Message in a bottle
Oct. 4th, 2013 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThe mystery of the message in a bottle, found in the Galilee Chapel of Durham Cathedral, has been solved. Naturally, the solution is less interesting than the mystery: as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
desperance says, the coffee never tastes as good as it smells (this remark does not apply in my house, but the analogy is neat).
A bottle containing a document on which can be read the words 'Globe Theatre' found beneath the flagstones near the tomb of the Venerable Bede: that sets the imagination working. The solution of the mystery, by the ingenious manoeuvre of opening the bottle and reading the message - very carefully - is more prosaic. Three stonemasons, working in the chapel in 1913, left a note on a handy piece of scrap paper, saying that they had (presumably inadvertently) opened a grave.
Then again, that handy piece of paper has its own charm: a picture in the paper (but not the online) edition of the Durham Times shows the top half of a handbill advertising a May Day matinée, English Dance Cycle and English Folk Songs presented by Miss Mary Neal, [Mr] Clive Carey and Miss Nellie Chaplin. Text near the torn edge of the sheet seems to promise "Primitive Peasant Dances ... Elizabethan Days."
Not a total anticlimax, then.
desperance says, the coffee never tastes as good as it smells (this remark does not apply in my house, but the analogy is neat). A bottle containing a document on which can be read the words 'Globe Theatre' found beneath the flagstones near the tomb of the Venerable Bede: that sets the imagination working. The solution of the mystery, by the ingenious manoeuvre of opening the bottle and reading the message - very carefully - is more prosaic. Three stonemasons, working in the chapel in 1913, left a note on a handy piece of scrap paper, saying that they had (presumably inadvertently) opened a grave.
Then again, that handy piece of paper has its own charm: a picture in the paper (but not the online) edition of the Durham Times shows the top half of a handbill advertising a May Day matinée, English Dance Cycle and English Folk Songs presented by Miss Mary Neal, [Mr] Clive Carey and Miss Nellie Chaplin. Text near the torn edge of the sheet seems to promise "Primitive Peasant Dances ... Elizabethan Days."
Not a total anticlimax, then.
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no subject
Date: 2014-03-03 03:29 pm (UTC)Some say it is an Edwardian time capsule. Others believe it was hidden by a previous stonemason. Perhaps some are even hoping for a hidden treasure map.
Okay, I think that they were really reaching here. The mystery was good enough in itself; I found the editorial bit at the end slightly annoying.
I found that article about the actual truth behind the mystery simply delightful. Maybe it wasn't buried treasure, but it was a glimpse into the life of someone very real. The fact that Mr. Raybole climbed up to the Cathedral on a wooden leg until he was 80? I want to applaud.
Thank you for sharing this. Sorry that it took so long for me to unearth this post. Much like that bottle.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-03 04:19 pm (UTC)As it happens, I was introduced to one of the Cathedral's archaeologists after a lecture last week, but not this Cathedral archaeologist, the other one (http://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/update/2013-11-29/archaeologists-find-mass-grave-near-durham-cathedral/) (or perhaps there are more...) He was indeed pretty cool.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-03 05:11 pm (UTC)Clearly I need to start subscribing to Durham news publications. Any suggestions as to what's worthwhile?