Perfect day to be out. Certainly Spring like, if a little late this year. Our favourite place to walk.
Sunday 21 April 2024
Easy Victoria Sandwich Traybake Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 350 g butter (or margarine) softened
- 350 g caster sugar
- 6 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or to taste)
- 350 g self-raising flour
- 4 tablespoons milk
Filling:
- 150 g butter softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or to taste)
- 300 g icing sugar sieved (plus extra for dusting)
- 6-8 tablespoons strawberry jam or whatever jam you prefer! (I used blackberry I'd made last month)
Instructions
Making the cake:
- Preheat your oven to 180C / 160C fan / gas mark 4 / 350F. Grease and line a traybake pan (33 by 23cm / 13 by 9ins).
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar thoroughly, until the mixture starts to look a little bit paler.
- Add in one egg at a time and stir until each egg is completely mixed in before adding the next one.
- Add in the vanilla extract and stir to ensure it is evenly mixed in.
- Add in half the flour and stir gently until mixed in. Add in the remaining flour and, again, stir gently until the flour is mixed in.
- Add in the 4 tablespoons of milk and stir until mixed in.
- Tip the mixture into the lined traybake pan. Smooth over the surface with the back of your wooden spoon.
- Put the traybake into your preheated oven for 30-40 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove from the oven and check to see if it’s done using a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake. If the skewer comes out clean, it is cooked. If the skewer is covered in batter, return to the oven for a further 3 minutes and test again. Repeat if necessary, until the skewer comes out clean. (See Note 1.)
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack (See Note 2.) and allow to cool completely. This should take approximately 1 hour.
Decorating the cake:
- Don’t try and decorate the traybake cake until it is completely cold!
- Put the softened butter, vanilla extract and sieved icing sugar in a bowl and beat together until smooth.
- Carefully cut the traybake cake in half through the middle (I find it easiest to do this with a bread knife) and remove the top of the cake. Try to ensure the cut surface is as level as possible.
- Spread the jam evenly all over the cut surface.
- Spread the buttercream evenly over the jam, then put the rest of the cake back on top. (Take care to ensure the top of the cake does not break when you do this!)
- Finally, dust the top of the cake with icing sugar. (I just use a sieve to do this, but you can use an icing sugar dredger if you have one.)
- Cut into portions and serve!
https://www.easypeasyfoodie.com/easy-victoria-sandwich-traybake-cake/#recipe
Secret gardens have long been magical places filled with memories and mystery. As more heavenly havens are restored to their former glory, this beautiful evocation tells how they're also symbols of an age when the world was shut out
While many stay hidden behind high brickwork propped up by ivy and the mortar eaten with moss, more and more of Britain's historic walled gardens are being restored to their former glory.
Dating back to Adam and Eve, walled gardens were created to be heaven on earth. Indeed, the first ones were made for the kings of Persia and given the name paradaida. This was translated in Greek to paradisos, meaning a heavenly place.
The remains of one are close to my home in the grounds of an old ancestral estate in Suffolk. There, behind a tiny, splintered, wooden door lies an enchanted world.
Wiry tendrils of convolvulus twine round what is left of a clematis, a vine and honeysuckle compete to bring down an ancient apple tree, lethal-looking brambles choke the life out of dying shrubs, all engaged in a fight for survival.
All around the British Isles are thousands just like it – no one knows the exact numbers.
A doorway leading into a secret garden in Wiltshire - or is it a gateway to enchantment?
The Lost Gardens of Heligan, in Cornwall, boast a blooming lilac arch at their centre (above)
Generations ago these few closed-off acres, a sun-trap sheltered from the wind, supplied fruit and vegetables for the aristocratic occupants of the Big House – itself now gone, knocked down in the 1950s when so many country houses, too costly to maintain, were reduced to rubble.
A few buildings were saved, one of which – the former quarters for estate workers – is where I live. As for the walled garden, with the estate broken up, it had been left to run wild.
What happened over the centuries in this heavenly paradise, I could only imagine: row upon row of lettuces, radishes, beds of strawberries, forests of runner beans twisting up bamboo pergolas, tomatoes sown in perfectly perpendicular lines.
