What I Learned Series | The Travel Lady In Her Shoes

A Day With Agatha Christie at Greenway: Getting There

Agatha Christie’s Tour Bus, (a 1947 Leyland Tiger PS1/1 single decker with Barnaby bodywork)

Agatha Christie’s Tour Bus, Greenway

I am so excited to be visiting Greenway House, the holiday home of Agatha Christie. It is the first private residence of the famous author to be opened to the public. Greenway House is situated on a 278 acre estate on the Dart River in Devon. I will be dividing the posts into several sections since there is so much to talk about and it is all so very interesting! Now let’s get on the tour bus, so to speak!

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born September 15, 1890 into a wealthy, upper middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon. Agatha described her childhood as “very happy”, but that her childhood was over when her father died when she was eleven. She was surrounded by strong and independent women, (her mother and her grandmother especially) believing her mother was a psychic with the ability of second sight. She described her grandmother and her cronies as “always expecting the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right.” Her mother insisted that Agatha be educated at home, so her parents were responsible for teaching her to read (which she loved) and write, and basic arithmetic, which she also enjoyed. In 1905 she was sent to Paris to further her education, but returned in 1910 when her mother was ill. They decided to go to Egypt, (a popular tourist destination for wealthy Brits at that time) to spend time in a warmer climate, and stayed three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel, attending social functions with her mother. They were on the prowl for a husband for Agatha!

Upon return to England Agatha met Archibald Christie at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, near Torquay. Archie was born in India, the son of a judge in the Indian Civil Service. By 1913 he was an army officer in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple married on Christmas Eve in 1914, while Archie was home on leave.

Agatha involved herself in the war effort, joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in 1914, and assisted with wounded soldiers at a hospital in Torquay as an unpaid VAD nurse. She was responsible for aiding the doctors and maintaining morale; she performed 3,400 hours of unpaid work between October 1914 and December 1916. She qualified as an “apothecaries’ assistant” (or dispenser) in 1917 and, as a dispenser, she earned £16 a year until the end of her service in September 1918. In her spare time she wrote.

She was initially unsuccessful at getting her work published, but in 1920 The Bodley Head press published her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Hercule Poirot. This launched her literary career.

Agatha Christie created several series’ characters during her writing career, but her best known was Hercule Poirot. Christie, was a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s early Sherlock Holmes stories. In her detective novel, Poirot was a former Belgian policeman noted for his twirly large magnificent moustaches and egg-shaped head. Christie’s inspiration for this stemmed from real Belgian refugees who were living in Torquay. He appeared in 33 novels, one theatrical play, and more than 50 short stories He first appeared in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) and last appeared in Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case (1975) which famously features his death. While her fans loved Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie herself was increasingly fed up with her creation. Late in her career, she described him as “an egocentric creep.”

In 1926, Archie Christie wanted to marry his mistress, Nancy Neele, and asked Agatha for a divorce. Agatha, totally overwrought, left her home and then abandoned her car at a chalk quarry, before disappearing for ten days. There has been a lot of speculation as to what exactly went on during this time. It has been suggested that Agatha disappeared to embarrass her husband, and call him out on the divorce, (mistress and all) or that it had possibly been a publicity stunt to promote her next book. However, when she was found at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate having registered under a false name, two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from amnesia and a depressed state from literary overwork, her mother’s death earlier that year and her husband’s infidelity. Agatha never spoke of the incident again.

A quote from Agatha; “I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”

Life goes on………. and Miss (Jane) Marple was introduced in the short stories called The Thirteen Problems in 1927 and was based on Christie’s grandmother and her cronies.

In 1930 Agatha married Sir Max Mallowen, (14 years her junior) having met him during an archaeological dig. Her travels with him contributed backgrounds for several of her novels set in the Middle East.

Agatha Quote; An archaelogist is the best husband a women can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

In 1938, Agatha Christie, now independently wealthy from her writing, returned to Torbay and purchased a Georgian Manor, named Greenway. Greenway would be the setting for several of her books.

She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best known for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections that she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigative work of such characters as Hercule Poirot, and Jane Marple.

Agatha Quote; I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.

She returned to Greenway again and again in her fiction, setting many of her classic murder mysteries at the beach, cove and island. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple both ventured to Torbay to solve heinous crimes. While Greenway was never Agatha’s primary residence, it was for a generation the family holiday retreat—where the family gathered for Christmas and Easter, and where she spent her summers. In 1950 Christie turned the house over to her daughter Rosalind Christie Hicks and in 2000 Greenway was transferred to The National Trust. Today, Greenway is restored and furnished as Christie and Max Mallowen would have known it in the 1950s.

Christie Mysteries Set Locally

Peril at End House
Sleeping Murder
The ABC Murders
The Body in the Library
And Then There Were None
Evil Under the Sun
Dead Man’s Folly

The Ferry Stop at Greenway

Greenway is not easy to get to. The preferred and recommended method of arrival is by boat—passenger ferry from Torbay, Dartmouth, or across the river from Dittisham. Any way you arrive at the quay, it is a 400-yard climb up hill to the house and gardens. This is not a trip for those with limited mobility.

