We were lucky again with the weather for the second of this year’s Open Days, which coincided with a brand new festival for our area, Spon End. ‘Spon Spun’, part of the Albany Theatre’s ‘Arts for Life’ programme, celebrated the art of storytelling as well as the historic area itself. Very apt, as there was some spinning of actual yarn going on as well!
As part of the Spon Spun events line-up, a short play was performed in the garden at The Weaver’s House. Even Lady Godiva herself visited the house as part of the celebrations!
Alongside the festival excitement, the house attracted many visitors for our usual programme of tours and talks with the opportunity to examine the original medieval features of the house.
Guests of all ages sampled weaving, wattling and of course the homemade cakes!
Young visitors try our wattling panels
Samples of weaving on display
One of the tasty cakes on offer
Now that summer does seem to finally be icumen in, we’re looking ahead to our June Open Day which will be based on the theme of ‘crafts’.
What is a skirret? A medieval word for skirt? An ancient measure of ale? A cross between a squirrel and a ferret?
If this question should pop up in a pub quiz, you will be equipped to answer after reading this post…
The gardening volunteers met for some springtime maintenance on our working medieval garden. As well as tending to all the plants that would have been grown in medieval times for flavouring, medicine and dyeing, they planted a new-to-us heritage crop of Skirret.
A raised bed of plants used for dyeing.
A Skirret is a root vegetable crop which is largely unknown today but was popular in medieval times. The name is derived from the old word for ‘white root’. Raw, it tastes of carrot, and cooked, it tastes of parsnip. Hopefully we will get the chance to put this to the taste test later this year!
The Skirret plants.
If you are interested in growing heritage crops and would like to help out in our Tudor garden, please do get in touch – we always welcome more volunteers. As well as the regular gardening days there is also the option for volunteers to donate their time as and when is convenient to them.
The Weaver’s Garden really is a little patch of tranquillity despite its closeness to the city centre – so escape back to Tudor times and enjoy a few hours in this special garden whilst helping maintain this historic property. Contact us on 024 7625 7117 or email info@theweavershouse.org – no experience is required.
We’re excited that our next Open Day on Saturday 14 May will be part of the new Spon Spun Festival which runs across two consecutive Saturdays.
Spon Spun celebrates the art of storytelling as well as the Spon End area itself. Saturday 14 May’s events will include an interactive tour, art trail and new playwriting as well as the opportunity to pop in to The Weaver’s House. As usual for an Open Day, we will be serving refreshments including cakes. Full details of everything happening for the Spon Spun Festival are available on the Albany Theatre website.
Saturday 21 May will see the festival fun continue although please note that The Weaver’s House will not be open on this day, so do make sure you pop along on the 14 th or another of our free Open Days to enjoy a look around our little medieval gem.
Also on Saturday 14, another one of Coventry’s wonderful heritage buildings, The Charterhouse, will be opening its doors. Make a day of it and visit us both.
Saturday 9 April saw a record number of visitors for the first open day of the season, with over 150 people coming to explore what is behind our little wooden door.
Spinners at an Open Day
The sun shone in the morning although we were less fortunate in the drizzly afternoon – but of course tea and cake was at hand in our kitchen, and the house is nothing if not cosy!
Our volunteers were certainly kept busy whether it was leading guided tours, making tea or demonstrating heritage crafts such as spinning.
As well as finding out all about the history of the house and its residents, there were plenty of guides available to explain about the history of weaving in Coventry.
A basket of wool dyed with natural dyes.Visitors could learn all about weaving and its history.
One of our volunteers, Beryl, created this stunning donations tin featuring the house itself, and it was certainly getting plenty of use – thanks to all our generous visitors.
Donations tin cover, by Beryl
We had some wonderful feedback especially from first time visitors who were enchanted to discover this medieval treasure hiding behind a terrace of shops and offices. We are really looking forward to our next Open Day in May – we just need to recover first!
On Monday 21 March, some curious symbols and devices appeared in the Spon Street area.
One of the symbols on Spon Street.What is this mysterious item?
