Sunday 6 June 2010

1935 A visit to Cragside, a folk musicConcert at the Sage and Cumbrian Horror

I am having an unplanned holiday and yet my mood is a mixture of joy and great sorrow.

I have experience great horror and sadness in my life and although the horror was at a distance, affecting people unknown to me, it has been real and traumatizing.

A middle aged taxi driver living and working in West Cumbria given a gun licence despite having convictions for theft shot his twin brother, his solicitor, and others he knew and also strangers he encountered before killing himself. Eleven other people have been wounded.

The killing started on Wednesday morning and by the time the Prime Minister started to answer Questions in Parliament he was able to report that five people had been killed. I knew none of this at the time.

On Tuesday the forecast weather of rain prevented a planned boat trip from Newcastle to the mouth of the Tyne and back. It did not rain as much as expected but it was not a day for going on the river. Fortunately there was an alternative as the Sage was hosting a folk music event by students who were completing there music degree course at the local university.

Anticipating the weather change I had booked tickets, there were free but these had not gone through the system, but fortunately I was able to get tickets from the box office for the 2pm and 3 pm performances in the small concert theatre built in the round and which holds 400 on three levels. It is a most attractive venue and I enjoyed the 2pm performance by Lucy Coggle, a cello player. She was joined by a fiddle player who also sang one number and a pianist for the second half of her 50 minute set. Folk music without voice is not something I usually listen to but it was relaxing and foot tapping. She played a mixture of Scottish, Northumbrian and other pieces.
Afterwards I enjoyed a cup of tea and a chocolate muffin despite the above average charges at the cafe. On arrival the ticket barrier was not working and I had to purchase a pass out at the Box office, suggesting that barrier breakdown is a common event.

In the evening had I an enjoyable meal at the Woudhave with a good piece of steak, jacket potato and salad with a glass of wine for £5.99 followed by an Americano coffee. Rather than walk directly home I went on a short walkabout alone the fill top overlooking the river and then back through North Marine Park descending to the beachside and then come back up the hill through the park and home.

As forecast Wednesday, which will now be known as the Cumbria shooting’s day, started brightly and I set off for Cragside the wonderful estate in north west Northumberland not far from the Cumbrian border. The route took me through the Tyne Tunnel where considerable progress is being made with the creation of the large new area for making payments on the north south route which is use the new tunnel whose entrance can now be seen, and where recently the tunnelling operations from either end met after breaking through to each other.

The first part of the journey is along the two lane each way A19 which then joins the A1 which forms the AIM south of the river after passing through Newcastle. Just after passing the junction with leading to Alnwick, the road is taken north westwards towards Rothbury where there are two route to the estate. One is direct but the other is more attractive with views towards the Simonside hills, part of the Cheviots alongside the river Coquet which continues for 40 miles until reaching the coast at Ambleside. Along here is also Brinkburn Priory, a National Trust Property in a beautiful setting overlooking the river.
This route take one round part of the estate with its thirty miles of car drives and separate thirty miles of pathways. The entrance leads quickly to one of two car parks within a short walking distance of the main house and the separate areas of former stables and estate workers converted into restaurant, shop and visitor‘s centre.

There was a brief visit to Restaurant for a coffee in the former stables overlooking the Tumbleton lake before commencing pre lunch walk, Behind the restaurant and car park the rock is steep and high above which the trees then tower. It is a spectacular position. The selected pathway takes on below the main house which itself stands over one of the largest rock gardens anywhere and which falls sharply down to the burn, then taking the autumn colour walk up to the Clock Tower and the formal gardens, involving a steep climb. Only half a mile from the House the walk takes a good twenty minutes of steady climbing meriting close attention to where you place your feet. The spring bulb season over the gardens are just being to put on their summer finery and another month will see them at their best.

There are splendid views across grassland towards the Simonside hills at this point as well as a giant owl carved out of a large broken tree. From here close to a car park and the wildlife Hide, I went down to the valley garden, the route to the original Pump House where the first hydroelectric plant anywhere in the world was created to bring electricity to the main house, the first home to have electric light in the world.

This is the appropriate point to record how Cragside came to be created. William Armstrong, later created Baron Armstrong, was born in Newcastle. His father was a corm merchant who became a Mayor of Newcastle. Thus with a middle class background he was educated at private schools and followed the career chosen by his father for him that of the law, and he became a local solicitor after qualification in London, and practiced for more than a decade before deciding on a dramatic change of career. In fact it was not a sudden change because William had become greatly interested in engineering and it was while visiting the engineering works of William Rams haw that he met his subsequent wife Margaret Ramshaw, six years his senior. They lived in Jesmond Dene, an attractive gorge part of Newcastle to the western boundary.