And beauty grown purely for its own glory: borders of sweet peas, larkspur, peonies, towering delphiniums for filling vases and vases in the Big House. Plus an orchard of pears, apples and plum trees and, in the greenhouses, apricots, grapes, figs, flourishing in the mini-climate behind the shelter of the walls. But this was all in the past.
In the absence of human hands, the evanescent and eternal atmosphere inspired me and led me to make a fictionalised walled garden the centrepiece of a novel. Set in the aftermath of the Second World War, when an exhausted nation struggled to rebuild itself, the resurrection of the walled garden is a metaphor for that recovery.
It also symbolises a society back then so unlike ours now, where we so often 'share' our feelings.
In 1946, people certainly didn't speak of the horrors they might have witnessed or sanctioned. In fact, returning soldiers were advised to say nothing about their experiences.
You kept your secrets in, the rest of the world firmly out, the walls of your mind so impenetrable no one knew what Hell people were concealing.
Of course, I'm far from the first person to present a walled garden as a powerful metaphor.
Adam and Eve had Eden (for a while at least) and the besotted lover Solomon, in the Old Testament, wrote ecstatically: 'A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse.'
The enclosed garden is a recurring feature in medieval art, with the Virgin Mary often depicted within impenetrable walls, the metaphor obvious.
Chaucer took it up in the Canterbury Tales. His chivalric knight is in love with an exquisite maiden who sits within the walls of her chaste, verdant sanctuary.
Shakespeare also loved a secret tryst in a garden. But he saw the other side in his history play Richard II, comparing the troubles in the land to 'our sea-walled garden, full of weeds, Her fairest flowers choked up. Her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd.'
We are all beguiled by the peace behind those high walls.
In a National Trust book, historian and BBC's Escape To The Country presenter Jules Hudson describes how they 'wrap you up in a comforting sense of calm'.
He writes: 'The door that separates the outside world from the one within the walls is a magical threshold. In crossing it you step into a place of enchantment, an escape from all that is burdensome in the world outside.'
Luscious greenery and flowering gardens at Kellie Castle in Fife - but such welcoming sights are a dying breed
A peek into the welcoming surrounds of a walled garden in Great Bookham, Surrey
In medieval times, they were built in the grounds of monasteries to provide food for the monks.
Tudor and Stuart country estates had their walled gardens, more refined than ever with box hedges, herbs, fruit trees, a fish-pond, sundial, rustic pergola and seating.
But it was in the 18th Century in Britain that they became a status symbol. Every Georgian grandee had to have one on his landed estate, its walls higher and longer than his neighbour's, producing pineapples and other otherwise unobtainable tropical fruits to impress his dinner guests.
In the Victorian era they blossomed even more, as wealthy industrialists sought to make their personal mark on the countryside with big houses and all that went with them.
Meanwhile, the spread of empire brought home more exotic fruit and vegetables to be cultivated in these unique hot spots.
With the abolition of the tax on glass in 1845, greenhouses sprouted as swiftly as the plants inside them until they took up as much as a third of any walled garden. Boilers, a new invention, provided extra heat.
It was reckoned a one-acre garden could feed 12 people. The average size of garden was around two acres, though some were many times that.
Queen Victoria's kitchen garden at Windsor, built in 1844, was 31 acres. But after this heyday came decline and fall.
The world wars of the 20th Century were a paradoxical cause. The country needed to be self-sufficient in food, and while walled gardens could feed a family or even an estate, a whole population was beyond their limited resources.
Big farms, increasingly mechanised and industrialised, made the walled gardens redundant. Many were abandoned.
By the 1960s, most had ceased providing food for the house they were attached to. They were turned into commercial nurseries, Christmas tree farms and orchards, grassed over or left to rot.
By the late 1980s there were virtually none in operation in Britain, highlighting, says Jules Hudson, how quickly these spaces could disappear if left untended.
But then came a revival. In the 1990s, the National Trust launched projects to save our walled garden heritage, starting with the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. With this success, plans were made to breathe life back into many of these forgotten spaces.
Uncounted others, big and small, attached to grand and often not-so-grand country houses, a rectory here, a manor there, are flourishing again, turning out produce for the kitchen table (or flowers for the drawing room).