The Lane to Greenway, Devon, UK

Now that we have had a little background on Agatha let’s continue to make our way to Greenway! Take a good look at that narrow country lane! It is the Green Way, aptly named! Arriving by car and getting closer to our destination, we first meandered through a neighborhood of Galmpton and then came upon this mile or so of narrow lane to Greenway. See that little extra pavement to the right in the photo? That is how much room you have to pull over if another car or bus approaches! Add to that the idiots that do not read the details of visiting Greenway. You MUST reserve a parking space that is available in 3 hour increments at Greenway House. If you don’t have a permit, pre- arranged, you will be turning your car around and heading home! Now some think it is OK to just park your car in this tiny strip and walk on to Greenway! Now how do the cars pull over when another car approaches???? This is an adventure all in itself. Once you reach the parking lot there is another extended hike up to the house. Golf carts are available to pick you up, but you must register for assistance and the wait can be lengthy as there are over 900 visitors a day.

But, we got here, Leon (the car) was all in one piece and I had my reservation to park, so what’s another walk? The house itself is surrounded by walled gardens, orchards and woodland gardens, so the walk was pleasant.

The Walled Gardens of Greenway

Navelwort in Walled Garden at Greenway

The stables and other out buildings have been converted to a gift shop and an eatery, so you can stop and enjoy this area before going on up to the house. What a beautiful view of the river and grounds from the front of the house!

A View of the River Dart at Greenway

There are lawn chairs to sit and enjoy this view either before or after visiting the house.

The Lawn Chairs at Greenway

Greenway, Holiday Home of Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie at Greenway

Let’s go in! See you tomorrow!

Thursday Doors at Tintinhull

Tintinhull, A National Trust Property in Somerset, UK

Main Entrance at Tintinhull

The Boxwood Entrance at Tintinhull, Notice the Diamond Shaped Stone Walkway

Tintinhull, a National Trust property in Somerset, was our second stop of the day on our way to Cornwall.

Keep in mind that finding a particular National Trust property makes some of the best adventures! They are usually off the beaten path and although are addressed in small villages many times I never find the small village!

Tintinhull, is a small, tidy property that just fits the bill. By 1630 the Napper family had constructed the east side of the present house, and this was extended by Andrew Napper in 1722 when the classical west facade and forecourt were built. In about 1900 Tintinhull was sold to Dr S J M Price. He developed the west forecourt as a garden, laying the distinctive diamond-patterned flagged walk and planting the flanking clipped domes of boxwood. Notice the big eagles on the wall too! In 1933 Tintinhull was sold to Captain and Mrs P.E. Reiss, who developed garden enclosures linked by carefully designed vistas and rich planting. Phyllis Emily Reiss created a garden around the 17th century manor house, with six compartments, each room having it’s own character and identity, divided by clipped hedges and walls. She designed the Pool Garden as a memorial to a nephew killed in WWII. The house, gardens and woodland walk create all the charm at Tintinhull!

In July 1939 Reiss made two broadcasts for the BBC entitled ‘In my Garden.’ In 1959 she gave Tintinhull to the National Trust although she lived there until her death on the 18th September 1961.

Penelope Hobhouse and her husband, Professor John Malins lived at Tintinhull for fourteen years and was in charge of the gardens there from 1980 until 1993. With a name like Penelope Hobhouse, (my auto spelling corrector wants to name her Penelope Hothouse) it’s a given that she was a garden writer, garden historian, self taught gardener and lecturer. She went on to design many gardens in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the United States. I especially like her name and I think it is perfect for a gardener! She has written several garden books, and Penelope Hobhouse on Gardening, written in 1994, describes her gardening experiences at Tintinhull. You can find a video of her Here.

Now let’s take a look at Tintinhull!

The Garden Map at Tintinhull

Birds on the Wall Is Always Good!

Another Entrance to Tintinhull

A Very Small Door at Tintinhull

How about this very small door! Was it an opening to a guard shack? Did you drop off the mail here? What was it used for?

A Few Doors to be Seen Here!

I LOVE the Color of the Stone Too!

Penelope Hobhouse was noted for her Terra Cotta planters! And I don’t want to miss the windows either!

Some Window Treatment at Tintinhull

Another Door, More Windows and Some More Pots!

Inside Tintinhull

Only two rooms are open for viewing at Tintinhull. Short, sweet, and modest!

Inside Tintinhull, with Very Deep Doorways!

Inside Tintinhull

The Barn Tea Room Entrance Doors at Tintinhull

Inside the Tearoom at Tintinhull

A Few Garden Photos at Tintinhull

Did you find the doorways in the garden?

Row Houses at Tintinhull

This section of Row Houses must refer to the village at Tintinhull! This is the only “village” I saw! Loved their cottage gardens and what else? More Red Doors!

Row Houses at Tintinhull

This is just one of many photos in the Thursday Door Collection featured by Norm2.0! Won’t you join in or take a peak at all the doors? See you next week!

It’s a Sign!

The White Horse Inn, Hailsham, UK

Posting one last time about the Hoare Family, Stourhead and interesting tidbits………….that led from one thing to another!

When Richard Hoare, Goldsmith, moved his shop from Cheapside to Fleet Street he took his trading sign with him, that of the Golden Bottle, which was a gilded leather bottle that hung outside the shop. This sign was used to distinguish his business from another.

