Tewkesbury Abbey Club Site, Gloucestershire

The high temperatures, something one does not normally think of in conjunction with the UK, are taking their toll on us. A few days of 29 degrees would be most welcome if there was a little accompanying breeze; alas there is no such relief. Perhaps this was why I was glad of a slower day on Tuesday.

Our water pump had been playing up more than usual, so Chris managed to track down a local mobile caravan fixit man who swung by soon after breakfast. That same morning I did a load of washing and we popped out to the local Morrsions after Graeme had replaced the offending pump, and then stayed on to eat our packed lunch in the caravan. So it was not until near 1 pm that we headed off to the day’s destination.

Snowshill lies just over thirty miles to the east of Tewkesbury, a straight forward drive across on the A47 then the B4077 before turning up into the Cotsworlds on the B4632 toward Broadway, duplicating part of the road travelled last year when we stayed in Cheltenham and spent time exploring the Cotsworlds. Our destination on Tuesday was Snowshill Manor, a National Trust property rather different from the run of-the-mill stately homes. 

Snowshill Manor , until it was passed over to the National Trust in 1951, was a private museum housing one man’s eclectic collection of treasures. He was a collector of such extremes, that he housed his collection in a house purchased for just that purpose and lived in a “shack” next door in hermit-like simplicity. 

That is an over simplified description of what Snowshill Manor is all about, but even after a couple of hours, quizzing the loyal and passionate guides and reading all there was on offer about this weidro, there were still so very many questions left unanswered.

The property itself belonged to nearby Winchcombe Abbey from 821 until the Dissolution in 1539, when Henry VIII presented it as a gift to his last queen, Catherine Parr. Between 1539 and 1919 it had a number of owners, none of whom seem to warrant mention in the historical records. But its obscurity ended when Charles Paget Wade purchased the property in 1919. 

Charles was born in 1883 in Kent into a family who had held sugar cane plantations in St Kitts in the West Indies for a couple of generations. While not involved in the slave trade themselves, they did benefit from the compensation the British government paid out when slavery was abolished, so one could say their wealth did come from illgotten gains.

When Charles was less than seven years old, he was sent to live with his grandmother in Great Yarmouth,  who proved to be the mentor of his collection bent. She owned a Chinese cabinet full of amazing treasures which fascinated the young Charles, a boy of artistic and flamboyant character,  to such an extent, he started his own collection in his fomative years. 

In 1907, he qualified as an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and took a position with a reputable firm, where he proved his worth and talent in the field. However work was obviously an interim time filler, because when his father died in 1911 and he inherited the plantations on St Kitts, he quit his career, and concentrated on expanding his collection. 

Unfortunately for Charles, and of course for many millions, the First World War arrived,and Charles did his bit on the Western Front in a fairly passive role, appropriate to his age and inclinations. He spent whatever time he had sketching and painting the buildings he saw, and fell in love with a property he saw advertised in a year old publication of “Country Life” lying about his quarters. 

Amazingly, after his discharge, when he tracked down the estate agents who had advertised the property, it was still for sale, and he bought it without further examination. When he did arrive to take up possession, he found it had not been occupied for about one hundred years and required three years efforts by his friends and himself, shovelling out the accumulations of the years to make it semi-habitable or at least functional for his grand plan. The good news, for Charles, was that it had not been spoilt by modern additions.  He was assisted with the transformation of the garden and outdoor rooms by Arts & Crafts architect and designer, M H Baillie Scott. 

Charles never did actually live in the Manor, preferring to live in what he called the Priest’s House, and given the manner it is presented to the public today, as being authentic to his own occupation, lived a rather monastic life.

By the time of his death, he had amassed over 22,000 objects, originating from the world at large, but most acquired in the United Kingdom from previous collectors. The objects were collected not for their financial value but for their beauty or craftmanship appeal. There is an extraordinary collection of Samurai warrior armour, lacquer cabinets, toys and childhood accessories such as the precursers to baby walkers and the jolly jumpers of today (or at least of the time I had my children), tapestries and paintings, theatre masks and bicycles, prams and ornaments. The collection is so varied and so numerous that my few words here cannot begin to describe it all.

