One Night Stanzas

I did a particularly spooky tour of Cumbria, in honour of Halloween…

You remember I told you that Martyna is especially skilled at finding cool adventures for us to go on? Well, here’s another: we went to see Long Meg & Her Sisters, a Druidic stone circle in North Cumbria. It’s the third largest circle in the UK after Stonehenge and the Ring of Brodgar and has over fifty stones. It is also totally deserted — for some reason, barely anyone knows about it.

Long Meg (she’s the taller stone that’s sort of the shape of a pointer on a sundial — or a witch’s hat — in the pic above and in the first one in this post) was supposedly the mother to over fifty daughters, all witches. One night they were out doing their witchy thing, dancing in the moonlight and casting spells, when Michael Scot, famous Scottish “wizard,” happened upon their gathering. Scot supposedly turned them all to stone for their evil deeds… which frankly I think was a major overreaction to a bit of midnight dancing.

Legend now has it that the stones cannot be counted — that if you try to count them once, but then try again, you will get a different number each time. Another local story says that you should attempt to count the stones, then walk over to Meg and press your ear to her stone. She’ll tell you a secret — or possibly, if you’re really un/lucky, you’ll break the spell and the witches will all wake up.

An even more spooky and mysterious circle is Mayburgh Henge, not too far from Long Meg, at Eamont Bridge. Mayburgh is unlike other circles: rather than being made of large stones, its outer ring is made from piles and piles and piles of smaller ones, which have largely now been grown over by grass. The big stones were originally dragged to the middle of the circle and erected next to one another… except sometime between the Druids building the Henge and now, all but one of them have been stolen. We’re talking massive stones here. Why they were taken, and by whom — or what — is a local mystery to this day.

But for me the best thing about Mayburgh Henge is the trees: around the piled-up stone outer ring, ancient oaks and ashes are planted. In formation: oak, ash, oak, ash. Both trees have huge mythical significance and are considered very sacred by many. Check out the roots on this hundreds-of-years-old ash I perched on!

(Fun fact: Mayburgh is in spitting distance of the supposed site of King Arthur’s Round Table, also at Eamont Bridge.)

It’s been one of the hottest and driest autumns on record, and you might have seen in the news that the weather has uncovered some spooky stuff. I’m talking specifically about Mardale, the famous “drowned village,” which recently re-appeared out of what is now Haweswater. In 1934, Mardale village was bought by the water board and evacuated, then “drowned” to create a massive reservoir. Although everyone was safely relocated, there’s still something a little creepy about the fact that every so often, the lakewater recedes enough that you can see the ghosts of the village’s former buildings.

^ This sign, by the far end of Haweswater, just adds to the spook factor.

Lastly, we visited the Lowther Castle Park chapel and graveyard, where a good few of my relatives — who were in service to the Lowthers — are buried. The Lonsdale Family mausoleum is a creepy gothic palace, complete with gargoyles and scary, staring faces. Sitting high up on a man-made defensive escarpment, we found that the cemetery is also a pretty cool place to watch an autumn sunset…

Have a deliciously spooky Halloween, whatever you get up to!

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

So, I’ve actually been really sick this week (sadface), so I have little other than snotty tissues and sad violins to share with you from the past seven days. However, a couple of weeks ago I did take a trip to lovely Wetheral… here’s some stuff I loved from then!

This is Benny, also known as Bennyboy and Benningtons and Bennington Ponsonby-Smythe and BennyandtheJets and lots of other utterly silly names. He is my parents’ cat — they adopted him just before Christmas and now he basically owns the place, and they are his awestuck humanslaves. Benny likes eating treats from your hand, coming in through his catflap and YELLING so you know he is back, and cuddles. Lots and lots of cuddles. He and my sister are totes BFFs.