I am fascinated with the signs in the UK. Everyone has a sign! Cottages in the villages have signs rather than numbered addresses and looking for cottage signs and pub signs while visiting there is very enjoyable!

But how did all this sign business start? Well, with the Romans! In 43 AD, it was traditional for landlords, in Rome, to hang branches of vine leaves outside their premises to promote the drinking of wine within. People could not read, so an image that made sense was needed. When one saw the grape vines, one thought of grapes and then wine! Voila a sign! However, when the Romans got to the UK, they were lacking the customary vine leaf and hung any kind of evergreen plant over the door instead. The Romans built an extensive road network and with large numbers of troop movements, inns opened at suitable stopping points. Hence the beginnings of the local pub!

By the 12th century people were doing pilgrimages to cathedral towns, such as to the shrine of Thomas Beckett in Canterbury. As Chaucer’s pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales reveal, the pilgrims started their journey at the Tabard Inn in London. Other inns and taverns welcomed pilgrims and knights on their way to the Crusades in the Holy Land.

Pub signs as we know them today were originated with the Royal Act of 1393 when Richard II declared that anyone brewing ale in a town, with the intention of selling it, must hang out a sign or forfeit his ale.

It was Charles I who gave people the right to hang out signs as they pleased. Prior to that signs were for innkeepers only. So an elaborate language of symbols began with a common understanding. Most common was a dragon for an apothecary, a sugar loaf for a grocer, a wheatsheaf for a baker, a frying pan for a confectioner and a spool for a silk weaver, or in the case of goldsmith, Hoare, the leather sack of gems.

By the 18th Century heavy wrought iron brackets with their sign hung outside every single establishment in Cheapside. During bad weather or a strong wind, these huge signs groaned and creaked and in 1718 a huge sign collapsed killing four people and took out much of the shop front. There was such a problem of hanging signs crowding the streets and knocking people from their horses, that a commission was formed in 1762 to take them all down and fix them to the store fronts. So that became the standard system to identify properties.

But, the British like their traditions and I am glad many, many shops, pubs and cottages use the hanging of signs to identify their property, albeit with lighter, smaller signs!

Here are some of my pub signs collected during my “Garden Tours of England.”

The Bucket of Blood, Cornwall, UK

According to local folklore, the Bucket of Blood got its name many years ago when the landlord went to the well to get a bucket of water, but found a bucket of blood. Investigating further he found there was the badly mutilated corpse of a local smuggler at the bottom of the well! An alternative theory is that the well on the grounds would provide red water due to run off from local tin mining.

Downlong Cottage, St Ives, Cornwall, UK

The Mermaid Restaurant, St Ives

The Golden Lion, St Ives

Warninglid Village Sign, UK

The Woolpack Inn, Tenterden, UK

The Star Inn, Alfriston, UK

The George Inn, Alfriston, UK

The Bull Inn, Benenden, Uk

These were a few of my favorite signs! I hope you enjoyed learning about them! See you soon!

More Interesting Tidbits I Discovered about the Hoare Family of Stourhead

Young Elizabeth I Wearing Exquisite Jewelery

Young Elizabeth I Wearing Exquisite Jewelry

Elizabeth I Wearing Exquisite Jewelry

Just a few days ago I wrote a blog post about the Hoare family and how I had visited their fabulous estate called Stourhead, which is one of the National Trust properties in the UK. I wrote how Richard Hoare, in 1672 had a goldsmith’s business at Cheapside and set up a system of banking because goldsmiths had secure premises and had always been the storehouses for cash and valuables. The shops on Cheapside were the commercial heart of London with shops for the sale of luxury goods and was known as Goldsmith’s Row, the center for the manufacture and sale of golden jewelry in medieval London.

Elizibethan London Map

Richard Hoare, knighted by Queen Anne in 1702, the same year she became queen, prospered, and he not only made precious jewelry for the queen and others, he became Lord Mayor of London in 1712, and took his goldsmith venture into the banking industry. He soon moved his banking facilities to Fleet Street, the main thoroughfare halfway between the City of Westminster and the City of London.

Queen Anne by Michael Dahl, painting,1705

Hoare introduced many aspects of modern banking, including issuing printed checks and the C.Hoare and Co Bank is the oldest private bank in the United Kingdom to this day. It is family owned and run by the 11th generation of Hoares’ descendants.

Well I got to thinking, is this where the word hoard came from? According to the Dictionary, the word, hoard, has it’s origins from the Old English noun, hord, which was a secret stock or store for something. Hmmmm….. sounds very familiar to our story of goldsmith, Richard Hoare.

Then I read another fascinating tale; that of the Cheapside Hoard, which was discovered in 1912, when a workman’s pickax smashed through the brick cellar in an old house being demolished at 30-32 Cheapside in London! Found in a buried, wooden coffin-styled box, was 500 pieces of 17th century goldsmith’s stock, including rings, brooches and chains with bright gem stones and enameled gold settings, along with cameos, scent bottles and crystal tankards. Well that fits nice and tidy with our Hoare family name and background doesn’t it? What was so incredible about this stash of jewelry, with huge rubies, pearls the size of acorns, emeralds, diamonds and sapphires, is that it was left as designed and not altered as other pieces from this period tended to be; broken up, re-fashioned and reworked over the centuries and therefore didn’t survive.