As a child he had suffered from chest coughs and this led to his parents taking him the Northumberland Countryside and in particular to Rothbury where he fell in love with the rocky crags and hills surrounding the village. This might have remained his association with the area had not he worked out the first of many ideas which was to change aspects of the nation’s future and create a fortune for his himself and his childless wife.

It was on an angling trip to the River Dee at Dentdale in the Pennines that he was struck was struck by a waterwheel used to supply power to a marble quarry and he realised that that the opportunity to hardness water in this way was being missed so on return he designed a rotary engine and then a piston engine for this purpose and his work was recognised becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society just before the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1850. Before then he had designed hydraulic cranes for use on Newcastle Quayside to unload ships. He established a company and a factory to build more cranes starting with 300 men in 1850 and increasing to 3800 by 1863 producing over 100 cranes a year. He then added bridge building with that at Inverness one of the original orders.

His next interest as to create a more effective field gun for the army because of their experience in the Crimea War. This then led to creating naval guns and to designing the Swing bridge which is still in operation in Newcastle to provide access further up the river. By the 1880 he had moved into warship construction at his works at Elswick where the community increased from three and half thousand to twenty seven thousand because of the work provided.

Thus with his wealth and position he decided to purchase a estate of seven square kilometres near Rothbury, starting with a small house on the site of the present one overlooking a tributary to the Coquet. It will be evident that Armstrong did not do things on a small scale and began clearing and reshaping of his estate, planting seven million trees, creating five artificial lakes and the carriage way and pathways around the estate. Deciding to make the estate his main home he arranged for the house to be enlarged from 1969 taking 15 years to complete and became a place in which he could entertain the highest from many lands including the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Prime Minister of China, the Shah of Persia and the King of Siam. He died on 1900 aged 90 years leaving in his will a sum of over £10 million in today’s money for the creation of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, a sum of over £1million in today’s money for the creation of the Hancock Natural History Museum and donating the Jesmond Dene wooded gorge to the people of Newcastle as well as the Armstrong Bridge and Park.

And now protected and nurtured by the National Trust there is Cragside for everyone to enjoy, at a price with £48 being the sum for entry to all National Trust properties for a year or £9 for single adult entry to grounds.

Returning to my visit I pressed the button in the Pump House to commenced a one revolution cycle of the original motor bringing electricity to the house. From there a picnic lunch was collected from the car before finding a pot overlooking Tumbleton Lake where the view and meal was enjoyed in hot sunshine. After that and a relax there was a drive around the outer edge the estate to admire the glorious azaleas in their golden yellow and rhododendrons in the varied colours for mauve through to deep crimson in their hundred if not thousands of plantings from small infant shrubs to ancient huge tree like growths clinging to crag side or surrounding the roadways and paths.

This road way goes through the house and on to the north east edge of the estate where I took a detour to the Cragend car park which I cannot remember previously venturing and which is a extraordinary place which looks as if the rocks have been sliced in blocks for use in the buildings but where now tall trees have progressed from what appears to be bare rocks with visible roots spreading to reach anchoring earth. The road turns south at Blackburn Waterfall where there is also parking, then passing the Thatched Boathouse which once led to Blackburn Lake, no longer to the main area for families overlooking the adjacent lakes of Nellies Moss North and South. Here there is a large adventure area and various trails for children and adults, a refreshment kiosk doing a continuous trade in ice creams and cold, and toilets. I was able to find a picnic table overlooking the lake to enjoy a chocolate ice before continuing the car journey past the Labyrinth, the Timber fume and several more care parking areas, passing an exit, and then back along one side of Tumbleton where at the restaurant two scones, a pot of jam and a carton of cream plus tea cost £4.50

It was time for the journey home with a traffic build up approaching the Tyne Tunnel, with four lanes becoming two and then one through thee tunnel and for once the other motorists behaving sensibly. I looked forward to have evening meal of tomato soup, salad and strawberries and cream and then discovered the new of the killings and that the international media was descending on the Cumbrian coastal town of Whitehaven. I switched over to Britain’s Got talent and an evening 20 20 cricket match as the horror and the pain was too great to bear, and if so for me what for loved ones, other relatives, friends and acquaintances.

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