Month: March 2021

Annabel Grenehod

Annabel Grenehod

There’s trade war with France, the pandemic is peaking on the continent and Scotland is making a bid for independence.

Yes, we’re going back 650 years for today’s Wakefield Woman in History, the formidable Annabel Grenehod. She could certainly put over a convincing case at the Manor Court which was in the middle of town, right opposite the main entrance to the parish church (now the cathedral) on the site now occupied by the former BHS store.

On Thursday, 18th November, 1350, there were more than a dozen cases for the attention of for R. (Robert?), son of John the Steward, including debt, trespass, a runaway servant, straying animals and the theft of a crop of oats. First up was Elizabeth Pellesondoghter, who was fined for not prosecuting a trespasser, but in the next case Annabel proved more determined. The Wakefield Court Rolls record that:

John del Rode failed to make the law which he waged against Annabel Grenehod, executrix of the will of John Grenhod chaplain: therefore it is judged that she should recover against the said John del Rode 1 stone of wool which she claimed against him in the preceding court, and he is amerced (fined).

Wakefield Court Rolls, Thursday, 18th November 1350

At that previous court on the 21st October, Annabel had claimed 2 stones of wool, price 8s, against John del Rode. Eight shillings would be about about £230 today, enough to buy a cow or a quarter of a ton wheat. John had admitted to owing one stone of wool but had disputed the second.

That seemed to be the case settled, so presumably Annabel reclaimed the rest of her wool, but it wasn’t the end of her legal tussles because at the next court, on 18th November, she was chasing Robert de Bothe for a debt of sixpence (£14 or £15, the daily wage of a skilled tradesman). Again she won the case.

Unusually, the Lord – or Lady? – of the Manor of Wakefield at the time was the equally feisty Matilda de Neirford, Countess de Warenne, who had been in a long term relationship with the late John, Earl de Warenne, but their children were considered illegitimate, so he was the last of his line of the Norman Lords of the Manor of Wakefield.

A Stone of Wool

From, ‘The Statutes at Large’, Owen Ruffhead, 1761, available as an eBook from Google Books

In the year that Annabel’s case came up, Edward III turned his attention to weights and measures, insisting that the Stone – which he specified as 14 pounds weight – should be used as a measure of wool, using a ‘Beam of the Balance’, rather than the Auncel, a balance scale with a movable weight, which made it easy for a merchant to falsify the weight.

Wool was so important to the kingdom’s economy that Edward insisted that his Lord Chancellor should sit on a bale of wool – the Woolsack – a tradition that continued in the House of Lords until 2006. The tradition continues to this day with the Lord Speaker now sitting on ‘The Woolsack’.

One of the reasons that Edward III’s ‘Hundred Year War’ got started was to protect England’s wool trade routes. Battle of Crécy in 1346 gave Edward an early victory.

Big Birthday

Desert Island Discs

More March birthdays. This first one is totally unfair to Uncle Bill and to the innovative ‘funky grooves, 80s synth and jazzy piano a go-go’ sounds of Tom’s brother’s indie rock band but the ‘Scotsman playing Baker Street on the trombone’, was an actual incident at a wedding in Edinburgh, which I remember it well: very difficult to forget, actually!

80th birthday card

The big birthday recently has been my brother-in-law John. For the past year because of restrictions, he’s been grounded in South Ossett, so Illingworth Park has been his regular exercise walk. Three times around the park is one mile, so during that time we calculate that he’s walked about 300 miles around the park and another 300 getting to and from it, so the full distance of the Pennine Way and back again, with just about enough mileage left over to complete The Dales Way too.

Rough for John's birthday card

My first version of John’s card included the regular dog walkers and the occasional mums and children who we see in the park, but I thought the numbers would make more of an impact if the park was empty. I added ink washes to establish the tones but this dulled the watercolour wash that I put over it, so I drew the card again.

mask-less characters

Ali is brilliant at sewing and was able to run up some stylish face masks in the early days of lockdown when they were in short supply.

The Lady Abbess

Lady Abbess

We generally used to go into the Church yard, and look with some awe at the Nun’s graves, the earliest of which were already there, the Old Hall at Heath being the Nunnery : this brings to mind an incident some years later, when the youth and beauty of the Nuns of Heath excited a good deal of interest in the neighbourhood. One sultry summer’s afternoon my cousin Ben and I, took a boat from Wakefield down the river, and coming under the shelter of the wood at Heath, made fast our boat and strolled in the grounds. We had not been long there before we heard footsteps, and concealing ourselves behind a tree, saw a long line of Nuns, two and two, approaching us, preceded by the Lady Abbess. We were very much struck by the youthful and beautiful appearance of the young ladies, and my cousin unable to repress some slight exclamation, we were at once discovered by the Lady Abbess, and at a signal from her, each beautiful face was instantly concealed, by the drawing down of a veil, and a retrograde motion immediately commenced by all except the old lady, who came forward in great indignation, speaking angrily in French, of which neither of us understood a word. We of course remained silent. She then broke out, and rated us soundly, in English, in good set terms too, and we retired, making the best excuses we could, the object for which we had really gone, having been obtained.