Jewels from the Cheapside Hoard

Now who hid the stash and what was done with it after it was found? More to the story…….

In 1637, a gem dealer named Gerrard Pulman paid the East India Company 100 pounds for the safe passage on the ship, Discovery, from the Orient back to England. With him was a crate that took three men to lift, a great sea-chest, and smaller boxes full of diamonds and other gems worth many millions today. He lost a walnut-sized diamond from a purse around his neck when bathing on the voyage, and two weeks later he was dead….. poisoned by the ship’s surgeon, an inquiry found. Pulman’s body was stripped and thrown overboard. By the time the treasure chests were opened in London upon arrival, they were half empty. The missing gems, stolen by crew and officers, were sold to jewelers across London. One crewman pulled a pocket full of loot out at the Three Tun Tavern in Fleet Street and dropped an enormous pearl through a crack in the floorboards. Many believe these gems ended up in the Cheapside Hoard. But, who buried the treasure and why was it not discovered until 1912? One theory was that the jeweler buying up the gems very likely buried it below the cellar floor to keep them safe. This was also a time of great upheaval as many jewelers were soon to became soldiers in the Civil War of 1642. From 1645 to 1646, fifteen percent of the population of London was killed by the Great Plague, so many people fled the city to avoid the war and then to avoid the plague.

Then in 1666, a fire that started in a bakery, spread quickly through the city. In less than three days it consumed more than 13,000 buildings, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, about a block away from the hoard. The Great Fire of London, as it came to be known, destroyed most of the city’s wooden structures, including those above the site of the treasure. Evidence of fire damage found during the Cheapside excavations led experts to conclude that the jewels were buried no later than 1666. It is unlikely that the owner of the hoard perished in the fire, as very few casualties were actually recorded.

Following the Great Fire of London and the rebuilding of the city, new structures were erected in the Cheapside district around 1670. This time, brick and mortar structures rose above the forgotten cellars, sealing the Cheapside Hoard for two and a half centuries.

Cheapside, London

So more than likely, whoever buried the hoard died and the stash was never discovered until the workmen started demolishing the old jewelry premise in 1912. The workmen stuffed the loot, some dating back 1500 years to the Byzantium period, into their hats, pockets and knotted handkerchiefs and took them to “Stoney Jack,” an antiques dealer and pawn shop owner, who literally went on pub crawls offering men work, giving them a shilling or “half a pint” for any interesting finds that were brought to him! “Stoney Jack,” who was George Fabian Lawrence sold all the treasure given to him to the new London Museum. The Cheapside Treasure was an epic success when the London Museum opened in 1914, revealing some of the treasure, including a watch set in a single emerald the size of a small apple!

During WWI the treasure went into bank vault storage and came out when the entire collection went on display at the Museum of London in 2013.

Oh my, what a person can discover from just one visit to a National Trust property and an inquiring mind! What an adventure! More to follow!

The Hoare House, aka Stourhead, a National Trust Estate

Stourhead

I’m back from my “Garden Tour of England” and as you have learned from the previous post, written by the garden fairies here at The End Cottage, we are caught up with my own garden chores and all the guests are back home! Hence the delay in sharing my adventure!

It takes me months to plan which National Trust properties I will visit. After I decide on the properties I determine as many public and private gardens as I can in close proximity to the National Trust sights that I have picked out, and voila, my schedule of touring is complete! There is so much to see and do! So, let’s take a walk through the grounds and home of the Hoare family, here at Stourhead. It is the first of many delights this year on my Garden Tour of England. I have separated the posts into the house and to follow, the gardens.

The Story of Harry……… really it starts with all those Henrys and Richards in the Hoare family, who had nicknames of “good,” “magnificent,” and “naughty” to tell them apart. Sir Richard Hoare, was a goldsmith, in 1673, in London. Goldsmiths had secure premises and were the storehouses for cash and valuables so they were in a unique position to start a system of banking: lending their customers money for interest. He was granted the Freedom of the Goldsmith’s Company on July 5th, 1672 and this marked the foundation of the Hoare’s Bank. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1702 and then became Lord Mayor of London in 1712. His son, Good Henry, was a partner in the family bank, Hoare and Co. Henry the Good, lived at the bank during the week and wanted a country estate for holidays and leisure. In 1717 he bought the medieval Stourton estate for 14,000 pounds and renamed it Stourhead after the source of the Stour River. He built Stourhead House based on a 16th century Venetian villa, but died before his grand design was completed. Henry Hoare, “the Magnificent,” grandson of Richard, and son of Henry the Good, dominated the family with his wealth and personal charisma and was a great patron of the arts. He expanded the estate and the gardens that were considered a showcase. The garden was completed in 1770 and it’s fame spread quickly and became a must see destination with the breathtaking landscape and classical temples set around the lake. The grounds included a Grotto, a Gothic Cottage, the Pantheon, the Temple of Apollo, and the Temple of Flora.

Temple of Apollo, Stourhead

Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare (perhaps the naughty) and his wife Augusta inherited Stourhead in 1883, but it soon spiraled into decay when costs grew impossible to manage, because she loved living in the country and he preferred city life. Ainslie’s flamboyant lifestyle forced him to leave the bank and auction Stourhead paintings, furniture and books. He left Stourhead in 1885.

