A Grand day out.....

Here we are, enjoying the Bank Holiday sunshine at Chipping Show, and telling lots of people about our work on the Deer Parks

Jennie's illustrations

Here is one of Jennie Anderson's new illustrations fo rthe project - this one shows some fallow deer using a salter, or deer leap, to enter the park. 

more news...

Exciting news! Jennie Anderson's first few illustrations are now complete and on my desk - there is a sneak preview on her  Facebook page of the first three reconstruction drawings showing hunting the deer; a winter feeding scene; and driving cattle through a park gate, showing the pale in the landscape.
We will use these fabulous paintings to help interpret the project via our apps, website and interpretation panels in the near future.

This week I have been walking the route of the Leagram deer park - a 7 mile walk around the pale - and identifying sites to interpret using our mobile app. And I have also had a bit of news on Stakes Farm, mentioned in my last post. The house was probably built in the 1600's by the Richmond family, and the latin inscription above the door is translated as follows:
Now this is mine
Soon to be other's
Afterwards whose I know not
Nobody is born for himself

Walking the line around Radholme park

We had a fabulous day on Monday, testing out the route for the new walk around part of Radholme park. This is a route we are going to develop as a mobile digital app, our first at the AONB, so we are very excited about it. The app will feature a route map and directions, plus an audio commentray and a gallery of images to illustrate the area and its history.
The walk starts from the top of Hall Hill and passes through Radholme Laund, Higher, Middle and Lower Lees and down to Stakes farm on the Hodder. This is a fabulous old building which I am determined to find out more about. It featured in the John Weld drawings we uncovered at Harris art gallery, and it seems to have changed very little in the 200 years since then.

photo courtesy of Harris Museums and Art Gallery, Preston

 

The Farm appears to have been in the Swinglehurst family and there are some lovley photos of it on their family website



Discover Bowland events

For those of you unable to attend Nigel Neil's lecture on Deer Parks last month, here is a brief snippet of his talk - explaining about Royal Forests, hunting methods and the construction of the pale. The talk was enjoyed by over 20 people, and another 15 or so joined Graham Cooper on his guided walk the following weekend.
Meet us next at Chipping Show on Saturday 24th August or come along and see some of our documentary evidence for real at Lancashire Archives on Tuesday 10th September. For details contact cathy.hopley@lancashire.gov.uk

Forthcoming events.....

Don't forget our Deer Parks talk is being given by Nigel Neil on Thursday 25th June at 7.30pm in Chipping Village Hall - just turn up for a fascinating insight to medieval manors, landownership patterns and stories of some of the great characters of the area.

We also have plans to run a stall at Chipping Show on Saturday 24th August where you can have a go at place name bingo or make a deer sculpture.....and then on Tuesday 10th September we will be running a trip to Lancashire Archives in Preston to see first hand some of the documents used in the research work and to unveil some of the mysteries of archive research - including reading old fashioned handwriting, like this!

1559 Survey of the Woods, TNA DL 43/17/5 reproduced by kind permission of the Chancellor and
Council of the Duchy of Lancashire and the National Archive - photo by Dr Bill Shannon

Survey drawings

Becca from English Heritage has kindly produced the drawings from the very wet survey notes we made back in April when we surveyed a length of the pale near to Windy Hills in Leagram Park.

The aerial photo clearly shows our section of ditch and bank: the pale

and these are the results of our surveying