Remember the friendly pig I mentioned in my last TiLT? Well, she had piglets… they just wouldn’t allow me to photograph them the first time. We went back to see how they’re getting on, and they were much keener to stay still this time! These cuties live at Askham Hall, which is a cool place to go and visit if you like mooching around posh gardens. They also have a cafe that is totally amaze. Look at what they cook their pizzas and bread in!:

Why yes, that is a hand-built walk-in log-fired outdoor oven. May I have one for my garden, please?

OK, let me explain. Every year, Wetheral and the surrounding villages hold a scarecrow contest. This year the theme was “celebrities” — and I think I recognise all of these, except the dodgy looking lady in the red fishnets, who was by far the creepiest offering. Although I completely loved Boris Johnson on his zipwire — and Captain Hook and his croc — the prize must surely have gone to the Star Wars mad household, no? It actually was May 4th, too!

May is one of my favourite months of the year. It’s what Mary Oliver calls “the quick wrist of early summer,” when every single plant seems just desperate to grow, and grow huge! Cumbria is one of the wettest places in the UK… but that means it’s also one of the lushest and greenest. Everything just seems to be a little more zingy and brightly coloured in the Eden Valley.

When I’m in the area, I love visiting Lowther. The “model village,” or estate village, is incredibly beautiful, as is the churchyard, where I took these photos. Lots of my relatives were in service at Lowther Castle or on the Lowther Estate — I’ve written about the castle and its gardens a little bit here. I’m a big fan of these little tucked-away Cumbrian towns… as much as I love the Lake District and especially South Lakes, I’m also really happy that I know about these little places further north where the tourists rarely venture!

Larch Cottage at Melkinthorpe is another place I have written about here before… but whenever I go, I can’t help but take photos of how totally cool it is! This time, my sister and I made friends with a majestic cast-iron stag, made faces at some terrible artwork in their art gallery (sorry folks), I wanted to steal those forlorn greyhounds, and I brought home a sorrel plant (named Cyril the Sorrel, natch) for my garden.

…apparently there’s not all that much to do in Wetheral.

What are YOU loving this week?

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

OK, it’s another visual TiLT today… but there are reasons. Honest.

Stuff I love this week:

LOWTHER CASTLE & GARDENS
Last week/end I took a trip Southwards across the border, supposedly to perform at a poetry reading in Durham (more on that in a minute). But I took the opportunity to go and visit my parents, who live in Cumbria. While I was there, we decided to go and visit Lowther Castle, which has recently begun a massive, multi-million pound renovation.

When my mum was a child — and visiting Lowther regularly as many of our relatives lived there — the Castle was a ruin, and the gardens totally overrun by undergrowth and trees. The estate was basically bankrupted in the early 20th century, and the grounds were hired out first for tank testing during WW2, and then later as a conifer plantation. All the beautiful, manicured gardens — the Rose Garden, the Countess Garden, the Japanese Gardens — were lost under tons of soil and overrun by trees and plants.

Lowther holds a special place in our family. Not only did my relatives live in the village — many of them were also in service at the Castle, across several generations. My great uncle Des worked in the Castle’s sawmill, and my great auntie Vi was the only person the Earl would trust to press his trousers! Further back, we’ve discovered that my great, great, great grandfather, Aaron Lloyd, worked as a joiner at the Castle… which means it’s very possible that he built/helped to build this little house!

Happily, both the Castle (which has been without a proper roof for several years) and the grounds are now being slowly rebuilt as part of a huge renovation project. I was lucky enough to visit about two years ago, when they opened the place up for one day so people could go and get a “before picture” of the place. It was heartbreakingly desolate — the grounds were swampy and filled up with bracken and brambles. There were a lot of places you couldn’t get to. Mounds and bits of stone poked up here and there, so you could see that there used to be statues, summerhouses, etc — I couldn’t wait for the project to start.

There’s still a lot to be done. Over the past two years the main work has been making the Castle safe, and opening up a visitor centre space and cafe in the outbuildings. In the grounds, the main work has been to clear the rangy conifers that covered so much of the ground, and to shift out the tons of soil that had covered up many of the landscaped gardens. Now, with only the original, mature trees remaining, it’s possible to see things starting to appear again.