In 1894, after the death of his cousin, Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare and his wife Alda, inherited the unoccupied house that had sat empty for 10 years and the 2,650 acre estate with the run down, neglected and overgrown gardens. They decided to pack up and leave their home, Wavendom in Buckinghamshire, and move with their son, Harry Hoare, to Stourhead, to create a special home for their only son. Harry and his parents loved the estate and worked hard to make it the beauty it once had been.

The Entrance Hall at Stourhead

The Library at Stourhead

Little Dining Room at Stourhead

The Column Room at Stourhead

Ornate Cabinet in the Column Room, Stourhead

Ornate Cabinet in the Cabinet Room, Stourhead

I love that Poppy Red Color!

Detail of Ornate Cabinet in the Column Room, Stourhead

Detail of Ornate Cabinet in the Cabinet Room, Stourhead

An Ornate Cabinet in the Cabinet Room at Stourhead

The Italian Room at Stourhead

The Picture Gallery at Stourhead

Fancy Way of Saying, DO NOT SIT at Stourhead

In 1902, a fire broke out in a chimney and burned for hours. The center of the house collapsed from the attic down to the cellars. The family, servants, gardeners, estate workers and farm hands worked to salvage as much as possible from the burning building. Paintings were cut from their frames and furniture was thrown out of windows. The Hoares worked again to restore the house they so loved, especially for Harry, since he had grown up here and loved every inch of the place and this would always be his home. As you can see from the many rooms of Stourhead, saving everything would have been quite a challenge! It was vast with huge collections of Everything!

On August 1, 1914, Harry joined the Dorset Yeomanry and within a week he was no longer the estate manager, working for his father, but a soldier fighting for his country. His military career was plagued with injury and ill health and every time he was taken ill he would return to Stourhead to be cared for by his parents. After each recovery Harry returned to the battlefield.

During WWI the house and grounds were opened to the “Tommies” from the nearby Red Cross Hospital at Mere. Alda made arrangement for the soldiers to have outings on the property. Especially popular with the men was fishing in the Flora Bay and afterwards Alda would serve tea to all the boys at The Flora Temple. Flowers, grapes and vegetables were also sent to support the troops at the hospital.

On December 19, 1917, Captain Henry Holt Arthur Hoare (Harry), was shot in the lungs at the Battle of El Mugher in Palestine and died of his wounds in Raseltin Hospital in Alexandria. He was buried in the Hadra Military Cemetery there. Harry’s parents were devastated after his untimely death and made plans to bequeath the home and grounds to charity, opening the estate to visitors. On show days visitors were shown around by the butler or the head housemaid, following strict rules. In 1946, one year before the death of Harry’s father, the estate was split and half was gifted to the National Trust and half remains in family ownership.

Visiting this extraordinary house and gardens was made that much more interesting by learning about the family, the house and grounds. That’s what makes the estates in the National Trust so interesting, they are preserving History! Particularly fun was the large display of 19th century women’s hats found in the estate ticket office! Women and children spent a lot of time trying on the hats and primping in front of the mirrors! A first for me in a National Trust property!

Hoare and Co. is the oldest private bank in the United Kingdom. As the business prospered it was moved to 37 Fleet Street, where it still is today and run by the 11th generation of Hoare’s direct descendants.

Next we’ll visit the Gardens at Stourhead! See you there!

Color Your World:120 Days of Color; Purple Heart

George Washington’s Purple Heart

The original Purple Heart was called the Badge of Military Merit. George Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, designed the badge in the form of a Purple Heart, made from purple cloth, and the general order for it to be used was given to the Army on August 7, 1782. It was given, “not only in instances of unusual gallantry in battle, but also extraordinary fidelity and essential service in any way”.

Most historians believe that only three people received the Badge of Military Merit during the Revolutionary War, all of them noncommissioned officers, and the only three to receive the award from General Washington himself. These soldiers were:

Sergeant William Brown of the 5th Connecticut Regiment of the Connecticut Line.

Sergeant Elijah Churchill of the 2nd regiment Light Dragoons.

Sergeant Daniel Bissell of the 2nd Connecticut Regiment of the Connecticut Line.

Although never abolished, the badge was not proposed again officially until after WWI.

After WWI, The Purple Heart was awarded in the name of the President of the United States, to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after April 5, 1917, with the US military. The Purple Heart is the oldest military award still given to U.S. military members.

During World War II, nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned allied invasion of Japan. To the present date, the total combined American military casualties of the seventy years following the end of WWII—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there remained 120,000 Purple Heart medals in stock. The existing surplus allowed combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to soldiers wounded in the field.

I wonder if there are any of the WWII Purple Hearts left? My heart breaks to think about it.

Crayola added the color, Purple Heart, to their colors in 1998.

This post is just one of many in the Color Your World: 120 Days of Crayola Challenge!

Milton Bradley; the Game Geek and More

Milton Bradley

Earlier this week, posting for the Color Your World Challenge; Magenta, I wrote a small piece about Milton Bradley and his tie to the Crayola/ Binney & Smith Company. I found his life so interesting I wanted to share more about him!

