Ford and Etal
Aug. 13th, 2008 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustOne last post from our week on Lindisfarne, in which we fail to visit Etal Castle.
By the time we'd spent the morning walking round the island, and lunched, the causeway was open and we set off with the plan of having a look at Heatherslaw Mill and its steam railway, and then go on to Etal village and look round the castle.
But on the way we came into Ford: as pretty and regular as a model village, and as deserted in the hot sunshine. We parked outside the Lady Waterford Hall, thinking it was a community centre of some kind, and then looked again: it was open, and inviting visitors. Here was some explanation: the widowed Lady Waterford had come to live in Ford Castle in 1859, and devoted the rest of her life to improving the village. She set up a fountain as a memorial to her husband; she built a smithy, its door set within the arch of an outsize stone horseshoe - but first of all, she built a school. And having built it, she decorated the interior with improving murals which she painted herself, choosing scenes from the Bible in which children played a part - Samuel, David, Jacob and Esau - and using local people as models. She was a serious amateur painter, an associate of the pre-Raphaelites, and the paintings have some charm (the borders appealed to me more than the scenes themselves, but I'm a sucker for the decorative).
Lady Waterford is buried in Ford churchyard, in a tomb designed by G.F. Watts; we went to visit her there. The church is on the very edge of the village, on the side of the hill with a view across to the Cheviot. This, too, felt unreal: I hadn't even realised how high up we were, until I walked into the churchyard, with the grass growing high around the old graves, and along the path to where the land - and the newer cemetery - fell away at my feet and the hills opened up before me.
So what with one thing and another, by the time we reached the mill it was closed; we strolled across the mill race and to the river Till, admired a statue of an otter, decided we might as well drive to Etal just for the pleasure of the trip - and indeed it was very pleasant, down country lanes to another pretty village, and promised ourselves that next time - next year - we would time this better.
By the time we'd spent the morning walking round the island, and lunched, the causeway was open and we set off with the plan of having a look at Heatherslaw Mill and its steam railway, and then go on to Etal village and look round the castle.
But on the way we came into Ford: as pretty and regular as a model village, and as deserted in the hot sunshine. We parked outside the Lady Waterford Hall, thinking it was a community centre of some kind, and then looked again: it was open, and inviting visitors. Here was some explanation: the widowed Lady Waterford had come to live in Ford Castle in 1859, and devoted the rest of her life to improving the village. She set up a fountain as a memorial to her husband; she built a smithy, its door set within the arch of an outsize stone horseshoe - but first of all, she built a school. And having built it, she decorated the interior with improving murals which she painted herself, choosing scenes from the Bible in which children played a part - Samuel, David, Jacob and Esau - and using local people as models. She was a serious amateur painter, an associate of the pre-Raphaelites, and the paintings have some charm (the borders appealed to me more than the scenes themselves, but I'm a sucker for the decorative).
Lady Waterford is buried in Ford churchyard, in a tomb designed by G.F. Watts; we went to visit her there. The church is on the very edge of the village, on the side of the hill with a view across to the Cheviot. This, too, felt unreal: I hadn't even realised how high up we were, until I walked into the churchyard, with the grass growing high around the old graves, and along the path to where the land - and the newer cemetery - fell away at my feet and the hills opened up before me.
So what with one thing and another, by the time we reached the mill it was closed; we strolled across the mill race and to the river Till, admired a statue of an otter, decided we might as well drive to Etal just for the pleasure of the trip - and indeed it was very pleasant, down country lanes to another pretty village, and promised ourselves that next time - next year - we would time this better.