Charles Wade remained single until he reached the ripe old age of about sixty three when he convinced a 44 year old vicar’s daughter, Mary Graham, to make an honest man of him. They lived for a brief time at Snowshill in the Priest’s House, in those hideously primitive conditions, before spending increasing amounts of time in St Kitts in the 1950s. During a visit back to England in 1956, Charles was taken ill and died in Evesham. His widow survived him for many years, ending her days not at Snowshill but in comfort at the Lygon Arms Hotel in Broadway in 1999, a wise woman indeed. Hopefully she managed to find some sort of normal human companionship during those final  forty years or so.

But more importantly for us, the visitors to this National Trust property, childless and single Charles started talks with the National Trust as early as 1937 about gifting the property to them. His terms were strict, regarding display, lighting, and a dozen other querks and it was not until 1951 both parties arrived at a mutually satisfying agreement.

A visit to Snowshill Manor is worth a detour if in this neck of the Cotswolds, and a visit to Broadway is certainly so. After we left the well patronised National Trust attraction, we drove up and around the charming and very pretty village of Snowshill, the buildings all in that gorgeous Cotswald cream sandstone and then drove down to Broadway and drove up and down the street to admire more of the same.

We then drove west to Evesham, mainly because it is on the Avon River and I was keen to see the canal port, however on the eastern edge of the town we became ensnared in a traffic jam and Chris lacked the patience to do battle. We turned and drove toward Tewkesbury, caught up in yet another traffic jam on the A46, this due to roadworks with little happening but irritating temporary traffic lights.

Today we headed off to Worcester for the day, this not even a Plan B on the touring agenda, and so without expectation. The road north to this city of about 100,000 inhabitants, is less than twenty miles whether one travels up on the M5 or the more interesting A38, this latter the route we chose to take.

As usual we misjudged tha amount of time required to explore the best features of the city, finding ourselves in a machine ruled car park which we fed with enough to cover up to four hours. From this, near the River Severn, we walked up into the High Street where I treated myself to a new item of clothing, and we called into the Information Centre to acquire a town map. There we were given a long list of must-see attractions; it was evident even at that point, we would not do this all justice in four hours. Instead we retreated to Maccas to agonise over mid-morning burgers and coffee and attempt an intelligent selection.

The first destination was Greyfriars, a Grade I listed building in the Shambles, administered by the National Trust. For some years it was thought to be the guest house or friary of the Franciscan order of Greyfriars, however more recent research has found it to have been built as a house and brewhouse in about 1485 for one Thomas Grene, brewer and High Bailiff of Worcester.

The building is a two story timber frame building, considered the finest half-timbered building in the City, has had a varied life, but it is only that of the last century or so that is told today with any authority. 

Throughout most of the 1600s it was home to the Street family,  and in 1724, it was let to Daniel George, a baker and malster, who turned the top of the building into a tiled withering floor; withering being part of the preparation process of barley for malting. It was the George family who divided the Friary into four tenements and built a row of ten cottages in the garden, these latter removed in the middle of last century.

There are photos of the property taken about the beginning of the 20^th century when the property was home to several shops with living quarters above each, this conversion having occurred about 1870. From here on the property sank to slum proprotions and by the 1940s it was in danger of being demolished.

But thank goodness for the oddballs of society, and this time these came along in the persons of a sibling couple, Elsie and Malcom Matley Moore, who restored the building to its former glory. They were collectors of antiquity, thinking nothing of crossing town with a wheelbarrow and trundling rescued building materials home to install in their grand project. 

Elsie was a talented artist, seamstress and craftsman, who attended the well-known Slade School of Fine Art for a short while until she was recalled to the domestic heath by her domineering mother. Malcom was a dentist who continued his profession throughout the restoration but was also very capable with needle and thread, and any other artists tools he applied himself to. This talented pair rescued this wonderful old building from the brink of annihilation, and for that we can be thankful. This odd couple lived here enjoying the fruits of their labour until they died in their eighties.

The building and garden, together with the fine old building across the road, has been in National Trust ownership since 1966. The second property was rescued from demolition when modern buildings were starting to spring up will-nilly about the town, and Matley Moore feared their project would be lost in a modern urban jungle. Today it is let out commercially and helps to finance the upkeep of the two properties.

We were taken through the rooms open to the public by a guide on a one-to-two basis, and learned much about these two strange people; it seems that Worcestershire and the surrounding district had more than its fair share of peculiar folk.