Milton Bradley was born in Vienna, Maine, in 1836, and grew up in a working class family. After graduating from high school in 1854 he found work as a draftsman and patent agent before enrolling at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was unable to finish his studies or find employment, so he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts and found work at the locomotive works of Blanchard & Kimball (later Bemis & Company)

When the recession hit in 1858, the company closed, and Bradley went to work for himself as a mechanical draftsman and patent agent. In 1859 he went to Providence, Rhode Island to learn lithography ( a method of printing from a flat surface, such as a metal plate, that has been prepared, so that the ink will only stick to the design that will be printed) and in 1860 he set up the first color lithography shop in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The lithography job led the way to the Milton Bradley Company and the launch of his board game, The Checkered Game of Life. However, it was not an easy launch.

Bradley printed and sold an image of the little-known-Republican presidential nominee, Abraham Lincoln. A customer demanded his money back, because the picture was not an accurate representation of Lincoln, because in the image that was sold, Lincoln was clean shaven! Lincoln had decided to grow his beard back! Bradley thought the prints were worthless and destroyed the remaining few. Now he was frantically searching for a new project and when his friend gave him a European board game, he decided he could produce a similar game for American customers and in the winter of 1860 he released The Checkered Game of Life.

Checkered Game of Life

The Checkered Game of Life sold out in a two day visit to New York and by 1861 consumers had bought 45,000 copies. In this game players used a teetotum to advance to squares representing social virtues and vices, such as “influence” or “poverty”. Bradley defined success as depicting life as an accomplishment between character and wealth.

What is a teetotum? A teetotum is a small spinning top spun with the fingers, especially one with four sides lettered to determine whether the spinner has won or lost. It was used instead of dice, since dice was considered gambling. Following the Civil War this game lead to great financial success for Bradley’s Company.

Teetotum, 1881

The Milton Bradley Company also published magazines and pamphlets aimed at education, starting with The Kindergarten News and Work and Play. He continued to publish them, although they were not money makers, until the end of his life. By the 1890’s Bradley had introduced the first standardized watercolor sets and educational games such as Bradley’s Word Builder and Bradley’s Sentence Builder. He also was the FIRST to release crayon packages with standardized colors and eventually sold them to Binney & Smith, the Crayola Company, but when he did, the first combined Binney & Smith and Bradley Company crayons had his seal of approval on the boxes. His interest in art education led him to also produce the color wheel and he also published four books about teaching colors. Two of his books were Color in the Schoolroom, 1890, and Color in the Kindergarten, 1893. He also published a set of rules to play croquet in 1866 using the pseudonym, Professor A. Rover.

Bradley held 9 patents on various toys and games and he also invented the panorama viewer for soldiers of the American Civil war!

The Milton Bradley Company dominated the production of American games, including The Game of Life, Candy Land, Operation, and Battleship. The company was eventually sold to Hasbro. In 2004, Milton Bradley was posthumously inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame. We have Milton Bradley to thank for hours of educational and artistic enjoyment! He definitely was a man who enjoyed work and play!

Let the Feast Begin!

The Swan Restaurant at Chapel Down Winery, Kent, UK

Today we are celebrating Thanksgiving with our family, enjoying turkey and all the trimmings! In my last post I talked about the Chapel Down Winery and the beautiful Swan Restaurant. So here is the food you might be eating if you were in the UK today. It’s the traditional Sunday roast and more! Enjoy your day!

The Swan Restaurant, Chapel Down Winery, Kent, UK

There is an area for relaxing and drinking their fine sparkling wines and Curious Beers! A great place to meet up!

The Swan Restaurant, Chapel Down Winery, Kent, UK

There is also the dining room area for eating the tempting meals! So many choices!!!!!

The Swan Restaurant, Chapel Down Winery, Kent, UK

We chose from the gathering menu, which routinely changes during the season! Three courses with different wines served with each! First the appetizer, with wine………….

The Appetizers, The Swan Restaurant, Kent, UK

Then we ordered the Yorkshire Pudding plate because we have never eaten Yorkshire pudding! If you are expecting a crystal, fluted cup with a yummy, creamy, thick, sweet pudding, topped with real whipped cream, you will be quite surprised! We were!!!!!!!!!! Read about Yorkshire pudding, with recipe, here. The article is quite amusing!!!!! The mushroom looking bread in the picture is Yorkshire pudding! It is neither a traditional pudding as we know it, or from Yorkshire!!!!!! It was served with a cauliflower gratin!!!!! Yummmmmmy!

THE YORKSHIRE PUDDING!

The main course and of course more wine……………..

The Traditional Sunday Roast, The Swan Restaurant, Kent, UK

The Pork Loin, Swan Restaurant, Kent, UK

The Deserts, The Swan Restaurant, Kent, UK

The deserts served with………… you guessed it, another glass of sparkly!

The Deserts, The Swan Restaurant, Kent, UK

Were those bowler hats used as lighting or was I seeing things?

What are bowler hats exactly?……. I’ve had so much wine, now I am thinking about Bowler hats!!!! Definition: Known as a bob hat, billycock or bobkin, it is made of hard felt with a round crown created for the British soldier in 1849. Now all I can think about is The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan! Time to go home!!!! I’ve had a really good day! See you soon!