Among the famous are Alnwick Castle, Fulham Palace, Heligan, Luton Hoo, Polesden Lacey, Croxteth Hall, Croome Court and Shugborough Hall in England; Bodysgallen Hall in Wales and Edzell Castle, Dunmore House and Myres Castle in Scotland.
All have their own unique charm. The turrets at Knightshayes Court where you half-expect to see some pre-Raphaelite Lady of Shalott gazing forth; bees gulping down blossom in the castellated walled garden at Nymans; Felbrigg Hall's colossal glasshouses and dovecote.
And yet my favourite will always be the walled garden that exists in the imagination. Slip through that locked door and the world can be just as you want it to be, a place of solitude and salvation or whatever else you desire and dream, behind those enclosed walls.
- The Walled Garden by Sarah Hardy. Manilla Press.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-13332201/secret-gardens-magical-restored-former-glory.html
Thursday 18 April 2024
The Wind in the Willows
“The Wind in the Willows” is a classic children’s story about England and the English. However, it was actually written by Scotsman. The book describes the adventures of “Mole”, “Badger”, “Toad” and “Ratty”.
Together, they represent all the characteristics of the English, both good and bad. The leader was always the astute, charming, affable, heroic “Rattty”. However, the hero was uneasy outside his own routine. He always did the right thing, but more than anything else, he simply enjoyed “just messing about in boats”. The inspiration for the character was an academic who was born in Cornwall before attending Trinity College in Oxford.
Arthur Quiller-Couch, like his literary counterpart, was a larger than life character. He was born in 1863. He wrote 36 novels during his lifetime. However, like Ratty, he believed that there was “nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing, as simply messing about in boats”.
In 1910, he was knighted. In 1912, he became the “King Edward VII Professor of English Literature” at Cambridge University. He retained that title for the rest of his life. He was a Fellow of Jesus College in Cambridge, and remained a Fellow until he retired from academic life.
However, in 1911, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was proud to become the Commodore of the club of which he was a life-long member, the Royal Fowey Yacht Club in Cornwall.
In his spare time, Retty composed poetry. Sir Arthur Quiller- Couch created “The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250 -1918”.
Plas Newydd & The Ladies of Llangollen
Trip out today. Fascinating life and wonderful house packed with beautiful wood carvings. This from the Council website.
https://www.llangollen.org.uk/index.php/things-to-do/attractions/item/61-plas-newydd-the-ladies-of-llangollen
Plas Newydd, Llangollen is a stone built house converted into a gothic ‘fantasy’ by its most famous inhabitants – ‘The Ladies of Llangollen'.
The ladies ran away from the life they were expected to live in Ireland in 1778 to set up a new life and home in Wales.
The house has been welcoming visitors since the arrival of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby in 1780 who lived there for the next 50 years. Indeed their notable visitors included The Duke of Wellington, Wordsworth, Shelley, Sir Walter Scott and Josiah Wedgewood.
Today, as in those times visitors are enchanted by the by the beautiful gardens and remarkable house with trip advisor reviews quoting ‘Unique and Well Worth a visit’, ‘A Gem of a Picturesque’ and ‘Unmissable’.
Visitors can explore the remarkable oak carving panelled interior, these carvings are a source of constant fascination to visitors, many carvings older than the house having come from churches that were remodelled in the 18th and 19th century. The ladies dressing room is now an exhibition room that tells the ladies tale. There is also a library, dining room and servants quarters (the attic room!)
Visitors can be seen enjoying walks in around ten acres of grounds ranging from formal ‘parterre’ and rose gardens to beautiful woodland and dell areas where the ‘Cyflymen’ (fast flowing one) stream is to be found, all this set against the backdrop of the beautiful Welsh hills in this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Knowledgeable staff are on hand here to relay the fascinating story of what went on in this unique building and grounds over the last two hundred years and more.
There is a very ‘cosmopolitan’ atmosphere here with an average day welcoming visitors from the UK, Europe and far beyond who have heard of Plas Newydd and its story, they then seem to feel impelled to visit and see for themselves.
The visit and feeling of discovery and insight into a time long gone is often discussed over light lunches, fresh coffee and delicious home baked cakes at the Stableblock Tearooms.
