Charmed Life: The Solace of Objects – Exhibition at Winchester Discovery Centre

Unstrung – wax on mirror back series, 2011.© Felicity Powell

It seems that the soul… loses itself in itself when shaken and disturbed unless given something to grasp on to; and so we must always provide it with an object to butt up against and to act upon.

(Michel de Montaigne, Essais, 1580)

I recently visited the exhibition, Charmed Life: The Solace of Objects, currently on at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre until 14th April, 2013. Free admission. Charmed Life is a touring exhibition of three hundred and eighty amulets from the Wellcome Collection, London in partnership with Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and curated by artist Felicity Powell. The exhibition was originally part of the Miracles & Charms programme, exploring the ordinary in the everyday, organised by the Wellcome Collection and which opened on 6th October 2011 and ran until 26th February 2012.

Conjuring coral – wax on mirror back series, 2011. © Felicity Powell

Charmed Life is beautiful and challenging. If you are interested in social history and visual art, this exhibition is the perfect combination of both and suitable for children too. Whilst viewing Charmed Life, a number of families arrived, the children were fascinated by the bizarre array of objects on display, the mole feet amulet proved particularly popular.

Amulets have appeared throughout history and across cultures in a variety of forms. They are tiny embodiments of the anxieties we feel and their assumed powers often draw on the dark arts of superstition and magic. Those on display range from simple coins to meticulously carved shells, dead animals to elaborately fashioned notes. The objects in the exhibition were collected by the banker and obsessive folklorist Edward Lovett (1852-1933) who scoured London by night, buying curious objects mostly from the East End.

Edward Lovett lived in Croydon and his huge collection grew from his fascination with folklore, charms, amulets and superstitions. He worked as a banker at the Bank of Scotland in the City of London and ‘..in his leisure time he took great pleasure in his collecting trips to the working-class areas of London. He acquired a wealth of material from sites such as herbalist shops, the barrows of costermongers and the city’s dockyards, collecting from people neglected by most historians.’  (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life, booklet, 2011).

In 1916, at the Wellcome Collection (formerly known as the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum) he curated the exhibition The Folklore of London and in 1925 he published a book, Magic in Modern London. In this publication he describes the strange little mole feet that amused the exhibition’s young visitors: ‘The front feet of a mole are permanently curved for digging, and this curved appearance is so suggestive of cramp that these feet are carried as a cure for cramp. (I have also found this superstition quite common on the continent).’

Blue glass beads, displayed in a perspex, wall-mounted cabinet, also caught my eye. Lovett writes about these in Magic in Modern London: ‘In the year 1914, I heard of a remarkable case of prejudice, or superstition, as to the wearing of blue glass beads by children as a cure for, or rather, a prophylactic against bronchitis. They are put on the necks of very young children and never taken off, not even when the wearers are washed or bathed. They are not taken off even at death.’

Lovett had a particular fascination with these blue glass beads and set-out to create a map of London showing exact locations where the beads were being sold. ‘I made a rough outline sketch of a map of London taking in…. 26 districts. I took it quite easily by devoting one day to each of these places…the shops where I made my enquiries were of two classes; viz: A poor class shop..[and] a better class of shop…every shop of the low-class recognised the blue beads as a cure for bronchitis, but not a single shop of the better class knew anything about it, or if they did would not admit it.’ I know several people who wear a St. Christopher around their neck and never remove it for anything or anybody, in case its protective properties should disappear.

Runaway tree – wax on mirror back series, 2009. © Felicity Powell

A majority of amulets, selected by Felicity from Lovett’s Collection, appear as a river of objects in the exhibit, ‘The Table’ which is a perspex, horseshoe-shaped display case located at the heart of the gallery. Felicity explains: ‘Lovett collected stories as well as objects. He was passionate about collecting. Horseshoes were thought to protect the person against night nerves.’

I was transfixed by Felicity’s taxonomy of amulets which had been so carefully and precisely arranged. Although curated with precision, these objects lost none of their beauty by being repositioned in a different context. A context which no longer consigns the object to a concealed existence as a harbinger of sympathetic magic. These amulets, now protected by their perspex shell, have been freed to create new narratives, drawing the viewer into the powerful world of belief. ‘The ebb and flow of objects across the table introduces us to a visually led taxonomy that links the amulets materially, thematically and by association, allows for insights that emerge across the groupings…Each object speaks of a physical relationship to the world and most particularly to our bodies.’ (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life, booklet, 2011).

The categories of objects displayed in ‘The Table’ include: against nightmares; on concealment, flesh and bone; against lightning; thunderbolts; plants;  nail, tooth and claw; foodstuffs and journey; game charms; a parade of shoes; on glass and artifice; of the sea and sailors; against the evil eye; pressed metal; votives and shrines; varied hearts; on roundness; stones with holes; fossils, crosses and phalluses and key attachments. The amulets range from obvious symbols of protection (such as a crystal and silk thread to be hung from your umbrella, protecting you against a lightning strike) to the more grotesque and macabre (the tip of a rabbit’s tongue against poverty). I was particularly drawn to a tiny little pot, which had the inscription ‘rice thrown for luck at a wedding, Caterham, September, 05′ [1905], the owner of this miniscule keepsake obviously hoping that the good ‘luck’ would rub-off onto them wherever they carried it.

Felicity tells me: ‘Amulets would have been concealed upon a person and have meant something to the individual who carried them. Each amulet has their own fascinating story to tell, particularly about the human need to connect to objects which transcends time periods, cultures and classes. During the course of my research I became fascinated by ‘touch-pieces’. In the original 2011 exhibition, we had Dr Johnson’s touch-piece from The British Museum. This type of coin was believed to be imbued by the divine touch of a monarch and would be worn around the owner’s neck as a cure for individuals suffering from scrofula, a disease of the lymphatic system, from which Dr Johnson himself suffered. The coin was given to him by Queen Anne in 1711. Occasions where these coins were given-out were huge theatrical events. Dr Johnson wore the touch-piece around his neck for the rest of his life.’

