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Heritage and Bears
Sep. 17th, 2013 10:32 pmThis year the Heritage Open Days weekend coincided with a visit from the Bears - scheduled to allow them to participate in a big Sacred Harp sing taking place in Durham the same weekend (and GirlBear did spend a day singing, though BoyBear took the opportunity to put in some intensive sleeping instead). When dates collide, they tend to pile up: the weekend also saw Yom Kippur and my mother's birthday. So mostly it was a weekend of talking, remembering and planning and doing the crossword.
On Saturday morning![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler and I visited the County Hospital, where proposals for the redevelopment of the site were on show. This was despressing, not so much for the plans themselves, as because a scheme which was presented to the local residents' group in July as "everything is still very fluid but we would like to see a mixed development of permanent residents and students" has now become another large block of student accommodation. The only sweetener is that the nineteenth century building is to be stripped of its twentieth century accretions and offered as prestige accommodation for postgrads. Well, it's early days yet, we'll see what happens. And at least this access to the County Hospital allowed me to grab this view of the cathedral beyond the viaduct.
Over Sunday breakfast we planned our grand day out: the forecast was for horrible weather (much worse than actually materialised, as it happens) so we would do mainly indoor things, visiting the Head of Steam museum in Darlington, and an old church nearby, with a brief detour in between for a thematically related sculpture and ending up at a teashop.
So that's what we did, and I took a large number of pictures, which I haven't finished sorting yet. The Head of Steam was a railway museum when we last visited, but has since expanded to take in some local history as well. It has a fine collection of steam engines, including Locomotion itself (as well as a number of Locomotion-related items - Locomotion made out of matchsticks, Locomotion in Meccano), beautifully displayed in the former railway station. The local-interest items are more random, and include three wooden sculptures of dogs' heads, rescued from the "Tudor" frontage of a shop now demolished, and a knitted map of the town.
The church is in Haughton-le-Skerne, which is technically a suburb of Darlington, but feels like a rather superior village, with some elegant old houses along a green - I'd never been there before, and was surprised. The church is circa 1125, pleasant but not distinguished on the outside, but long, light and airy inside (these architects' pictures give some idea). There are treasures to admire, Saxon stones and Cosin woodwork and some lead roof-tiles on which the eighteenth century workmen have scratched their initials, and outlined their hands and boots.
Time for some refreshment: we went to New Moor Farm and ate Archers' ice cream (licquorice flavour!).
On Saturday morning
durham_rambler and I visited the County Hospital, where proposals for the redevelopment of the site were on show. This was despressing, not so much for the plans themselves, as because a scheme which was presented to the local residents' group in July as "everything is still very fluid but we would like to see a mixed development of permanent residents and students" has now become another large block of student accommodation. The only sweetener is that the nineteenth century building is to be stripped of its twentieth century accretions and offered as prestige accommodation for postgrads. Well, it's early days yet, we'll see what happens. And at least this access to the County Hospital allowed me to grab this view of the cathedral beyond the viaduct.Over Sunday breakfast we planned our grand day out: the forecast was for horrible weather (much worse than actually materialised, as it happens) so we would do mainly indoor things, visiting the Head of Steam museum in Darlington, and an old church nearby, with a brief detour in between for a thematically related sculpture and ending up at a teashop.
So that's what we did, and I took a large number of pictures, which I haven't finished sorting yet. The Head of Steam was a railway museum when we last visited, but has since expanded to take in some local history as well. It has a fine collection of steam engines, including Locomotion itself (as well as a number of Locomotion-related items - Locomotion made out of matchsticks, Locomotion in Meccano), beautifully displayed in the former railway station. The local-interest items are more random, and include three wooden sculptures of dogs' heads, rescued from the "Tudor" frontage of a shop now demolished, and a knitted map of the town.
The church is in Haughton-le-Skerne, which is technically a suburb of Darlington, but feels like a rather superior village, with some elegant old houses along a green - I'd never been there before, and was surprised. The church is circa 1125, pleasant but not distinguished on the outside, but long, light and airy inside (these architects' pictures give some idea). There are treasures to admire, Saxon stones and Cosin woodwork and some lead roof-tiles on which the eighteenth century workmen have scratched their initials, and outlined their hands and boots.
Time for some refreshment: we went to New Moor Farm and ate Archers' ice cream (licquorice flavour!).
