sundial – derrickjknight

A Knight’s Tale (111: A Photographic Assignment)

http://www.visitoruk.com/Grantham/fulbeck-hall-C567-AT215.html tells us that

‘Fulbeck Hall is a fine country house dating from the early 17th-century, but largely rebuilt in 1733 by Francis Fane whose family had lived there since 1632.

The house, now a Grade II* listed building, was completely refurbished following World War II, by Henry and Dorothy Fane, having been left in a desperate state of repair by the army who had requisitioned it during the conflict.

The house, with 11 acres of formal gardens, has been restored back to its former glory and is now a private residence. It is not open to the public.

Visitors to the nearby Church of St. Nicholas will see monuments to the Fane family, residents of Fulbeck Hall for nearly 400 years.’

A more detailed history is provided by Wikipedia. From the following extracts I have deleted those sections in need of reference citations.

‘The hall was purchased, in 1622, by Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland, 8th Baron le Despenser and de jure 8th and 6th Baron Bergavenny, of Apethorpe Hall, Northamtonshire, from Sir George Manners, who remained in residence until he became the 7th Earl of Rutland in 1632.^[11] The hall then went to the Earl of Westmorland‘s son, Sir Francis Fane,^[11] a courtier, Royalist and commander of the King’s forces at Doncaster and Lincoln.

Under the Commonwealth, the estate was confiscated, however, Sir Francis Fane was allowed to buy it back, and before the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, he and his wife Elizabeth Darcy, daughter of Sir Edward Darcy MP, grandson of the executed traitor Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy, occupied much of their time in rebuilding the Hall in Restoration style. It was burned down 30 December 1731,^[11] and was rebuilt 1732-1733. His son, also Sir Francis, married Hannah Rushworth daughter of John Rushworth MP and private secretary to Oliver Cromwell .

In 1767 Fulbeck Hall was left to Henry Fane of Brympton owner of Brympton d’Evercy who was a grandson of Sir Francis Fane, the second of Fulbeck and Hannah Rushworth. Henry Fane of Brymton made a fortune as a successful Bristol privateer and he left his Wormesley estates in Oxfordshire to his younger son Henry and his estates in Somerset, Dorset, and Lincolnshire were left to his eldest son Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland Thomas, 8th earl inherited the estates of his father and his cousin the 7th Earl making him one of the richest landowners in England. He left Fulbeck Hall to his younger son the Hon Henry Fane MP in 1783. (This man) followed a long list of Fanes as Members of Parliament for Lyme Regis the famil[y’]s pocket borough inherited from an uncle, John Scrope MP, Secretary to the Treasury and grandson of the executed regicide Colonel Adrian Scrope. The constituency at times provided the Fanes with two members of parliament at the same time and between 1753 and 1832 twelve separate members of the family represented Lyme Regis in the Tory interest. Throughout this period the Fane family also represented Constituencies in Somerset, Lincolnshire, Kent, Hampshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. In 1777 Henry Fane married Anne Buckley Batson, heiress of the Avon Tyrrell estate in Hampshire, by whom he had 14 children.

During the 19th century the house was home to General Sir Henry Fane MP for Lyme Regis who was Commander-in-Chief, India as well as his brother General Mildmay Fane. Sir Henry bequeathed a life interest in the estate to his eldest son Col. Henry Fane(d.1836).^[12] His nephew General Walter Fane who raised Fane’s Horse a regiment of volunteers to fight in China during the Second Opium War succeeded him at Fulbeck Hall. This regiment still exists as part of Pakistan’s armed forces. General Walter Fane is not to be confused with his brother Colonel Francis Fane of Fulbeck Manor, who raised the Peshawar Light Horse in 1857 as an irregular cavalry unit to fight against the mutineers during the Indian Mutiny. This regiment was disbanded in 1903.

During the Second World War 1939-1945 the house was requisitioned by the British Armed Forces and it was the location of the 1st Airborne Division before they left the United Kingdom for the Battle of Arnhem.

Many of the contents of Fulbeck Hall were sold by Sotheby’s in October 2002.’

In February 1993, I was commissioned to make photographs to feature in a brochure for Mary Fry, the then owner, who was a schoolfriend of Jessica’s.

Here Mary stands at her open door

leading to the entrance hall,

off which is found the reception room.

A sundial can be seen standing before the main door in the initial picture. The avenue drive leads the eye from this to the gates.

The elegant drawing room is beautifully furnished with fine furniture, ornaments, paintings,

and a grand piano.

Here is one corner of the room.

My accompanying text is written in the present tense, as in 1993, but I have no idea whether this shapely vase, seen beneath the mirror above;

this landscape painting; or any of the other contents in my pictures, survived the sale of 2002, which followed Mary’s early death.

A Knight’s Tale (102: Enter Mordred)

Some time in 1983 Jessica and I travelled up to Nottinghamshire with Sam and Louisa, and renewed our friendship with Maggie and Mike Kindred who lived in Southwell’s Dover Street.

Here Jessica and Louisa have fun in the Kindred’s kitchen.

The reason for the visit was for me to run the Newark Half Marathon for the first time.

We took the opportunity to visit Bulcote Lodge, Jessica’s family home from the age of 8. Our two children had not been there before because their maternal grandparents had moved to Wiltshire some years earlier.

Sam was particularly intrigued by the sundial near the front door. Louisa wasn’t.

The duckpond had now dried up.