Heart-shaped late medieval bronze heart found in the grounds of Hyde Abbey.©Winchester City Museums.

A clever curatorial twist in the exhibition was the inclusion of two archaeological artifacts local to Hampshire. Felicity tells me: ‘I was presented with a choice of six artifacts from Winchester City Museum. I chose two objects whose provenance I felt to be in-keeping with the other amulets in the exhibition. A Roman lead curse and a late medieval heart-shaped amulet of bronze that had been found in grounds of Hyde Abbey, near Winchester.’

The lead tablet is from the Roman town of Silchester (4th Century AD) and was originally folded but is now opened-up to reveal a curse which interestingly contains named individuals. The curse reads: ‘Him who was stolen, let the god give a nasty blow.’ The folded section of the tablet is where the names were concealed. This amulet is not designed to offer protection.

Roman lead curse (4th century AD).©Winchester City Museums.

Charmed Life also contains new pieces and videos by Felicity Powell including an etched coin (‘Against insomnia, for sleep, against amnesia, for memory’ 2011) and eighteen small-scale wax artworks, part of a larger ongoing series, that relate directly to amulets in the Lovett collection. The hauntingly beautiful music featured in both videos is by composer William Basinski. The video, Sleight of Hand, shows part of the process of making the wax artworks. ’Powell filmed the making of her own small-scale works in wax with an overhead camera, revealing how they take shape, and playing with the sense that making and engaging with objects is in itself rather like being under a spell. The scale of the projection offers a counterbalance to the intricacy of the waxes themselves and allows the possibility of revealing things that are otherwise hard to see with the naked eye.’ (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life booklet, 2011). The translucent, white and red wax pieces have been modelled in low relief on the backs of mirrors with the imagery worked out directly on the mirror surface. The basic shape is laid down in wax applied with the fingers and then details are refined with dental tools. The wax on mirror back series is full of delicate imagery that appears to be in a constant state of flux, which Felicity describes as ‘morphing between states of being.’

Bees – wax on mirror back series, 2009. © Felicity Powell

The second video, Scanning, is based on MRI and CT/PET scans of the artist’s body, overlaid with images drawn directly from the Lovett collection. In one sequence an image of a transparent rotating torso with the heart at the centre is gradually encircled with the inward-spiralling text of the Lord’s Prayer as written by George Yeofound on his amulet of 1872.

‘On 9th September, 1872 in Southampton, Hampshire the eighty-eight year old George Yeofound wrote the Prayer in ink on both sides of a small disc of paper, the size of a small coin, that is really only legible when magnified. The edges of the paper are cut into points in order for it to wrap around the edge of a coin. This amulet is one of Felicity’s favourite in the exhibition. It is known that this object was part of Lovett’s collection of mascots and amulets carried by soldiers in World War I. This particular prayer was carried by a soldier of the Middlesex Regiment in 1917, but who he was and what happened to him are unknown.’ (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life, booklet, 2011).

Felicity explained to me why this amulet became so special to her: ‘I didn’t realise how important this object was to become to me as I worked with it over time. I traced Yeofound’s handwriting and found it to be urgent in style but formed into a perfect spiral, the text just kept going. In retracing his writing, it felt as if his hand reached across a century and a half. I found working on piece to be meditative, I felt I had a real connection with George and the object’s history. The object’s point of focus is its time and place in the mapping of life and events. This tiny piece of paper had travelled through time before it came to light.’

Tentacled – wax on mirror back series, 2006. © Felicity Powell

I asked Felicity about the type of wax that had been used to create the wax on mirror back series and were any special measures required to conserve them? ‘The wax is standard white modelling wax, light in colour so that pigments can be added, it also contains a lot of powder filler. I lay down the basic shape in wax using my fingers. The wax is lovely to work with and retains its translucency. Wax is easy to conserve as it is a very stable medium which holds its own over time. In The British Museum’s medal collection there are a number of eighteenth century wax and slate models made by the Hamerani family. All of which are still in good condition.’ I was also intrigued to find-out the reasons behind Felicity’s choice of modelling tools, why dental? ‘I know of a lot of artists who use dental tools for modelling, shaping and making marks. They are very good to hold in the hand too. The instruments also come with a wide range of different ends.’

Charmed Life continues at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre until 14th April, 2013. Free admission. It is excellent and well-worth a trip to Winchester to view.

Deep water – wax on mirror back series, 2009. © Felicity Powell

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Happy 100th Birthday Tudor House & Garden, Southampton

Tudor House and Garden, Southampton as it appears today.

On the 29th July this year, Tudor House and Garden, Southampton celebrated its 100th birthday. The museum was officially opened on the afternoon of Monday, 29th July, 1912, by the Mayor of Southampton Henry Bowyer. The attraction gave a much-needed boost to Southampton’s morale following the sinking of R.M.S. Titanic less than four months prior.

Old poster advertising Tudor House Museum.

In 1912, the museum’s opening hours were 10am to 6pm during the summer and 10am to 4pm in winter, with an admission charge of 6d but free on Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays. The museum’s first curator, Mr Nicholas, did not receive payment for his role.  Nicholas worked extremely hard to ensure that the museum was ready for its grand opening. He also organised the transformation of a former cabbage patch behind Tudor House to be turned into an old English garden.  In the 1980s the garden was re-planned by landscape designer Dr Sylvia Landsberg. Dr Landsberg wanted the garden to resemble a Tudor knot garden from the 1500s.