The Swan Restaurant, Chapel Down Winery, Kent, UK

Eat, Drink and Be Merry: Let’s Start with the Drink and Be Merry!

Chapel Down Winery, Tenterden Kent, UK

During my English Garden Tour we based in the countryside outside of Tenterden, Kent. It was a wise decision, because it was near the beautiful and busy market town of Tenterden, but we still could enjoy the peace of the countryside. Some of our best finds were found on the small lane that took us out of Tenterden to the Bullein B&B. One find was the Smallhythe Place, country home of Ellen Terry, (see previous posts about that) and right up the lane from the cottage was the Chapel Down Vineyard. What a great surprise that was! It is rated the top vineyard in the UK for sparkling wines, Curious Beers and ciders! So one Sunday afternoon we took it upon ourselves to partake of the vineyard. Poor pitiful Us! Ha Ha!

Chapel Down Winery is set in a charming and well kept garden surrounded by the vineyards. As the crow flies we could have walked there from the B&B. So, it really was a three fold visit, it had a lovely garden, and an inviting vineyard, wine and specialty food shop. Topping off the day we ate at the fantastic Swan Restaurant on the premises! I will talk about the The Swan Restaurant in my next post!

First I had to visit the garden!

Chapel Down Winery, Tenterden, Kent, UK

What a great place for a wedding! Everything you need right here!

Chapel Down Winery, Tenterden, Kent, UK

There is the wine tasting area in the large barn-like building, which features the award- winning wine along with local cheeses, chutney, hand-made chocolates, and artisan biscuits. The staff are very helpful and knowledgable. While we were there many people were stocking up with cases and cases of wine!

This is what I learned………..

The Curious Beer, made by the Kent winemaker, has been named one of the world’s best lager’s in the industry. The International Beer Challenge, which has judged the best beers in the world for the past sixteen years, awarded Chapel Down the Gold Medal for the Curious Brew! With over four hundred brew entries Chapel Down had the best of its class! Using East Anglian malt, saaz and cascade hops, they re-ferment the lager using champagne yeast to make a highly drinkable and refreshing lager beer. The sparkling wines and beers have been served at Buckingham Palace and were featured during the wedding celebrations of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Curious Brew is currently served on draught at Jamie Oliver’s Union Jack restaurants and Jamie’s Italians, The Swan at London’s Globe Theatre, the Royal Opera House, as well as independent pubs in the south east. We were so lucky to stumble across this place! If it’s good enough for the queen it’s good enough for me!

We chose to eat at the Swan Restaurant, (a reservation is highly recommended) and try the different beverages with our meal! What a lovely day out! Do not miss the Chapel Down Winery and Swan Restaurant in Tenterden! Now let’s go in The Swan and check out the menu!

Ellen Terry: The Saga Continues

Ellen Terry in Original MacBeth Gown

Alice Ellen Terry (February 27th, 1847 – July 21st, 1928) was the darling of the theatre and her life has been compared to that of Princess Diana. Born into a family that made their living from the traveling theatre, Ellen and her siblings never had a real home, as they spent most of their childhood in boarding houses near the theatre or actually at the theatre with their parents. By the age of eight, Ellen Terry was working in the theatre along side her older sister. By the time Ellen was sixteen, (1864) her sister had married well and was no longer working on the stage. Ellen was the primary breadwinner of the family. Her parents encouraged her to marry G. F. Watts, a rich and famous painter, who was thirty years her senior, and who had also offered to support her family after the marriage, since Ellen would be retiring from the stage, at age sixteen. G. F. Watts hired a companion for Ellen (to teach her the finer manners of polite society) and he continued to be a recluse painter. Within a year of the marriage, Ellen was bored to tears and he was bored with being married to a teenager that did not fit into his circle of friends. The couple separated. He continued to pay her family 300 pounds a year until 1877, when he finally divorced her for adultery. By 1877 Terry had two children with Edward William Godwin, whom she never married, and had returned to the stage and was on to her ~~second~~ third husband, Charles Kelly. What was it about Ellen Terry? Men loved her. Her fans adored her; she could do no wrong in their eyes, no matter how scandalous her life was.

What was Ellen Terry’s secret? She didn’t care about the money, and she made plenty of it. She was generous to a fault. At seventeen, she left the stage for a second time to run off with the married, Edward William Godwin, and did not work for six years and had two children with him. The major problem was Edward William Godwin, architect and designer, didn’t work much. They fell on really hard times and Ellen Terry returned to the stage and picked up right where she had started off. She again was the darling of the theatre. Edward William Godwin, the love of her life, ran off and married his secretary, Beatrice Birnie Phillip. He was simply jealous of her success. When Godwin died, Phillip, his widow, came to Terry and asked for money. Ellen Terry supported Phillip financially and emotionally, until Phillip died and then supported Phillip’s mother, for the rest of her life! How many women would do that? The men that Ellen Terry married, really weren’t all that nice, but had no problem living off her money. She continued to support her family, her children, and all her husbands (except G.F. Watts) well after their separations and divorces. Ellen Terry’s parents thought Ellen Terry was very greedy and loved the limelight, (but she supported the entire family until they all died.) I think Terry could just not say no to anyone. In 1877, when G.F. Watts finally divorced Terry, she married Charles Kelly. Terry stated she loved manly men of the theatre, and Kelly was that. However, he wasn’t nearly as good an actor as Terry, and Henry Irving, Terry’s professional partner, whisked her away from him and Irving and Terry set off to America, leaving her husband by the wayside. Irving was not stupid either. Ellen Terry was his bread and butter! Kelly and Terry separated, but she supported Kelly until his death. He died on the day she announced she was coming back to England! In 1907, Terry married, James Carew, in Pittsburgh, her co-star in America, while on another tour there. She was 60 and he was 30. A letter on display at her home records the media hysteria when the news broke of her latest adventure. She wrote from Smallhythe Place, “The horror of it all when I first arrived back in England. I wish we had never been born! About 50 reporters and photographers all met me! I fought……flew into the railway carriage and pulled down all the shades….with an enormous crowd outside the windows asking me to put my head out!! Her marriage to Carew lasted two years. They separated, but she never divorced him.

