of Leicester of the second creation, commissioned his hatter James Lock, to design a close-fitting, low crowned hat. William stressed that the hat must be extra strong; in order to protect his gamekeepers’ heads from low hanging branches, while out horse riding. It was clear that the tall top-hats often worn by the keepers were easily knocked off and damaged; and a completely new style was called for. It is believed that William also hoped the new hat would protect his keepers from attacks by poachers.

A prototype of the hat was duly made by Lock’s chief hatter, Thomas Bowler, and when William visited Locks to inspect the design, he was presented with a very hard hat with a round, low crown and small brim, covered in a rough finished felt. As the story goes, William then took the hat outside on to the pavement and promptly jumped up and down on it to determine its durability. Happily, the hat withstood the test and in accordance with Locks’ usual practice, was called the ‘Coke’ hat, after the customer for whom it was made. This is probably why the hat soon became known as the ‘Billy Coke’ or ‘Billycock’ hat in Norfolk.

In later years, the hat was more generally known as the Bowler, after the Bowler Brothers, who went on to manufacture it. Although very fashionable in shooting parties of the time, the hat was also adopted by city stockbrokers and barristers and soon became uniform headwear. Nowadays, judges and officials at equestrian shows commonly wear Bowler hats. However, recent research has cast some doubt over this story. It is now believed that it was Edward Coke, younger brother of the second Earl of Leicester, who actually ordered the hat.

Christine

30th August 2018 Down To The Basement Kitchens Holkham Hall

Hi Dear Folk,

And now to my favorite place to visit in these grand mansions, the kitchens.  My mum had an older friend Edith who had been in service as a young girl.  She was quite a feisty character and I remember one time she babysat for the very well to do family that I used to babysit for, the Bedingfelds who lived in our area, before he inherited Oxburgh Hall, also in Norfolk.

In any case to get to the point, one day one of the little girls caller her Glover.  Well Glover was her surname and that's what all servants were called when in service, just by their last name.  Well Edith soon set them right about that, "I am Mrs Glover to you and you are not to call me just by my last name."  Which was only right.  It's good we have moved on from those times.

What hard work it must have been, just look at those roasting spits.

Polishing all that copper.

Stopping for a gelato would have been a highlight for the Grand Tour Party, as they travelled through Italy during the hot dusty summer months.

In the early 18th century Naples was at the centre of the ice cream trade.  Street vendors sold ices from buckets to the ordinary people on the street, while the upper classes ate their's from dainty dishes in the ice cream shops.

Although ice cream had been known in England since the 1670's it wasn't until Italian confectioners such as Domenico Negri, set up a shop in the mid-eighteenth century that it became a popular treat amongst the wealthy.  Negri's shop in London's Berkley Square the "Pot and Pine Apple", which opened in 1757 evolved into the famous Gunter's Tea Shop.  Some 100 years later another Italian entrepreneur Carlo Gatti brought the delight of an ice-cream "penny lick" to the masses from his business in London's Little Italy.

A historic name to name an ice cream shop would be the Pot and Pine Apple, of course one would have to add a plaque with the significance of the name.

Not sure how healthy a penny lick would have been.

Christine

30th August Within Holkham Hall

Hi Dear Folk,

I honestly can't say that Holkham Hall is my favourite stately home, but you can't deny it's grandeur.  Here are a sampling of the rooms.

The Parrot Room.  This room in Stranger’s Wing forms part of the principal guest accommodation area in one of the private wings of the Hall.

The room takes its name from the painting by Frans Snyders, of parrots and macaws, which hangs by the bed.

Guests of the Earl and Countess of Leicester often stay in this bedroom and it is therefore not always open to the public.

Jeremy Musson, the presenter of the BBC’s ‘Curious House Guest’ slept in this room while filming the programme on Holkham, which was broadcast in March 2006.

The bathroom, goes without saying but I don't know anymore about it.

The Grade II listed fountain to the south of the Hall depicts Perseus and Andromeda, a Greek legend where Perseus rescued Andromeda from being sacrificed to a monster to appease Poseidon, the Sea God. The fountain was created by Charles Raymond Smith and was built circa 1850.