The summer months see many varied activities and events here from Car Rallies and Duck Races to Open Air Plays and Silver Bands.
These days the house is looked after by the Clwydian Range & Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Plas Newydd is also a fully accredited museum.
For more information:
Website: denbighshire.gov.uk.
Email: plasnewydd@denbighshire.gov.uk
Phone: 01978 862834
Information from the CADW website
Today, Plas Newydd in Denbighshire is a Grade II* Listed Building, open to the public, and operated by Denbighshire County Council.
But it wasn’t always that grand – it began life as a small cottage with three windows, until it was acquired by Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby. These ‘Ladies of Llangollen’ were independent women, history buffs and, quite possibly, the 18th century’s first lesbian power couple!
Eleanor Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831) met in 1768 when Sarah was a teenager and Eleanor was in her late twenties. Both were members of wealthy families from the Irish aristocracy and both were determined not to be married off, the usual fate for women of their social station at the time.
They were so committed to their freedom that 10 years later they attempted to flee the country together, disguised as men. The escape was thwarted by their families but – after some discussion – the two women were allowed to leave Ireland for Wales. There, they travelled around for a while before settling down and ‘retiring’ in Llangollen in 1780 (now aged 25 and 41), where they would live as a couple for nearly fifty years with their servant Mary Carryl and a series of dogs named Sappho.
Relationship questions
As respected members of the upper-class, the question of the Ladies’ sexuality was not up for open discussion. They were sometimes praised for choosing lives of ‘virginity’ and the idea that they had a sexual relationship may just not have occurred to many of their visitors. The Ladies threatened legal action against one newspaper for describing their ‘extraordinary female affection’ in unflattering terms – also suggesting Eleanor dressed as a man and was the ‘masculine’ half of the couple.
Confirmed lesbians of their generation were naturally fascinated by them. They inspired works by the Romantic poet Anna Seward (1742-1809), who was openly envious of their lifestyle. The diarist Anne Lister (1791-1840) – sometimes described as the first modern lesbian – visited Llangollen and met Sarah Ponsonby. In a letter to her lover Mariana Lawton, she wrote that she thought it was unlikely that the Ladies of Llangollen’s relationship was ‘platonic’.
Independent women
Despite their dramatic rejection of marriage, the Ladies were able to stay on surprisingly good terms with their families. Llangollen’s position on the main transport route between Ireland and London meant they often received visits from relatives – as well as other members of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. There was widespread curiosity about their life together and many admired them for choosing to live happily in relatively modest circumstances, as opposed to a grand Irish castle.
As members of the aristocracy, the Ladies never worked, relying on gifts from relatives and friends to maintain their lifestyle. Entertaining rich guests and curating their celebrity became a career for them. They built up a reputation as excellent hosts and conversationalists, welcoming many distinguished visitors – including the Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron and a young Charles Darwin. On the advice of Queen Charlotte, the Ladies were eventually granted a royal pension by King George III, finally giving them financial security.
Plas Newydd
When they moved in, their house was a small cottage with three windows named Pen-y-maes on the Afon Cyflymen. However, the Ladies had big plans for the place. They renamed it Plas Newydd (the New Palace in Welsh) and made huge changes over many years, adding a library and servants’ quarters – as well as employing a gardener and acquiring neighbouring plots of lands to develop fine gardens around their home.
The very well-read couple also indulged their passion for history by building a huge collection of antique oak carvings – many rescued from medieval churches – which they incorporated into the fabric of their home. In the gardens, they made features out of medieval church fonts and part of the city of Chester’s medieval High Cross, which had been torn down during the English Civil War.
A lasting legacy
Eleanor and Sarah died within a couple of years of each other and are buried together in the graveyard of St Collen’s Church in Llangollen – alongside their Irish servant Mary Carryl who had died twenty years earlier. A memorial to all three women still stands in the churchyard and the carefully preserved house and gardens at Plas Newydd survive as a testament to the Ladies’ success in defying the conventions of their time.
While we may never know whether they were lesbians or not, there is no denying that they were a source of inspiration to women who were. Their long life together provided a powerful demonstration that two women could build a stable and happy home, paving the way for a more open and tolerant future.
https://cadw.gov.wales/ladies-llangollen
Photos taken today -
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)