The garden at Tudor House that was designed by Dr Sylvia Landsberg.

Nicholas continued as Honorary Curator for over twenty years. During that time, he used his own money to fund trips to source objects for the museum. He worked tirelessly to assemble the museum’s eclectic range of objects. Eventually, the council appointed a professional curatorial team to manage the collection.

Selection of souvenirs sold at Tudor House museum in the last 100 years.

Unusual objects that were on display when the museum first opened in 1912.

Fireman’s helmet from the Napoleonic era. Before the helmet originally went on display in the museum, it was part of William Spranger’s own collection which was housed in a private museum at King John’s Palace, behind Tudor House.

According to A. G. K. Leonard in The Saving of Tudor House, the museum’s first year of opening was a great success:

The people of Southampton evidently appreciated the town’s first museum.  In September, 1913, the Borough Council received the report of its Estates Committee which included an account by R. E. Nicholas of the first year of Tudor House (ST 13 September 1913): this stated that 18,400 people had signed the visitors’ book there and that “probably quite twice that number had visited the house”….It was also reported that £30.10s. had been taken on “pay days” i.e. 1,220 sixpences…Alderman Bance told the council that in the first few months since its publication 1,958 copies of the history of Tudor House, a booklet by F. J. C. Hearnshaw, had been sold, along with 2,870 of the picture postcards of the house published by the Corporation.

(Leonard, A.G.K., 1987, pp. 27-28)

A Tudor gentleman helps celebrate the museum’s 100th birthday.

To commemorate the centenary, the current museum staff organised a wonderful day at Tudor House on Sunday 29th July, with an entrance fee of 6p! Staff also dressed in Edwardian and Tudor costume.

My attempts at making a mosaic coaster.

Grouting my mosaic coaster.

My finished mosaic coaster.

One of the activities organised by the museum as part of the centenary celebrations was a mosaic workshop in nearby Westgate Hall (formerly known as Tudor Merchant’s Hall).

I took this piece of flint along to be appraised by the archaeologist. I have kept it wrapped-up in a box since I was a child. Had I found a prehistoric axe head? Sadly no, just a nice piece of flint. Oh well, at least it puts that mystery to bed.

An Archaeologist was also on hand in the main museum to help identify any finds brought in.

Over the last five hundred years some of Tudor House’s many interesting owners/occupiers have included:

• Walter and Jane William – Walter inherited Tudor House from his father. Walter was a wealthy merchant who exported wool and cloth and imported salt, wine, leather, oil, fish and woad. When Walter died, Jane inherited the building. Jane married husband number two, Sir John Dawtrey;
• Sir John Dawtrey – Sir John was Overseer of the Port of Southampton and Collector of the King’s Customs. Following Jane’s death he married Isabel Shirley in 1509 and they had a son, Francis, in 1510. Sir John died in 1518;
• Lady Isabel Lyster (formerly Dawtrey). Lady Isabel, Dawtrey’s widow, ran Tudor House for ten years. She was a successful businesswoman who traded in millstones for windmills and watermills. She also rented the Cloth Hall in St. Michael’s Square from 1526 to 1531;
• Sir Richard Lyster (c.1480-1553) - Sir Richard married Lady Isabel in 1528. They became Southampton’s power couple, amassing a huge joint wealth. Sir Richard was a Judge and Lord Chief Justice of England.  He attended Queen Anne Boleyn’s (1501-1536) coronation, riding in the procession beforehand. He also took part in the trial of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) and was Henry VIII’s (1491-1547) divorce lawyer. During their time in residence at Tudor House, Lord and Lady Lyster had eight servants, a bake house and a dairy. Following Isabel’s death, Sir Richard married Elizabeth Stoke, they had two children, Michael (d. 1551) and Elizabeth;
• William Lankester (1798-1875) – an iron and brass founder and furnishing ironmonger;
  

  Photograph of Tudor House in 1880. Notice G. Cawte’s shop on the left and Pope & Co on the right.

• George Henry Pope – tenant of the northern section of Tudor House and grounds along Blue Anchor Lane from 1868. Pope was a dyer, clothes and furniture cleaner and had a shop at the front of the House. His trade advertisement read: ‘Ladies’ dresses of every description cleaned or dyed. British and foreign shawls, scarfs, & c., cleaned by a process that will ensure the colours being preserved.  Gentlemen’s wearing apparel and servants’ liveries of every description cleaned in a superior style.’ At the height of Queen Victoria’s reign mourning customswere strict. For one year and one day a widow had to wear ‘widow weeds’, the only colour permissible being black. Colour restrictions extended to jewellery and all accessories. After a year and a day she could progress to ‘half mourning’ where she would be permitted to wear a touch of white or grey, then perhaps lavender and after two years full colour could be worn again.  It was customary for a Victorian widow to have her clothing dyed black and after two years re-dyed back to its original colour. Pope offered this popular service to his customers: ‘Articles for mourning dyed on the shortest notice…. The black extracted from silk, satin, Merino, cloth,& Co., and the material dyed to a variety of patterns’;
  

  A selection of tools used by Cawte’s family bookbinding business.

• Henry G. Cawte – opened his family bookbinding business at Tudor House (then known as Old Palace House, 9 St. Michael’s Square) in 1859;
  

  Tools belonging to Eliza Simmonds.

• Eliza Simmonds – a straw-bonnet maker, milliner and dressmaker who took a tenancy of part of Tudor House from 1869-80.  During the first half of Queen Victoria’s (1819-1901) reign the straw plait industrywas an important trade, supplying the flourishing straw-bonnet industry, particularly in Bedfordshire. Straw-bonnets with decorative flourishes were very fashionable. Straw plaiting, used as a basis for the straw-bonnets, was a popular source of income for women living in rural homesteads and a thriving cottage industry developed. It was always easy to spot a straw plait maker, the corner of her lips would be badly scarred as a result of moistening the splints from the straw bundle. If the straw had already been dyed, then her mouth would also be colour-stained;
  

  A pretty Victorian straw bonnet by Eliza Simmonds.