The fountain ceased operating in 2009 when the iron pipe work, to and from it across the south lawn became so corroded that it could no longer hold the water pressure and burst in multiple places. The water was originally supplied by a reservoir at the top of the deer park, which was fed by a borehole located under the former stable block in the courtyard adjacent to the Hall. From here the water was pumped uphill and then allowed to flow back to the fountain. It would use 400 gallons (1818 litres) of water per minute and as a result, the fountain could only be run for 20 minutes at a time, before the water source ran out. 

An alternative solution needed to be found and in autumn 2015 work started on a restoration programme to return the fountain to working order. The 7 month project costing in excess of £200,000 was carried out by Suffolk-based, Miles Water Engineering Ltd. The restoration incorporated a new underground pump room in the park. This houses the pumping and filtration equipment used to recirculate water from the bowl of the fountain through the twenty-five water jets secluded in the sculpture. Filtration keeps the water clear and clean. In addition to the fountain’s mechanisms, important repairs were carried out to the various fountain spouts and pipework. Repairs to the various statues were sensitively carried out to by Messenger Conservation Ltd of Stamford in Lincolnshire, specialists in stone work. 

The new system now allows the fountain to be run for longer periods of time and can be controlled from within the Hall. The result has been that as from April 2016 the fountain is back in full operation and has once again become a focal point for visitors to the Hall and park. Viewed from the south state rooms.

The Libraries form half the area of the first floor of Family Wing and are known as the Manuscript, Classical and Long Library.

Until the early 19th century, the Manuscript Library was the principal bedroom, which gave Thomas William Coke, convenient access to his library at any time of the day or night. However, by 1816, knowledgeable friends convinced Coke of Norfolk that he should retrieve the valuable manuscripts stored in one of the tower rooms - that were at risk from damp and neglect - and turn the bedroom into a library. Some of the manuscripts are from Sir Edward Coke’s original library.

The Classical Library was once the ante room to Coke of Norfolk’s bedroom, but when he converted it into a library, this room became home to a number of early printed books.

The Long Library is most used by the family for entertaining. It occupies the entire west front of Family Wing, and is 54ft long by 18ft wide.

The room was designed by William Kent and a concealed door to the right of the fireplace leads to the main staircase of Family Wing, which would have allowed servants access to the room, without disturbing people in any of the other rooms on either side.

The Landscape Room.  This room contains 22 Old Master pictures hung in the 18th century manner, one above the other. It is likely that Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester of 1st creation and the builder of the house, had settled the picture hang by the time he died in 1759, and as such, the detail is recorded in the inventory of 1760. The 7th Earl of Leicester recreated the hang and also had a new crimson damask woven for the walls and sofas using a favourite pattern of the William Kent period.

As the name of the room suggests, all the paintings are technically landscapes, although in fact a number of them use landscape as the setting for biblical or mythological stories. The outstanding feature of this room is the collection of seven paintings by Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), the great French landscape painter.

Claude was most probably the most sought after by English collectors, not least because his idyllic views provided the models which many patrons attempted to emulate in the creation of their own parks and gardens. Thomas Coke bought at least two Claudes on his Grand Tour, another two in 1749/50 and Matthew Brettingham acquired two more from Cardinal Albani’s collection in Rome in 1752 when he also authorised Brettingham to spend what was necessary to secure the two paintings by Claude-Joesph Vernet which now hang in this room.

Christine

30th August 2018 Holkham Hall The Egyptian Hall

Hi Dear Folk,

If you are still with me on my day at Holkham Hall, here is the actual hall.

Thomas Coke 1st Earl of Leicester had the house built in the eighteenth century in the Palladian style.    
The name Coke is pronounced Cook, one of those crazy English pronunciations of a name.

Basically the Coke family made their money at the time of Henry VIII, you know the king who had six wives, beheaded several, and broke away from Catholicism and started The Church of England.  A lot of that wealth that had belonged to the church was now given to favorite supporters of the king.