Then there was the problem with the children. Daughter, Edith Craig, got a proposal for marriage, but Ellen told her daughter, who worked with her on the stage, that she was needed so much by Ellen that she could not marry. Her daughter responded by creating a wall, separating the cottage at Smallhythe Place, into two halves. Edith then moved two other females into the cottage on her side (where she lived in a ménage à trois, with dramatist, Christabel Marshall and the artist, Clare, “Tony” Atwood from 1919 until her death in 1947. Ellen Terry supported them all financially and lived alone on her side of the house.

During this same period, Terry’s son, Edwin Gordon Craig, had managed to have thirteen children with eight different woman and Ellen Terry supported all the children and their mothers and then took care of the woman Craig finally married, and their two children also. Ellen continued to work, in the theatre in England and traveled the world in her later years, lecturing and acting, and at one point worked in the United States in the film industry. She commented, “Am I to do one night stands for the rest of my life?” She was just a nice woman, who was very gifted and couldn’t say no. She also supported many charities and the Woman’s Right’s movement.

In her personnel life she was very thrifty. She was beautiful until the end and had beautiful clothes, but recycled them, dying her dresses new colors, adding a new feather here or there. Why buy new clothes when the old ones were perfectly fine? One of her most popular dresses, for the theatre, was the “beetle-wing gown.” Ellen Terry wore this green, shimmering dress, made with the wings of 1,000 beetles, as she performed as Lady Macbeth. The dress transformed the beautiful red-headed actress into a cross between a serpent and a medieval knight and was the talk of the town after the first night. John Singer Sargent painted Terry wearing it! Oscar Wilde loved it! Edith Terry commented, “Is this not a lovely robe? It is so easy to wear, one doesn’t have to wear a corset!”

Lady Macbeth Beetle wing Gown, Worn by Ellen Terry

Lady Macbeth Beetle Wing Gown, Re-woven

Re-Woven Beetle Wing Dress Worn by Ellen Terry

In 2006, the fragile knitted dress with the beetle wings, which had been preserved as part of Terry’s spectacular collection of theatre memorabilia, was falling apart. Beetle wings were regularly found lying at the bottom of the display case. Henry Irving’s, Macbeth, ran for more than six months to packed houses and the costume was re-used on many later tours also. It bore the scars of being tramped on by others, snagged on scenery, and torn from the jewelry Terry wore on stage.

Working on Ellen Terry’s Beetle Wing Gown

Close Up of Beetle Wing Gown Worn by Ellen Terry

With donations to the National Trust, a 110,000 pound restoration was met and the dress is again on display at her home at Smallhythe Place. Most of the money came from visitors’ donations at her 16th century, chocolate-box cottage, at Smallhythe Place. An antique dealer in nearby Tenterden, donated additional beetle wings….. which the beetles shed naturally. The gown arrived at the studio of specialist textile conservator, Zenzie Tinker, in Brighton. She soon realized that she was dealing with the remains of two identical dresses, that had been patched together, when both were too badly damaged to wear. Hundreds of beetle wings were repaired by gluing green-dyed Japanese tissue paper on the reverse side of the gown, and then stitching the beetles in place!

Ellen Terry led a remarkable life becoming one of the premier actresses of her day, admired for her beautiful voice, sensitive interpretations and striking appearance, right up to the end. Her death mask, on display, in her home proves it! She was very generous with her money, tried to help everyone, and was loved by all! Who could fault her? Visiting Smallhythe Place, in Kent, will be an honor you never forget! Enjoy! See you next time!

PS, For pictures of the cottage at Smallhythe Place and the garden, see previous posts.

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Travel, Gardens, Food, Photography, Books, Shoes

Posts from the ‘What I Learned Series’ category

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Christie Mysteries Set Locally

Thursday Doors at Tintinhull

It’s a Sign!

More Interesting Tidbits I Discovered about the Hoare Family of Stourhead

The Hoare House, aka Stourhead, a National Trust Estate

Color Your World:120 Days of Color; Purple Heart

Milton Bradley; the Game Geek and More

Let the Feast Begin!

Eat, Drink and Be Merry: Let’s Start with the Drink and Be Merry!

Ellen Terry: The Saga Continues

Christie Mysteries Set Locally

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