The view from Betty’s, Harlow Carr and Farrar’s Palm Court Cafe in Harrogate today.
The View from Bettys
Category: Drawing
Marigolds
It’s years since we bought any marigolds but they’re good at spreading their seeds around the garden. We’ll have plenty of seedlings next year at the top end of the border.
Also well able to seed itself around, the Welsh poppy. If it just spread by seed that would suit me but, unlike the marigold, it can establish itself as a perennial, building up deep dandelion-like tap roots and crowding out other flowers.
This heron, preening in a quiet corner at Adel Dam became watchful and alert when first a buzzard and then a sparrowhawk flew overhead.
Handscape
In the waiting room at Specsavers and couldn’t draw anyone without them spotting me so it was back to drawing my hand in my A6 landscape sketchbook.
I was in for micro suction wax removal so I’ve done a few sessions in preparation lying on the sofa with olive oil in my ear. That’s an awkward angle for drawing and I realise that the Paperlike screen protector has lost its texture after eight months of use so my Apple Pencil was slipping about as I drew, so it’s time to renew it using the spare sheet that came in the pack.
I’ve never replaced the drawing tip of my Apple Pencil so that’s something worth trying to give more traction and feedback from the drawing surface.
Ducks and a Danish
Sketching the ducks, cormorant, Canada geese and in-between black-headed gulls, some juveniles, some adults beginning to lose their black heads. We were surprised how few – if any – there were at the black-headed gull colony at St Aidan’s last week. They’d been so noisy in the spring and early summer. Now I guess they’ve dispersed with a hundred or more – perhaps St Aidan’s birds – turning up at Newmillerdam, where they can perch on fallen willows on the quieter bank of the lake and keep an eye out for hand-outs on the war memorial side.
And yes, I might have drawn more of them if I hadn’t been sidetracked by a Danish cinnamon pastry at the Boathouse.
These coots have raised a brood at the nest site I drew last year near in the corner by the outlet of the lake.
Thanks to instant communication, I was able to message my photograph of the Danish pastry to the far end of the lake as a warning to Barbara that I’d got tied up on essential business, however I beat her and her brother back to the car park and had time to draw two of the chimney stacks of the Fox and Hounds, adding the colour later from a photograph.
Wakefield Naturalists’ Society in the 1800s: Success and Failure
At Wakefield Naturalists’ Society’s first annual dinner, Tuesday, 17 February 1874, at the Strafford Arms, overlooking the Bull Ring, vice-president Mr G. Porrit, F.L.S., was called on to propose a toast:
I am gratified at having to propose “Success to the Wakefield Naturalists’ Society.” I feel certain that all visitors and others in this room wish the president and officers of this society every success and prosperity (hear, hear). Whatever they do they do it well, and so long as they can keep their respected president with them there need be no fear so far as the success of the society is concerned (hear, hear). I have much pleasure in proposing “Success to the Naturalist Society,” and am sorry I cannot remain longer with you, as the train for Huddersfield is already due. Before I go, however, allow me to couple with the toast the name of the president, Alderman Wainwright.
The toast was drunk amid loud applause
The Wakefield Free Press, 21 February 1874. British Library Board, all rights reserved.
What could possibly go wrong?
In 1862, on Monday and Tuesday, 2nd and 3rd June, the Society staged an exhibition at the Music Salon to raise funds for the formation of a library for the Society.
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
‘The Exhibition will consist of several thousands of objects in Natural History, comprising choice specimens in Ornithology, Entomology, Conchology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology. The greater part of the objects have been taken within six miles of Wakefield.’
The Reason for the Failure
But an exhibition staged by the Society in the 1880s proved over ambitious. Here’s a reaction from a former member of the Society who thought that he could do a better job himself:
In the interests of science I hope you will allow me to explain the reason for the failure of the Wakefield Naturalists’ Society, which the annual report in the papers say is beyond explanation . . . The late Exhibition met with only half-hearted sympathy from some of the members. Since the Council Chamber [Wakefield’s old Town Hall in Crown Court off Wood Street] was rented there has not been a single lecture or essay – in fact not one meeting of the members has been advertised in any way . . . Are not these facts a sufficient reason to account for the large proportion of the members withdrawing their names. Then dog in the manger like when they will not go forward with the proposed Museum, and I set to work to do what they say they have abandoned for the time being (having packed away their specimens at a public house) . . . What is the use of ten members at the annual meeting keeping in existence only the name of an association.’
G. H. Crowther, letter to the editor, Wakefield Free Press 29 September 1883
The Saw Hotel
But four years later the Society was back on its feet again.
Remember those specimens ‘packed away in a public house’?