In more modern times, the last direct descendant died in the early 1960's and the estate which was suffering from a lack of cash was left to a distant cousin in South Africa, along with the title.  The distant cousin in South Africa, being happily ensconced in the sun saw no need to come back to a declining old house in the cold, and dispatched his young 21 year old son to take a look.  The son did take a look, decided he liked what he saw and had the energy and youth to make the house and all the estates, which includes an entire village, pub, hotel, houses and beach, plus extensive farmlands into what it is today.  Eventually his father died and he even got the title, which has now been passed on to his son.

A considerable part of the revenue of the estate comes from tourists like me coming to visit the house.  Along with farm contracts such as supplying Tesco's with all their potatoes and so many other pies.

This is The Egyptian Hall, although as you will see is based on Roman design, so not sure why it is called the Egyptian Hall.  In any case the first Earl in the 1600's went on the Grand Tour of Europe and was greatly influenced by what he saw.  The layout of columns and niches is similar to a Roman Basilica, or hall of justice.  It is like a Roman public building and not too dissimilar to a lot of buildings here in the states, which have that Roman influence.

While the design of the apse is pure Roman, based on the ruins of the Temple of Venus and Roma, near the Forum, it bears a striking resemblance to the choir of Palladio's Redentore church in Venice.  There are also echoes of the palace chapel at Versailles.

The coffering or square pattern of the apse is adapted from the dome of the Pantheon in Rome.  This idea of a pantheon or temple to all the gods is mirrored in the roman statues around the hall.

The walls are clad Roman style, in stone.  Thomas Coke chose an English alabaster from Staffordshire, which closely mimics Sicilian jasper, a true marble, used in the fireplaces of the salon and the north state dining room.

Christine

What Was Your Childhood Regimen?

Hi Dear Folk,

I probably didn't mention but late Friday night on my cell phone a tornado warning flashes by, it was very windy.  After which I proceeded to go to bed and give it no thought, which in hindsight was probably not the most sensible thing to do.

Raining here today as it did yesterday.  I cleaned out the closet floor in the spare bedroom, we call it the studio room, mostly full of books.  I am going to have to whittle them down.  Today I need to get up there and clean it, fun, fun.  The trouble is I start to look at a book I have not visited in a while and get side tracked.

Our dish washer is fourteen years old which in the scheme of kitchen appliances these days is probably quite old.  The handle had become extremely stiff.  Mr. B. was able to get a new one to replace it, they only come in black now, our dish washer is cream colored, but still that's OK, job done.  It is also stuck on one wash mode normal.  But I guess if it is to get stuck on one mode, normal would be the best.  The only appliance in the kitchen that we have not replaced since we moved in sixteen years ago is the stove, which still seems to be going strong.

As a child my mum had a regimen with us every morning, it went as follows.

• One table spoon of molasses
• One cod liver oil capsule
• One table spoon of rose hip syrup
• One orange vitamin C tablet

This photo above reminded me of the rose hip syrup, which I absolutely loved and would have drank this down, the molasses not so much.

So what was your childhood regimen?

Christine

30th August 2018 Holkham Hall Walled Gardens

Hi Dear Folk,

The walled gardens at Holkham Hall are spectacular.  It's hard for us to imagine now because we have access to unusual and exotic fruits and vegetables all year round, but back in the 1700's the labourer of the day only had access in the summer to what was locally grown and in the winter to what would weather over and keep in the root cellar.  However the Lord of the Manor had access to much more, through his green houses and walled gardens, and of course a multitude of gardeners to work them.

I remember watching one version of Sense and Sensibility, Ann Elliot's family have moved to Bath and there on the table is an elaborate fruit arrangement including a pineapple, which of course if you had money you had access to.

This is interesting because it tells the history of the walled gardens at Holkham Hall, both the first walled garden, which covered over four acres, but was deemed to near the house to be fashionable, so was totally removed and a second walled garden was built well away from the house,which is this one.

They had green house frames both cold and heated.  Large greenhouses on the north wall were built for the 2nd Earl of Leicester in 1872 by Henry Ormson at a cost of over 1,400 pounds sterling.  they included early and late peach houses, a Muscot house, fig house and early  and late vineries.