• Josiah George Poole (1818-1897) - Poole had originally lived at Tudor House during the 1850s. He returned again in 1883 to set-up home alongside his business, J. G. Poole & Sons. Poole was an architect and surveyor who worked extensively on local projects including the Masonic Hall in Albion Place and restoration of the south side of the Bargate (1864-5).A. G. K. Leonard writes of the Poole family: ‘….Poole’s large family (he had five children by his first wife and sixteen by his second, although not all survived infancy) gathered for dinner in the Banqueting Hall.’ (Leonard, A.G. K., 1987, p. 4);
  

  Oil painting by V. C. Batalha Reis Ariba, painted in 1921, of Edward Cooper Poole, son of Josiah George Poole. Edward worked with his father and one of his many commissions was to re-design Southampton Royal Pier which opened in 1930.

Oil painting, by an unknown artist, of Mr Spranger, c. 1915. His portrait hangs in one of the upstairs exhibition rooms so that he can continue to survey all that he has created.

William Francis Gummer Spranger (1848-1917)

Without William Spranger there would be no Tudor House museum. He was a public-spirited man and epitome of the Victorian philanthropist.  Tudor House museum is Spranger’s legacy to the people of Southampton and everyone who is passionate about the city’s history and heritage. He brought the entire freehold property of Tudor House and Norman House from W. G. Lankester for £1,450 in 1886. Spranger was educated at Oxford and during his time living in Southampton (from 1893 until his death), took an active interest in local educational matters.  He was a governor and benefactor of Hartley College (now the University of Southampton), Chairman of the Southampton School of Art, president of the Hampshire Field Club 1904-5, the first chairman of the Southampton Record Society and in 1898 was appointed governor of Taunton’s College (now Richard Taunton Sixth Form College) and King Edward VI School. In true story-book style, Spranger’s last death-bed message was to the boys of the Endowed Schools [Taunton's and King Edward VI] – “lead good lives and play straight”.  For his funeral at St. Michael’s, the church troop of boy scouts formed a guard of honour and at the cemetery the path to his grave was lined by boys of Taunton’s and King Edward VI Schools. (Leonard, A.G.K., 1987, pp.10-11)

Old photograph showing interior of Tudor House last century.

Tudor House has undergone a number of substantial restorations during its lifetime. The first being in the early sixteenth century, another under Spranger’s watchful eye between 1898 and 1902, some ten years before the museum finally opened.  The last major restoration took place between 2001 and 2011 when the Museum received £3.5 million of Heritage Lottery Fund Grants (for more information on this please see my article of 28th July 2011. CLICK HERE.)

Spranger said of his restoration of Tudor House:

“….the original building had undergone changes in the course of the centuries which he had no knowledge of when the builders’ men were set to work.  Externally, herring-bone brickwork had been covered over with stucco and characteristic timbering of the Tudor period was hidden in many parts.  Inside, some very remarkable discoveries were made.  Lath and plaster ceilings had been fixed below the original ceilings of panelled oak, great chestnut beams had been similarly hidden, windows blocked up, fire-places altered and many of the principal beauties, as now visible, defaced and despoiled. Every new find was a great temptation to go on and I spent so much money having things put as right as possible again that I was compelled to pull myself up.”

(Leonard, A.G.K., 1987, p. 15)

Tudor House and Garden is such a wonderful place to visit, a true gem in the old town of Southampton City. For visitor information please CLICK HERE.

Montage of old photographs showing the interior of Tudor House museum just after it opened in 1912.

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Prehistoric Cooking With Jacqui Wood

Jacqui Wood and her son demonstrating prehistoric cooking techniques at Buckland Ring Iron Age hillfort, Lymington, Hampshire.

Earlier this summer I leapt at the chance to see Jacqui Wood demonstrating prehistoric cooking techniques at Buckland Rings Iron Age hillfort on the outskirts of Lymington, Hampshire.  The event was organised by St. Barbe Museum and is part of a programme of events and activities associated with a year-long project exploring the history of food and farming in and around Lymington.  The project will culminate in an exhibition at St. Barbe Museum, ‘A Taste of History – Local Food and Farming’ which opens on 6th October and continues until 17th November. 

This exhibition will examine the changes to our diet, eating and cooking habits as well as farming and shopping practices over the centuries in a feast of sensory pleasures. In particular food links us to the land around us and in the past, the majority of us would have had some role in the production of food, perhaps as labourers, smallholders or commoners.

(Extract from St. Barbe Museum Website)

Jacqui Wood is a food historian, researcher and Experimental Archaeologist whose work you may be familiar with if you are a fan of Time Team.   Jacqui also featured recently on the Channel 5 documentary,  ‘The Kings War on Witches’ about James I and the infamous late fifteenth century witch hunts. Jacqui owns the world-famous archaeological research settlement in Cornwall, Saveock Water Archaeology.

An artist’s impression of what Buckland Rings may have looked like during the Iron Age.

Buckland Rings was once open countryside but is now covered with trees.  During the Iron Age the inhabitants would have lived in roundhouses and cooked on a central hearth. According to historian Dr Joanna Close-Brooks, who is an expert on the history of Buckland Rings:

The houses were built of timber with thatched roofs and walls made of stakes and wattle covered with daub, or of planks. Inside there was usually a hearth over which food was cooked in a cauldron hanging from a beam, and sometimes a clay oven was constructed for baking bread.  The houses were from 20 to 30 feet (6-9 metres) in diameter, with plenty of room to accommodate a large family…..Iron Age people were farmers, keeping cows, sheep, pigs and some horses and raising crops on fields near their settlements.  The cattle yielded milk for drinking and making into butter and cheese; skin and sinew for leather and thongs; horn and bone for making into tools and ornament and, of course, meat to eat.  Sheep provided the same (like cows they can be milked), but were probably more important for their wool which was woven into cloth, sometimes chequered or patterned in some other design.

