Triple helping of heritage

[shewhomust]

We learned from the local paper that yesterday was the centenary of the opening of the Miners' Hall at Redhills, and that visitors were invited to come and look round (they were open again today, with music and the like, but we were busy today). It's a fine old building, and I've been inside in the past, to events and meetings held in various rooms, particularly the Council Chamber, which is very splendid:

But this was the first chance I've had to nose into offices and have a good look at all the maps and memorabilia and various - very various! - pieces of art hanging around the walls. There are more banners, old and new, and paintings, and [a picture which I have removed at the request of someone who hadn't realised he was included in it - with apologies].

All of which reminded me that although I've written about the first half of this year's Heritage Open Days, I've never found time to write about the second half. Briefly, then, and for the record:

• on a very rainy Saturday, we visited the Cathedral garden, a small space behind high gates in the Bailey, where they grow what they need for flower arrangements in the Cathedral:
  
  
  
  
  
  K and B were visiting, and his picture is better than mine.



• On the Sunday we drove up Weardale to visit Bradley Hall:
  
  
  
  
  
  If the published programme had been clearer, we would have joined the tour when it started instead of lingering over lunch at the farm shop, but we were not alone in this misreading, and Mrs Stephenson (who lives at the Hall) was very generous about taking late arrivals back to the beginning and starting again. We didn't go inside the house, but we did have a good look at the outside from the gardens.



• On our way home, we had a rendezvous with S. at St. Michael's, Esh Laude:
  
  
  
  
  
  I've often walked past and been intrigued by the little square of buildings, so I was pleased to be able to visit, and to learn that St Michael's had been built as a Catholic church before the emancipation acts made this entirely legal, and therefore kept a low profile, deliberately resembling a secular building. This can't have fooled anyone, but seems to have worked nonetheless.

As if this weren't enough, we discovered we had walked into yet another batch of heritage open days when we reached Bordeaux. But that's another story.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is really nifty.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

; )

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

blessed be..

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Oh, how wonderful and how I'd love to live at Bradley Hall (I'd even guide visitors always hoping Church would not be closed mondays;) Pink blossoms, too and the way the stone buildings are made makes me think fondly of Burgundy where one could pick them out and replace them one by one into the mud in the middle of walls which again brings us back to Hadrian's wall of books but as I hope the PTB got the time right and it's now sunday morning for sure, I shall go to bed where I already am but meaning for sleeping purposes this time round, lovely post as ever, I like that hall too.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Bradley Hall is lovely, and it's in a beautiful place, but wouldn't you miss the city?

You are, however, the best of guides, and my next task is to sort out the photographic evidence of that!

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

...Wait, it doesn't come with an adjoining town?? Hm, I may not want it after all, so Mrs Stephenson can stay! I wouldn't mind something similar though, in close enough proximity (as in walking distance) to a nice city, grand village or town but I do admit still loving Bordeaux much as bonkers and binge-addicts of a sort only too familiar to those who live in student's towns (it appears by appearing, they feel, they own the place) try to run it down. It's still one of the best places to live, not quite as ideal but next to la Brede; that is on my next list and I may even check on opening hours in advance, especially if my living conditions have changed to a more Hall-like style til then, we shall see!
Of course I was only stand-in for the real thing as the historian and archeologist of the house was otherwise busy but we may be able to book one of those next time round...complete with démonstrations of some social realism of other eras;) for we didn't see the beautiful house of Montaigne's spouse, neither. (I'll stop editing now, I promise.)