Above is what was the Japanese garden. When I visited before it was thick with conifers, very dark and without paths. Now, they’ve excavated out many of the old paths and they’ve found little stone shelters, stone seats, ponds, ornamental stream-beds and bridges.

There are some amazing finds — people are free to wander anywhere on what is essentially an excavation site, so you come across all sorts of things. There are no ‘keep out’ signs or tapes… you can even go into the still-wrecked summerhouses (at your own risk)!

The plan is for work to carry on over the next few years. I don’t know if the gardens will be fully restored to their incredible, highly manicured original state (you can see some photos of what the Castle and grounds used to look like — as well as a few interior shots of the Castle before its renovation — here).

Personally, I kind of hope they won’t turn things back entirely. I really liked clambering around and discovering these half-wrecked, half-rescued secret gardens…

THE OLD CINEMA LAUNDRETTE

So, the aforementioned poetry reading. It’s one to add to my list of Totally Weird-Ass Places I Have Read Poems. I’ve read poems in a medieval tower, in the Smoking Room of a gentleman’s club, in churches, in muddy fields… but this might be the weirdest venue ever. It was also possibly the all-time coolest: The Old Cinema Laundrette, Durham.

Once — you guessed it — an old cinema, the space is now a fully functioning laundrette (all of the washers are named after movie stars! We met Errol, Bette, Clark and Grace), a retro coffee shop, and a live events venue, hosting poetry and music nights. It’s run by the truly lovely Mr Wishy Washy, who made us very welcome and acted as an excellent compere for the proceedings.

Lovely Boyfriend and I were invited to read by the great Mr Kevin Cadwallender (who, by the way, is almost entirely responsible for the existence of The Mermaid and the Sailors), who, in collaboration with the aforementioned Mr Wishy Washy, had cooked up the idea of taking some Scottish poets over the border to read alongside some North East locals. Our reading-mates were Theresa Munoz, Jo Brooks, Colin Donati, James Oates, Aidan Halpin and the one and only Colin McGuire.

The gig was amazing — and not just because I was reading, obv. The crowd was small but everyone there was a proper, die-hard poetry fan, and all the readers were on top of their game. Lovely Boyfriend read better than I have ever heard before, I think, with a set including his ‘Benghazi’ poem about the Arab Spring, his four-part poem about the 2011 London riots and his page 3 girl haiku. He finished the set with the now-quite-infamous “Prince Philip poem” which always has me weeping with laughter. I was a proud girlfriend, I must say.

My second-favourite reader of the night was — predictably — the great McGuire, for whom my fangirlishness is well known. I was extremely happy to hear him read a poem I’d never heard him perform before, from his self-published collection Riddled With Errors, as well as some old favourites (the “white” poem! I love that poem so much!). He was on last, and capped off a night that was truly brilliant — one of the best poetry nights I’ve been to in, possibly, years.

As for the venue — if you’re ever in Durham, please go and find the Old Cinema Laundrette (< -- like them on Facebook!) and support it. This is one of those niche small businesses that you just desperately want to survive and thrive. I liked it so much that I'd be tempted to get on the train with my duvets piled around me just to get them cleaned by Mr Wishy Washy! I mean, look at this place. You just have to love it!

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
My book is well and truly into its second printing and now available for purchase — here or here. It’s the equivalent of buying me a pint! // The Wetheral Animal Refuge. Whenever I visit Cumbria I visit this place. You can wander around, say hello to cute kitties, scratch a pony’s nose and feel horribly sad about the fact that you cannot adopt any of the adorable dogs because you’re always at work and anyway your flat is totally unsuitable, dammit. // Freecycle. The greatest thing ever, officially. I got a new hula hoop from a lady up the road and it’s so perfect for tricks! // The Baked Potato Shop. Edinburgh’s greatest eatery, bar none. Curry rice + baked beans (no, really) = the win.

What are you loving this week?

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!