(Dr Joanna Close-Brooks, Buckland Rings and Ampress Camp, published by St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, 2000, pp. 3 & 4)

Jacqui’s son preparing some delicious prehistoric fayre.

The Celts lived at the settlement during the Iron Age and would have eaten a fairly simple diet consisting of meat, fish, bread, butter and cheese.  The main cooking implements around the central hearth would have been a cauldron and a fire-dog.  The fire-dog had a lower bar which supported the wooden logs in the hearth and an upper bar used for supporting the meat on the spits. The cauldron was suspended from an iron tripod and simple unglazed pottery vessels would have been used to cook with.

Jacqui, assisted by her son, cooked us from scratch a delicious smoked fish stew, sweet bean cakes, oat and barley bread which was accompanied by home-made butter. In prehistoric times a whisk, bowl, strainer, loose-weave cloth and two wooden spoons were needed to make butter.  If you want to make an authentic prehistoric butter whisk, Jacqui suggests:

…try to make the whisk first from some green hazel or willow sticks. To begin with strip the bark off the sticks…if this is done in the spring the bark will strip off in one piece as the sap is rising in the plant at that time of year – keep this bark for binding the whisk together. Then very carefully bend three of the sticks and secure them all at the cut end with the strips of bark or string.  You have now made a very effective balloon whisk with which to make butter.

(Wood, J., Prehistoric Cooking, 2011, p. 81)

Tasty smoked fish stew simmering in the cauldron.

Jacqui with a bowl of chopped chives ready for the fish stew.

The smoked fish stew was delicious.  It contained bacon, leeks, smoked fish, milk, cream, chives and salt. Simple to make but surprisingly hearty.

Sweet bean cake mix.

Sweet bean cake mix and oat and barley bread mix.

The sweet bean cakes had a more unusual taste, sweet, quite dense but very filling. They contained butter, whole wheat flour, processed beans, honey and chopped hazelnuts.

The oat and barley bread was made from medium oatmeal, barley flour, butter, sea salt and milk and cooked by wrapping the mixture around hot stones. A very clever and effective technique.

Hot stone ready for the bread mixture to be wrapped around.

Bread after having been cooked using the hot stone method.

I am an advocate of Experimental Archaeology even though it does raise a few eyebrows amongst traditional archaeologists.  Jacqui’s extensive understanding of prehistoric cooking techniques has developed out of her experimental practices, coupled with an in-depth, archaeological knowledge, of the period. Her writing is all the more rich for a combination of these two factors.  There is nothing like watching a recipe, from several thousands years ago, being brought back to life and enjoyed once more in the twenty-first century by an enthusiastic and appreciative audience.

I also picked-up, at the event, a signed copy of her cookery book, Prehistoric Cooking. It not only contains well-written chapters on life and society in prehistoric times but is jam-packed with easy-to-follow recipes, many of which produce dishes that would not look out-of-place on the modern dining-table.  Beautifully illustrated throughout, a must-have for all devotees of food history. Jacqui has also written another historical cookbook, Tasting The Past: Recipes From The Stone Age to the Present.

• For more information about ‘A Taste of History – Local Food and Farming’ (6th October-17th November) at St. Barbe Museum, Lymington, CLICK HERE.
  

  The oldest pottery found in Britain, a Neolithic cooking pot, 6,000 years old. On display at the Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury.

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Southampton’s Wool & Cloth Heritage

The Wool House, Bugle Street, Southampton, Hampshire

Before you begin reading this article, you may find it useful to open the Tudor Revels’ website in a separate tab.  The interactive map on the home page is very easy to use and depicts the layout of Southampton during the Tudor period.  It will help you  locate some of the buildings I have mentioned here.  For the map, CLICK HERE.

The Wool House.

Southampton has prospered on the profits of the wool and wine trade. The wool trade in Southampton reached its height in the thirteenth century and a majority of townspeople derived their income from it. One such merchant was Thomas of Andover, flourishing between 1260 and c1280. Thomas built himself a stone house, with a vaulted cellar, on the west side of the High Street from the proceeds of wool trading.  Southampton’s location was ideal, near to the sheep rearing districts of Hampshire and the Wiltshire Downlands.

The Wool House.

In order to ensure smooth running of its flourishing wool trade, the town officials created a number of key roles. In 1325, a Peysage, an officer of the Crown, was appointed as principal wool weigher.  In 1327, Geoffrey Hogheles was made collector of wool customs.  The wool would have been assembled at this time by a guild of packers, made-up exclusively of women. In 1503, the guild became a corporation sponsored organisation, consisting of twelve women.   In French Street is The Weigh House ‘weyhous’, a building constructed in the early thirteenth century. The Weigh House contained the town’s weigh beam, called the Tron. The Tron was a large wooden beam balance, robust enough to deal with larger bales of wool.  The beam was controversial amongst merchants and susceptible to misuse, finally leading to its withdrawal in c1352.  Unfortunately, The Weigh House was gutted in German bombing raids during World War Two, only the outer shell now remains.

The Weigh House, French Street, Southampton.

The Weigh House.

The Weigh House.