Baskets of surplus peaches, nectarines, figs and grapes were sometimes sent by the morning passenger train from Holkham station (I think the line was specially built for Holkham Hall to have access to London, both for goods and ease of transportation for the family and their guests) for sale in London market that evening.  The gardens were sill producing such fruit in the 1930's.

The cost of heating the green houses became prohibitive and the gardens became overgrown.  Eventually in 1964 they were let to Major Stephen Youens and for the next thirty years was run as a thriving commercial nursery gardens, assisted by Peter Gill who worked there for over forty years.  Tim Lease continued the business from 1996 to 2005, when the estate took the gardens back and continued to improve them to what you see today.

Christine

30th August 2018 Getting In and Out of the Village

Hi Dear Folk,

The weather was beautiful this weekend, a true Indian Summer, which we were able to take advantage of on Sunday, driving over to New Hope and Lambertville, on the Delaware River.

We ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant, Marhaba.  I had lentil soup with lovely fresh pita bread, it was delicious, Mr. B. had stuffed grape leaves, which I tried, yummy, my soup was excellent too.  Followed by a lamb gyro, I took half home and Mr, B.  had a spinach and cheese pocket, can't remember the name, like a calzone.  I also had hot mint tea, lovely on a cooler day.  I definitely recommend this restaurant if you are in Lambertville, NJ.  You must take cash and it's BYOB if you want to.  Afterwards we stopped off at the French Patisserie in New Hope, of course we had to and The Boy had requested cake.  My pictures of the day are on Instagram.  Do play the train video quintessentially American.

This was one of the roads we used to get in and out of the village, as you can see it was quite narrow, but even the other roads in other directions were not much larger than this.

You can understand why nobility had their second home a hunting lodge up here in Norfolk, including of course Sandringham, owned by the Queen.  Lots of forests and wild life.

Christine

29th August 2018 Along The Water Front and Seaside Garden Cromer Norfolk

Hi Dear Folk,

My husband has just told me that ASDA in the UK is owned by Walmart, I can't believe it and I knew that ASDA is merging with Sainsbury's.  Walmart will own 42% of the combined stores in the UK. Are they on the Continent?  My goodness these mega stores get bigger and bigger.  Big business would like to consume the world.

I do like a garden along the sea front and of lot of English larger coastal towns do have them.  If only I had come a month earlier and hit the heat wave.  We were certainly not in a heat wave when we visited Norfolk.  It's about seven in the evening the skies are grey and the wind has come up.

Old Victorian houses along the sea front.

And some newer flats.

Christine

29th August 2018 Fish and Chips What's Not To Love

 Hi Dear Folk,

Wednesday and Thursday were in the seventies and sunny.  Today is overcast but still fairly warm.  I got my Simla and Kitchen patio cleaned up.  The Simla patio was a bit of a mess because it was were the boys had worked on filling up the hole to stop the water getting into the basement.  Weeding between pavers is no fun, but does look good when it's done.

I've been cleaning windows, rearranging furniture and sorting all week.  Yesterday I was quite energized but today I am tired.  This morning I made sweet potato soup and pureed it.  I think it will be good served with a little cheese and sour cream on top.  Earlier in the week I made banana bread, which I always like.

Finished my Queen Ann Lace scarf made from my Norwegian yarn, and have enough left for wrist warmers.  Also made another chunky Queen Ann Lace scarf for a friend.  I received my bamboo yarn from China unfortunately they packed dark brown instead of the black I wanted, but the hazzle to sort it out is greater than the cost so I'll just try and order some black.

Where else to eat Fish and Chips than at the seaside near the promenade.  Here we are in Cromer and this was rated as a very good place to get them, you can see the queue. We didn't get a seat near the window, but were to busy chatting and eating to matter, we'd already been out all day.

We all got cod, I think my favorite, although I do like haddock and plaice.

BB had a glass of wine and I had a Norfolk Ale, which hit the spot.  Not sure what Trev got.

We walked a little bit along here, but by then the wind was coming up in the evening.

I love the brightness of these pavilions.

Christine