Bulcote’s Holy Trinity Church lies across the road from the house. Jessica contemplates the place of worship to which, more than twenty years later, Louisa was to return to marry Errol.

Little did I know what this trip would lead to. We eventually moved from Furzedown in South London to Newark in Nottinghamshire, and a lifelong friendship was cemented. Having discovered that Michael and I shared a passion for crosswords, it seemed natural, when I got bored with reading on my daily commute to London, to set him a puzzle. He solved it and retaliated. This exchange continued for some time. Other commuters, noticing what I was engrossed in, interrupted my work to ask for solutions to puzzles they were solving. I did not give them the answers, but helped them to work it out for themselves. After a while Mike and I decided to do something a bit more ambitious and write a book which took students through a series of graded puzzles with the object of their being competent to solve a daily cryptic puzzle in any of the newspapers. I might say that, in doing so, our own solving abilities became vastly improved. When we began, I would spend my whole journey on the Times Crossword, often without finishing it. Eventually I would use a stopwatch and several times took less than five minutes. This book became, in 1993, ‘Chambers Cryptic Crosswords and How to Solve Them’. It remained in print, with a number of reprints and

going into a second, improved, edition for just short of twenty years, until Chambers was finally taken over by a company which did not want to use it because they specialised in e-books. Not being able to break into a daily newspaper team in those early days, we decided to set what are called advanced cryptics. These are much more difficult, themed, puzzles found in the weekend newspapers, the editors of which accept puzzles from anyone who can meet the standard. We began with The Times Listener, generally recognised as the most complex of this genre. Now we had to have a pseudonym. So Mordred was born. I have always loved Arthurian legend, and as a setter, fancied myself as an evil Knight. Mordred was King Arthur’s treacherous nephew. The ‘dred’ bit fitted nicely with Michael’s surname, and as has been mentioned by more than one sorrowful solver, the whole is a homophone for more dread. We set a couple of joint puzzles as Mordred until, on the editor’s advice, we split up (although remaining very good friends). I became Mordred and Michael continued to set as Emkay.

I continued to compose puzzles for The Listener and was soon setting for other newspapers and magazines. Some puzzles were to appear in collections in books and I was to feature in Collins A-Z of Crosswords. There is more to come on my development in this field.

An English Country House

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED

Yesterday I featured a porcelain restoration class held at Fulbeck Hall.

http://www.visitoruk.com/Grantham/fulbeck-hall-C567-AT215.html tells us that

‘Fulbeck Hall is a fine country house dating from the early 17th-century, but largely rebuilt in 1733 by Francis Fane whose family had lived there since 1632.

The house, with 11 acres of formal gardens, has beeen restored back to its former glory and is now a private residence. It is not open to the public.

Visitors to the nearby Church of St. Nicholas will see monuments to the Fane family, residents of Fulbeck Hall for nearly 400 years.’

A more detailed history is provided by Wikipedia. From the following extracts I have deleted those sections in need of reference citations.

Many of the contents of Fulbeck Hall were sold by Sotheby’s in October 2002.’

Soon after the porcelain restoration event, in February 1993, I returned to make photographs to feature in a brochure for Mary Fry, the then owner. Today I scanned a selection of the prints.

Here Mary stands at her open door

leading to the entrance hall,

off which is found the reception room.

A sundial can be seen standing before the main door in the initial picture. The avenue drive leads the eye from this to the gates.

The elegant drawing room is beautifully furnished with fine furniture, ornaments, paintings,

and a grand piano.

Here is one corner of the room.

My accompanying text is written in the present tense, as in 1993, but I have no idea whether this vase, seen beneath the mirror above;

this painting; or any of the other contents in my pictures, survived the sale of 2002.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent sausage casserole, perfect roast potatoes, and crisp cauliflower. I drank more of the malbec.

Mordred’s Conception

This morning I posted my final photograph of the Filling Facebook with Nature project.

This is it. It featured in my Kingsbury’s Lane post of 14th January 2014.

Jackie continued with the clearance and soil replenishment of Margery’s Bed. I rendered a certain minimal assistance in carrying away weeds and clippings, and carting compost. Aaron and Robin continued with the fence project.

I then scanned the rest of the recently discovered black and white negatives from the end of 1983. First of all, I found I had more of the October Covent Garden trip, reminding me that Giles had brought Ben along too.

Ben perched on his father’s shoulders to watch Punch and Judy,

then they both enjoyed ice creams,

and eventually joined Sam

and Becky on the barriers.

Soon after this Jessica and I travelled up to Nottinghamshire with Sam and Louisa, and renewed our friendship with Maggie and Mike Kindred who lived in Southwell’s Dover Street. It was as a consequence of this trip that Mordred was conceived.

The reason for the visit was for me to run the Newark Half Marathon for the first time.

Sam was particularly intrigued by the sundial near the front door. Louisa wasn’t.

The duckpond had now dried up.

Bulcote’s Holy Trinity Church lies across the road from the house. Jessica contemplates the place of worship to which, more than twenty years later, Louisa was to return to marry Errol.

On this occasion the toddler was asleep in the car.

Back at Dover Street, we wandered around the small town,

and, from the garden, I photographed Jessica and Louisa having fun in the kitchen.

This evening, Jackie and I dined on veritable fusion food, consisting of the remains of yesterday’s chicken piri-piri meal combined with the contents of a doggie bag brought back from Royal China the night before, and the Culinary Queen’s savoury rice. This was followed by syrup sponge pudding and cream. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Carles priorat 2011.