Wool houses were erected in the town and one survives today, at the end of Bugle Street. This Wool House was built in the fourteenth century by Cistercian monks from Beaulieu Abbey, primarily as a storehouse. It has a Spanish chestnut roof and curious cylindrical buttresses along the Bugle Street side.  It appears in fourteenth century records as ’wolhous’. During Elizabethan times, the Wool House was known as Alum Cellar. Alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) is used in conjunction with cream of tartar to create a mordant for natural dyes. In wool it enhances the colours yellow and red. Mordant is derived from word ‘mordere’, meaning ‘to bite’. In the wool dyeing process, a mordant prepares the wool to accept colour.  It is believed that Alum first came to Southampton in 1451, brought over in large quantities by the Genoese.  Other types of mordant that have been used include urine and leaves.

Walter Fetplace (d. 1449) was a Southampton merchant who lived in the old Moundenard tenement on High Street.  He was Mayor of Southampton in 1426, 1432, 1439 and 1444.  He made his living buying dyes from Italian merchants and selling them on to dyers working in Salisbury and Winchester.  He imported mordants and dye-stuffs but also traded in salt, fish, fruit and wine.

Watergate, Southampton (front view).

Watergate, Southampton.

Watergate, Southampton (interior).

Watergate, Southampton (interior).

On the most southerly point of the old Southampton Walls is the Watergate, constructed towards the end of the fourteenth century. The building was largely demolished in 1804 but parts of one of the drum towers still survives.  The Watergate stands at the end of Porters’ Lane, an accessway that ran behind the line of the old town wall.  Porters’ Lane was also called, Le Chayne and Wool Street. This was where many of the town’s wool stores could be found.

Canute’s Palace, Porters’ Lane, Southampton.

Canute’s Palace, Porters’ Lane, Town Quay, Southampton.

Also in Porters’ Lane, are the remains of Canute’s Palace which is a late twelfth century merchant’s house. It stood two storeys high with a hall on the upper storey. The upper-hall may have also doubled as a counting-house. The building was more likely to have been used for commercial purposes rather than residential. King Canute did not live here and the building was not a palace, however it is still a fine example of a Norman merchant’s house.

Canute’s Palace, Southampton.

Canute’s Palace.

Canute’s Palace.

Canute’s Palace.

The name ‘Canute’s Palace’ was first given to the building by Sir Henry Englefield (1752-1822) in his 1801 publication A Walk Through Southampton. For more information on this fascinating area of old Southampton please see the Friends of Town Quay Park’s website.  CLICK HERE.

The fourteenth century was a relatively prosperous time for the wool trade in Southampton but there were several events that intermittently slowed down its progress.  Firstly, the Raid of 4th October, 1338, when fifty galleys landed in port, sacked, looted and extensively destroyed the town.  The town’s Seals were stolen by the invaders too. It is alleged that French and Genoese pirates stole the Tron from The Weigh House.  There were reports of local citizens joining-in with the looting of the town’s wool and wine stocks. In Rev. J. Silvester Davies’, A History of Southampton (1883), he describes the Raid:

Early on Sunday morning, October 4th, a numerous fleet of galleys, crowded with Normans, Picards, Genoese, and Spaniards, landed its horde at the south-western quarter of the town while the inhabitants were at mass.  The burgesses fled before them; the town was at their mercy.  They plundered and burnt at pleasure, and hung some of the townsfolk in their own houses; but on the following morning a rally took place, and ‘aliens’ were driven to their ships….Its results we have seen elsewhere in the busy erection of walls and improvements of the town….The conduct of the burgesses had brought disgrace not only on the town, but on the whole king’s realm, and the town had accordingly been taken from them.

(Davies, Rev. J. S., 1883, p. 466)

Following the Raid, trade was severely disrupted and a form of martial law imposed on Southampton by Edward III (1312-1377). Davies describes the post-Raid actions taken by the King:

….immediately after which the town was seized in the king’s hands, in active censure on the mayor [Nicholas Sampson 1337 & 1338], bailiffs, and burgesses, who had fled before the enemy..On November 13th, among other steps taken, John de Hampton, Walter de Estcote, and others, were commissioned to inquire into the loss of the king’s wools by fire; how much, and of what quality, had been left after the enemy had retired.  Under one influence or other the mayor and bailiffs recovered heart, and humbly begged for the restoration of their town and liberties; receiving them back on March 15th, 1339, apparently on no harder terms than that they should do their duty in future, and hold the town vigorously against the foe; and orders occur to John de Flete, clerk, keeper of arms in the Tower of London, to send forthwith all kinds of weapons for the use of the town.

(Ibid. p. 79)

The military intervention included establishing a garrison in the town.  The wool trade continued with restrictions and there were now less merchants visiting the port.  Secondly, the Black Death, arrived in Southampton the latter part of 1348. The epidemic resulted in many human and animal deaths, including flocks of sheep.

Replica medieval cargo vessel, West Quay, Southampton. This vessel would have been used by the English to export wool and import wine from Southampton to the continent.  Italian merchants used galleys and carracks to export goods.

The town’s wool economy began to improve in the first half of the fifteenth century. Approximately one thousand sacks of wool were now being exported from Southampton to the continent each year and by the end of the century this figure had increased considerably. Southampton became a collecting centre for wools en-route from the West-Country to Italy. Wool and cloth continued to be exported to the continent on Florentine State galleys and Genoese carracks. However, the former ceased to appear in port after 1478 and from 1509, due to wars in Italy, the latter ceased to visit too.

In the mid fifteenth century the Wool House was let to a succession of Italian and Portuguese merchants. At this time about fifty foreign merchants were registered in town, from Flanders, the Baltic, Spain, France and Brittany. The influx of alien merchants did not always have a positive impact on the town’s wool trade. In 1455, a group of Italian merchants arrived in port and proceeded to travel throughout the surrounding countryside, purchasing wools and woollen cloth from local artisans for a price less than the going rate.  This practice of undercutting, saw the cost of woollen cloth fall considerably in town.  Regulations were swiftly put in place to counteract these unscrupulous activities. Foreign merchants were restricted from purchasing wool, woolfells and cloth except in London, Hampton or Sandwich.

