The end is in sight

The project is drawing to a close now and we are working hard to get all the research materials and images into digital form so that they can be uploaded to our leapinthepark webpage (which will sit on www.forestofbowland.com) and also to our Leap in the Park app. We hope to launch both of these at our end of project celebration on Sunday December 1st, to be held at St Mary's church hall in Chipping. We will have lots of work on display and in addition Lindsey Wallace from the Harris Museum & Art Gallery will be bringing along the lovley Weld watercolours, plus Jennie Anderson will be returning to Bowland to show us the original deer park reconstruction paintings she has produced for us.

 

 

 

Weld's painting of Gibbon Bridge Farm: now a hotel

Apprentice scribes in Tudor times

This week, ten year six pupils from Brabin's Endowed Primary school in Chipping visited Lancashire Archives as part of the education work the Leap in the Park project has been undertaking, led by ex Headteacher Glynis Goldsbrough. Lots of resources to help pupils find out more about the deer parks at Leagram and Radholme, using all parts of the curriculum, are now available to download from our website
The trip was organised by Lancashire Museums Service and the children were visiting Preston to become apprentices to Queen Elizabeth I's royal scribe, Thomas Coldfield. They spent the morning learning their letters, illuminating texts, making seals and finding out a lot about Elizabethan life and the deer parks. They also had chance to go into the Archive store to view some original 400 year old manuscripts actually signed by Good Queen Elizabeth and bearing her seal. We found out how parchment was made ( ugh!) and how the beeswax seal was used to show who the important letter was from, even though many Elizabethan people could not read the text, even if it was in English!
We hope to take another class to the archives soon, so if you are at a primary school in Lancashire studying the Tudors this term, get in touch!

Our day out.....

Yesterday a group of 10 volunteers visited the Lancashire Archives to look at some of the original documents uncovered during our research into the deer parks of Bowland. We also had a private guided tour of the stacks, where all the 8 miles of precious documents are stored in monitored conditions, and then we had a go at transcribing a court roll from 1674!

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