WAKEFIELD NATURALISTS’ SOCIETY
THE SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL SESSION of this Society was opened with an EXHIBITION of NATURAL HISTORY OBJECTS, in the SOCIETY’S ROOMS, SAW HOTEL on Wednesday, October 5th, 1887.
The Exhibition will remain open TO-DAY from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and also on MONDAY, TUESDAY, and WEDNESDAY next, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The Public are invited. Admission Free.
WILLIAM RUSHFORTH
Honorary Secretary
Wakefield Free Press 08 October 1887
The Saw Hotel was on Westgate.
The good news is that the Wakefield Naturalists are still active today, with the next outdoor meeting a week on Sunday at Adel Nature Reserve: ‘super reserve for dragonflies and flowers which was closed throughout lockdown’.
It might be time to propose another toast . . .
Link
Wakefield Naturalists’ Society
The British Newspaper Archive provided jointly by the British Library and Findmypast. You can access the archive – and Findmypast – for free if you’re a member of Wakefield Libraries.
Victorian Underground Water Cistern
While digging the foundations for a garden room extension at the back of Smeath House, Horbury, last week builders came across this brick-lined cavity.
These two massive Yorkstone slabs covered the hole.
It was completely dry and hadn’t ever been filled in, so there was no dating evidence, other than the structure itself. As far as I could see the bricks had no maker’s name stamped on them.
Two lead pipes extended up from the base of the cistern towards the house. You can see that a few loose bricks have been placed around the open end of the pipes, perhaps either to keep them in place or to trap any sediment that might find its way into the cistern.
There were two inlet pipes close to the top of the cistern. One came from the direction of the house and would have channelled rainwater from the roof and the other presumably fed in rainwater from outbuildings which have since been demolished.
There was a small amount of mortar between the bricks, which had fairly shallow frogs. It’s not all that obvious in the photographs but the hole tapers in gradually towards the top.
The Wash House
Photograph by Amy Hacker
When my mum and dad bought Smeath House in the 1950s the Victorian extension to the original house (above, the window and door on the right) housed what we called the wash house. It was stone-flagged inside with a large enamel sink below the window which is now in use as a plant trough at Spinkwell House next door. We used the large Victorian mangle for years, until woodworm got into the wooden rollers.
There was a cylindrical galvanised boiler which my dad later used as water butt sunk into one of the beds of his greenhouse.
The Victorians used rainwater was used for laundry as it was softer than water from the well. A well which might have served both houses gave its name to Spinkwell and is still there, covered over, at the corner of an ivy-covered rockery.
My mum was resident at Smeath House for about 60 years but during that time we never suspected that there was a cavity under the back yard. The back yard was probably concreted over in the late 1940s or early 1950s when the house was converted into two flats.
The foundation trench for the garden room has exposed the foundations of the ‘wash house’ extension. l’m not sure if that the sandstone is bedrock or a massive flagstone.
Barbara and I got a chance to see the structure yesterday as they started to fill it in. It looks as if it is approximately half-filled here.
Capacity
Very roughly, I’d guess we’re looking at a storage capacity of a cylinder 6ft across and 6ft high, which would hold about 170 cubic feet of water, over 1000 gallons, nearly 5 cubic metres (my thanks to Harvey who pointed out that my original calculation was way out because I’d confused radius with diameter).
The Mortimer Row Mystery
In 1979, a very similar structure was found less that 100 yards to the north west of the Smeath House water cistern at the back of one of the houses on Mortimer Row.
When Gillian Simpson posted this article on the Horbury and Sitlington History Group Facebook Page, Bob Durham recalled:
We found all sorts of things in that ‘well’. Old childrens lace up shoes, bottles, cups and saucers. Metal work files. It wasn’t round tho! It was more egg shaped and the red smooth faced brickwork was so tightly. It was a pity to fill it in.
Bob Durham
As the article mentions one of the items was a cup, dated 1911, belonging to Horbury Urban District Council, unfortunately there was no similar dating evidence in the Smeath House water cistern.
Slim Sim
Missing out on the line drawing stage and going straight to areas of tone and colour, using the Lasso Fill tool in Clip Studio Paint. Foot drawn from life. The man in the hat reminds me of a slim version of Alastair Sim.
Drawstring Bag
This soft drawstring bag is for my dji Osmo Mobile 3, a kind of Steadicam device for filming with a mobile phone (even with my shaky hands!). I bought it immediately pre-pandemic for a short film I had in mind but two years later I haven’t picked up the pieces of that project.
Backpack
Lowe Alpine Edge 22 backpack.
Shoppers
Shoppers and mannequins at the White Rose this morning.