Medieval Merchant’s House, French Street, Southampton.

In French Street (No. 58), there still survives a fine example of a medieval, timber-framed, merchant’s house, a Capital Messuage. The interior has been restored by English Heritage to resemble a typical merchant’s house in Southampton, c1350, although the building was constructed c1290 by wine merchant John Fortin.

Steps to the undercroft/cellar at the Medieval Merchant’s House, Southampton.

The house has a stone-vaulted cellar or undercroft which can be accessed at street level and above that a shop which would have opened directly onto the street.

Medieval Merchant’s House, showing shop shutters.

The windows of the shop were unglazed and had shutters that could be let down to provide extra counter space. On the upper floor, there are two large bed-chambers located at the back and front of the house, connected by a cross-passage over the hall below.

A wealthy Portuguese merchant, Roger Machado, flourished in the town between 1486 and 1497.  During this period he lived in a house on Simnel Street (tenements 423 and 424) which was full of fine Venetian cristallo glass, majolica ware, Italian pottery, exquisite fabrics, linen, pewter and barrels of wine.

North Italian majolica jug, late 1400s early 1500. Exhibit from Tudor House and Garden, Southampton, Hampshire.

Machado was appointed Searcher of Customs on 21st September, 1485 and town Burgess in 1490.  He became a herald to Henry VII (1457-1509) and entertained the king at his house in Simnel Street. He died in 1510.

A member of Tudor re-enactment group, The Hungerford Household.

In 1532, trade with Italy declined due to changes in England’s commercial policy whereby trade and export of wool to the continent was actively discouraged and eventually banned. The outcome of the policy meant wool was now retained in England to be woven into cloth. Woven woollen cloth in the Tudor period was lighter in texture than traditional Medieval broadcloth.  Petticoats in Tudor times were made out of Worsted wool cloth, hand dyed with madder.  The swollen madder roots produce a red dye that reacts with the temperature and mineral content of water.  The main chemical compound of madder is Alizarin.  Another popular type of cloth in the Tudor period was woollen cloth of a ‘Kersey‘ weight.  Kersey cloth was light and hand dyed with indigo for use in everyday clothing.

St. Julien French Church, Winkle Street, Southampton. Associated with the Huguenot community.

By 1558, England’s weaving industry was flourishing. In the 1560s, Huguenot refugees fleeing persecution in Catholic countries, introduced to Southampton a new type of woollen cloth called serge.  Serge is a type of twill weave fabric that is relatively cheap and easy to produce. The fabric produced in Southampton was known as the Hampton broad serge woollen cloth. In 1609, a company of sergemakers, sergeweavers and woolcombers was formed.  Membership required payment of a £5 fine and completion of a seven-year apprenticeship.  In 1616, articles and orders of the company received the Town Seal.  Unfortunately, the company did not last and in 1619 was dissolved by consent of all members. A new corporation was formed in 1657 and sealed by charter on 24th July of the same year.  The cloth was woven in town and often sent to either Winchester or Romsey to be hand-finished and dyed.  If the cloth required a more expensive dye, it was sent to London.

Entrance to St. Julien Church, Southampton.

St. Julien Church, Southampton.

Huguenot refugees Phillipe and wife Judith Delamotte (sometimes spelt De la Motte) fled Tournai in Belgium in 1586 subsequently settling in Southampton.  Phillipe was an Elder of the Huguenot community in Southampton and had close connections with St. Julien French Church in Winkle Street.  The Elders were similar to Vestry members in the Anglican churches. Phillipe’s main occupation was a clothier and he ran a workshop assisted by his wife Judith.  After her husband’s death, Judith carried on the business, spinning raw sheep’s wool into strong woollen yarn in readiness to be woven into cloth.  Unusually for a widow, Judith carried on her husband’s business until c1638 and took a prominent role in the town guild.  She died in 1640.

Woollen Cloth Hall (now Westgate Hall), Westgate, Southampton.

Southampton had a Woollen Cloth Hall which was originally built in St. Michael’s Square c1400 and stood two storeys high. On the top floor wool and woollen cloth were stored.  The covered, open-arcaded, ground floor housed the fish market.  Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Cloth Hall was leased to a townsman whose job it was to look after its day-to-day running and keep the infrastructure in good repair.  In exchange, he would be entitled to pocket the dues owed to the City by merchants who stored and sold their cloth there.  This was not as straightforward as it may sound for the Hall’s lessee.  Many merchants tried to evade the town duties levied on cloth sold at the Hall and opted to trade on the black market, selling cloth throughout the countryside around Southampton instead.  In 1552, regulations were tightened and it did become difficult to trade woollen cloth anywhere but The Cloth Hall.

Woollen Cloth Hall (now Westgate Hall), Southampton.

The Cloth Hall was dismantled in 1634 and rebuilt a little further toward the Quay at Westgate. During the following three hundred years, the Hall functioned as a private building, owned by the City and leased out as a warehouse. In the 1970s it became a public lecture hall and until recently was known as Tudor Merchants Hall.  It is now called Westgate Hall.

The Tudor Revels’ Database Comes in Handy….