Henry Clarkson, Memories of Merry Wakefield, 1887

At the east end of Kirkthorpe Church, a row of plain headstones mark the graves of Benedictine nuns who fled the French Revolution to live in exile at Heath Old Hall between 1811 and 1821. The inscriptions give only initials and dates but one records a name, perhaps she had yet to take her vows;

Emilia Monteiro
Born at Lisbon
Died July 3rd
1816
Aged 15

Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth

When Barbara Hepworth graduated from the Royal College of Art, her tutors felt that her drawing was strong but that she wasn’t going to make it as a sculptor. Sculpture at the time typically involved building up a figure as a framework and swathing it in plaster, before casting it in bronze, so it started with a modelmaking process. Barbara preferred to take a block of wood or stone and carve into it.

During her childhood and teenage years in Wakefield, she got the chance to visit the gritstone crags and tors of the Yorkshire moors, carved by natural processes during ice ages and interglacials. On holidays around Robin Hood’s Bay, she saw landforms sculpted by coastal erosion.

Betty Ellis

on her wartime Christmas Cake adventure

While chatting to my mother-in-law, Betty Ellis, in the spring of 2010, when the whole country had snow, and she said ‘It was snowing when John was born.’

‘Was it? – I never knew that.’ I said, and she told me the story and I asked her to write it down, just as she’d told me, so here, in Betty’s own words, is the story of 80 years ago, in March 1941.

Although they’d called her in unexpectedly, she ended up in Manygates Maternity Hospital longer than she expected.

When I was pregnant with John, I was 19 years old, I didn’t have much knowledge of that side of life.

I went to Manygates . . . but my mother having ill health, could not go with me, so a neighbour went with me. We went on the bus, while I was sitting there all I could think was, when I come home again I shall be a mother. It was the most wonderful and exciting thought.

Anyway, I was there about a week and when the Sister who came round the ward every day came and I heard her say “I think we can send her home, but first we will try castor oil” – and it worked John was born I think round 8 in the evening.

Just after he was born the Air Raid Siren went, I asked where my baby was, they said he had been taken to the shelter, but I said could I go too, but they said no, as I had to stay in bed.

The [bomb] that dropped down Thornes when I was in Manygates Mum told me after, that it lifted her from her chair to the other side of the room.

We had a few bombs drop, one doodlebug dropped in Aunt Annie’s spare bedroom it did a bit of damage but not much, I used to go and clean for her and I didn’t like going in that room after.

Another dropped in Ossett, Mum and I had gone up to see Aunt Sarah Elizabeth and Uncle Wilson, Mum was in the kitchen with Aunt Sarah and I went into the garden with Uncle Wilson, we heard the Plane then we heard the Bomb coming down, I ran into the house, it knocked Uncle Wilson off his feet into the side of his shed, but he wasn’t hurt but we were all shaken up.

It made you realise what People in London and places [were going through] where they were getting that all the time.

Christmas Cake

Betty as I knew her, still baking

It’s typical of Betty that when the bombs were dropping around her, she was thinking of other people who were having a harder time.

I think this last little story really sums up Betty’s character as it involves a bit of an adventure, a touch of mischief and, of course, baking.

Betty had met Bill at a birthday party. She’d gone with her friend from work, Kitty Hornby, who was going out with Bill’s elder brother Charlie at the time.

Bill Ellis

That was the beginning of our lives together. I didn’t see him for a few years when he went overseas, but we wrote each other, we were able to get married while he was still in this country.

I would go and visit him when I got chance which wasn’t very often. It was Christmas and I baked Xmas cake, he was near Sheffield so I went and took a Christmas Loaf, but when I got there it was all railed off, and was getting dark, but there was a soldier going round on guard, so I went and called him over and asked if I could see Bill, so he went to find out, but he said he couldn’t, anyway Bill when he knew I was there he came out although he wasn’t allowed to, so I gave him the Cake through the rails, and I had to leave in case some officer saw us.

It wasn’t very pleasant being alone in the dark and the blackout, in a strange place but I made it home okay.

Betty Ellis, writing in spring, 2010

The Old Stable

shed

There are plenty of pristine-looking sheds about, but I’m not drawing in technical pen with a ruler and set-square, so this much-patched, leaning shed suits my freehand dip pen and Chinese brush better.

I tried four different nibs when starting this drawing but the one I preferred was the Clan Glengarry. I also filled in a bit with bamboo pen.

Published
Categorized as Drawing

Oti Mabuse

Oti Mabuse

In the last of this series of live sessions on Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Week, current Portrait Artist of the Year Curtis Holder drew dancer Oti Mabuse.

Oti and Curtis

Also briefly appearing, Curtis’s sleepy whippet and Oti’s little terrier.

Horse Box

horse box

Even George Clarke would struggle to restore this battered old horse box as an Amazing Space.

I drew it with a dip pen with a Clan Glengarry Pen nib, which has a rounded end, so you can draw it across the paper in any direction. It’s De Atramentis Archive Ink, which dries a lot quicker than regular Indian. I used a Chinese brush for the solid areas, which I dragged across the cartridge paper to give a suitably grungy tone.

Cheesy Grater

cheese grater

Catching up with birthdays today and this character has a walk-on part on one of my homemade cards. Not surprisingly he’s soon asked to walk-off again.