It was not far to the Cathedral from here and we were already aware that our time was running short. We were greeted by a large kilt-wearing Scotsman, with a great big personality and clad in socks purchased in New Zealand’s Dunedin. After leaving the warmth of his greeting, we soon realised that this cathedral was worth more than a ten minute rush around. We decided to do something else until our parking ticket ran out, pay another round and return for the 2.30 pm tour.

So we walked on to one of the several museums of Worcester, this the Museum of Royal Worcester, celebration and memorial to England’s largest porcelain industry. 

Porcelain was made commercially in Worcester between 1751 and 2009, “Worcester porcelain” encompassing five factory sites and many owners, partnerships and mergers.

In 1751, John Wall, a doctor and son of a former Worcester mayor, persuaded a group of local businesmen to invest in a porcelain manufactory, raising £4,500, close to a million pounds today. Apothecary William Davis shared Dr Wall’s entrepreneurial curiosity and it is probable that the idea for Worcester Porcelain was conceived over chemical experiments at Davis’s Worcester shop. These two entrepreneurs were so anxious to keep their recipe for porcelain secret that it was secured with three different locks and keys. The fine for divulging the secret was £4,000, then a massive sum.

Davis oversaw the day-to-day management of the factory, and within ten years employed well over a hundred workers. Davis assumed sole charge in the late 1700s and oversaw changes in production that made the early factory so successful.

In 1783 the original Worcester factory was purchased by Thomas Flight for his sons Joseph and John, They initially struggled with the technical process but slowly their fortunes improved. One story I heard today referred to one of the skilled workman who held the recipe secret, died on the job in 1789.  It took an underhand payout to this man’s heirs to retrieve the recipe for the porcelain, without which the business could well have been bankrupted.

The porcelain business ebbed and flowed, the processes improving with technology and dwindling with changing fashions. Workers from one factory set up to start others, and then merged again with the old masters. Porcelain painters made their names within the industry and their work is sought even today.

It was interesting to learn that the apprentices who were taken on for seven years and paid half the weekly wage, were enrolled at the Worcester Government School of Design which opened in 1852 and where they studied anatomy, botany, geometry and perspective, their contracts insisting they pass the examinations.

We learned too that the factory sites were dangerous places to work; workers died from poisoning from paint, brain damage caused by mercury gilding vapours, Potter’s Rot or silicosis from silica dust, or arsenic poisoning from licking the brushes, to name a few.

Despite these negatives, there were workers who stuck by the industry, from apprenticeship to retirement, men and women, sometimes for up to four generations. 

By the late 20^th century, manufacturing was changing to take advantage of lower labour costs abroad and more efficient global transportation.  In 1976 Royal Worcester merged to become Royal Worcester Spode Limited then went through a series of ownerships. But the company struggled to stay competitive as consumer demand changed, making considerable losses. In 2006 it ceased making china in the United Kingdom and three years later the factory in Worcester finally closed, 258 years after it was founded.

Unlike my husband, I am not one to get excited when Antiques Roadshow or any like televison programme announces itself, but was willing to endure this museum of objet d’arts for his sake. However even I enjoyed the museum because aided by audio guides, we were able to learn so much about the social, economic and production history of the industry. We rushed through in under an hour, which is just not enough if you are one to examine the intricacies of the craft on display.

From here it was a short walk down to the river bank, a lovely promenade, with plenty of trees for shade and benches to rest. Here we dined al fresco while watching rowers practicing their sport and narrow boats heading for the sea.

After refilling the parking fee to cover a further two hours, we headed back to the Cathedral and joined five other tourists on an hour long tour.

The cathedral was founded in 680 and some kind of structure was erected  on the site, seemingly in timber, but nothing now remains.  A second cathedral was built in 983 by Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, later St Oswald, along with an attached monastry. Then in 1084 Wulstan, the last Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Worcester, also later sainted, began the cathedral that stands today, although there have been additions over the centuries. Deliberate destruction has also been part of the story, mostly from Cromwell’s puritans who spoiled most of the decoration. The Victorian years saw monied elite stump up with money to restore the cathedral, and today it is indeed an impressive structure.

Again, we could have spent much longer here, beyond the time of the tour. In fact Worcester is worth at least two days exploration, even more.

Today has been even hotter than the previous days; we were glad we had closed all the blinds in the caravan during the day, and even after our return, we left the sunny side shut and the windows open on the shaded side. It is only since sunset at about 9.30 that the temperatures have fallen slightly. It seems we are to enjoy this tropical weather for some weeks yet.