I did a quick search, using Tudor Revels’ fantastic new database of Tudor citizens who flourished in Southampton between 1485-1603.  I was interested in those who were associated with the wool trade. I typed-in key words ‘wool’, ‘cloth’, ‘weaver’ and ‘felt’. Below are the results of this search:

Cristoforo Ambruogi (Italian – also known as Christopher Ambrose) (flourished 1462-1510). Merchant Factor. Italian national (Florence) and lived in the Parish of All Saints, Holy Rood. He owned a number of ships. He leased the Wool House, at the end of Bugle Street, ‘a barn near God’s house, lofts over Le Chayne, marketplace in St. Michael’s Square, cellar beneath St. John’s Church. Trading in muscatel, fine wines, confectionary, fruit, alum, cloth of gold.’ ’1462 came to serve as Clerk to the Florentine Factor Angelo de’Aldobrans at West Hall.’ He was mayor 1486-7 and again in 1497-8. West Hall was a large medieval capital tenement at no. 8 Bugle Street.  West Hall was the location of the Edward VI Grammer School from 1696.

Rawlyn Pole (flourished 1489-1490) – Weaver.  1498-9 ‘town’s part for him to join the weavers 10s.’

Richard Blamford (flourished 1498-1524) – Weaver.  He traded crest cloth, woad and oakum. 1521-2 ‘his servant stole some wool.’ 1498-9 ‘craft fine weaver towns part 4s’.

Elizabeth Burgess (flourished 1503) - Woolpacker.  ’Warden of all female woolpackers, membership of twelve women.’ She was married to Richard Burgess.

Mr Corell (alias Curll) (flourished 1505-6) – Weaver. 1505-6 ‘paid 5s to set up as a weaver.’

Lenard Coleman (flourished 1517-1522) – Weaver. 1521 ‘sent as an archer on King’s French Campaign, prest money and conduit money 12d, given 3s towards his sword.’

John Christmas (flourished 1518-1534) – Clothier. Lived in the Parish of All Saints. In 1533-4 ‘Involved in a fray and bloodshed with Pryme fined 9d between them.  Same year victim of a fray by Edward Bartholomew.’

William Chandeler (flourished 1521) -Weaver. 1521 ‘went as an archer for the King.’

John Brooke (flourished 1532-1533) – Weaver.  1532-3 ‘tenant of John Walsh for weavers craft fine 6s 8d’.

Athony Bonaventure (flourished 1549-1550) – Weaver.  1549-50 ‘craft fine to be a weaver 4s’.

John Adeane (English – flourished 1550-1596) – Woollen Draper. English national and lived in the Parish of All Saints, Holy Rood.  He had two children, Richard and John.

John Coson (French – flourished 1561) – Woolcomber.  French national and lived in the Parish of All Saints, Holy Rood. ‘Described as having a wooden leg’.  In 1577 ‘reported for trying to kiss Margaret Smith at three in the afternoon whilst she was making beds in her mistresses house.’

John Bullack (flourished 1582-1600). Hat and Feltmaker. Son of John Bullack who was Mayor of Southampton in 1588.

Richard Allen (flourished 1605). Sergemaker.

Woollen Cloth Hall (now Westgate Hall), Southampton.

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Archaeological Digs near Winchester and Heritage Open Days 2011

View across the Hospital Field on the outskirts of Winchester, Hampshire. Site of former Leper Hospital.

Situated approximately one mile outside the city of Winchester, on the Alresford Road, is the site of St. Mary Magdalen Hospital, a former medieval leper hospital (‘a lazar house’).   It is possible that this Leprosaria was one of the England’s first hospitals.  Archaeologists at The University of Winchester began excavating the site in 2007.   In 2000 Channel 4′s Time Team also conducted a short excavation at the site.  The Hospital began mid 12th Century, was reformed and rebuilt in the 14th Century and demolished in the 16th Century to make way for brick-built almshouses.   The almshouses were finally demolished in the 1780′s by order of the then Bishop of Winchester.  The site does not contain any above ground evidence.  I was fortunate to be able to visit this extraordinary archaeological dig in September 2010.

Excavations in 2010 of the former St. Mary Magdalen Hospital, Winchester, Hampshire.

 

Leprosy, or Hansen’s disease as it is also known, is a particularly nasty condition.   The skeleton of a leprosy sufferer is quite distinctive.   The facial skeleton will show signs of degeneration, the foot phalanges will be wasted and the lower legs and feet will have bony changes.  Sometimes, although not as frequently as once believed, extreme cases led to amputation.   During the Middle Ages lepers were thought to have been punished by God for the sin of inappropriate sexual conduct. However, we now know that leprosy is a highly contagious disease spread from person to person via exposure to respiratory droplets.   Victorian archaeologists and historians believed that medieval society treated lepers as social outcasts, one of the reasons why leper colonies were located away from ordinary citizens on the outskirts of a village or town.  The excavations taking place near Winchester reveal that the patients were actually well cared for.  The site provides a fascinating insight into the origins of institutional care in early Medieval English Society. 

Foundations of Hampshire's largest First World War bases, near Winchester, Hampshire.

In a field opposite the site of the Hospital, Archaeologists have also discovered the foundations of Hampshire’s largest First World War base camp.  The camp consisted of a stable block, barrack blocks on wooden bases, drainage trenches, and gravel paths.  Brick foundations have been unearthed of the camp cinema-theatre which provided entertainment to the troops before they left for the battlefields of France and Belgium.  Again, no above ground evidence now exists.

Image of WW1 base camp theatre-cinema as it looked originally on the site.

Images of how the WW1 base camp would have looked.

If you want to find-out more about archaeological digs across Britain then I recommend the BBC’s Digging for Britain.  The second series began Friday 9th September 2011, 9pm on BBC 2.

Don’t miss the superb Heritage Open Days taking place between the 8th and 11th September.  Free events and activities will be happening right across England.  Some events require pre-booking but many do not.  There are 4,300 entries on HOD’s register this year so you are bound to find something happening near to you.  Check-out what’s on in your area.  I have two fantastic days out planned this weekend and will be posting about them in due course.  This is your perfect opportunity to discover England’s hidden heritage and even better it is absolutely free!

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