A group of PhD students from the University of Warwick were engaged in laser scanning the medieval buildings of Spon Street. The team was led by Mark Webb from the Department of Archaeology, University of Leicester and Alan Chalmers, Professor of Visualisation at the International Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick.
Laser scanning outside St John’s Church on Spon StreetThe white spheres are uses as anchor points to join the scans together.
Together the team will use the scans to create a virtual reality, multi-sensory model of late medieval Spon Street. We were very excited that The Weaver’s House was to be included in the project!
The team on site at The Weaver’s House.White spheres inside The Weaver’s House.Laser scanning the house.
It will take many weeks for all the scans to be meshed together but we have been given a preview of how the scans will start to take shape.
Laser scan of The Weaver’s House.
We’re really excited to see the project progress to its next stage and will hopefully be able to bring more news on it soon!
The countdown to our 2016 Open Day season is well and truly on. With just a month to our first Open Day, we’ve been starting to get things ready. The gardening volunteers met to prepare the garden after winter and were fortunate to get a bright, clear day.
Volunteers hard at work in the garden.Clearing the beds on a bright and chilly day.The herb bed containing herbs that would have been grown in Tudor times.Installing the info panels ready for the Open Days.A raised bed of nice clear soil ready for planting!
Over the next few weeks we’ll also be clearing out the house and activity centre – and baking cakes of course, ready for the first Open Day on Saturday April 9.
On Saturday 27 February, there was a one-off opportunity to see previously concealed medieval features of three houses at 31, 32 and 33 Far Gosford Street.
Similarly to our houses on Black Swan Terrace, the original characteristics had been gradually covered by developments through the ages. 32 and 33 were originally one property, a ‘hall-house.’ Number 31 was a real hidden treasure as so much of its medieval origins were completely covered, and due to this it is unlisted, unlike its neighbours.
A carefully managed programme of restoration using traditional methods has brought the houses back to beautiful life again. There was a big queue of people waiting to take a look for themselves at the open day. It was worth the wait to take a glimpse at Coventry’s hidden past revealed, and sensitively restored.
Inside the medieval ‘hall house’, originally one property, at 32 & 33 Far Gosford Street.
An arch inside the hall-house.The rediscovered medieval house at number 31.Brian Harrabin of Complex Development Projects, the company behind the restoration, explaining this oven in number 31 is a later addition, but has been concealed for years.The oven/fireplace.New beams support the originals. Although some of these details will be covered up again, original features have been left to preserve the story of the buildings.This fireplace was added later, as you can see, it partially covers the medieval structure.A blackened timber beam showing damage incurred during the Blitz.The window casements are bronze due to the way the tannin in green oak reacts with other metals.
Seeing around the houses was a real privelege. It was quite magical to see the hidden details revealed. They are destined to be revived as residences and commercial properties, thus hopefully ensuring their survival for many more years to come. Although the properties are unlikely to be accessible to the public again, it looks like this glass panel on the lower level of 32/33 is intended so a little bit of their history will be visible?
In 2015 Clare Chamberlain, whose ancestors lived in The Weaver’s House in the early 20th century, paid a visit to the WWI battlefields. This is her creative response to that visit. You can read her blog post about the visit itself here.
Saturday 13th November 1915 – 122 Spon Street, Coventry, England
Joseph O’Neil is in his workshop at the back of the house repairing pair after pair of boots. The smell of leather perfumes the house and the noise from his tools is pleasantly rhythmic. He’d like to be in the pub across the road, but that’ll have to wait till later, when his wife Harriet is out taking the two children to visit his mother Eliza. She’s been worrying about this war so much, poor old gal, with two sons already involved and another desperate to do his bit.
Joseph is a bit old to join up but his brother William has been in the Army for the last 13 years, just demobilised and now talking of going back. And his youngest brother James is only a lad of 23 and was sent to France in September. God knows where he is and what he’s doing now.
As he pulls another battered boot from the hessian sack, his thoughts drift to James’s last letter. He sounded fine. He said the crossing to Boulogne hadn’t been too rough, and that they were marching a long way each day, but of course he couldn’t say where they were headed. He may not have even known, other than that it was East. Joseph only hopes that his brother is safe and well, and that he can send another letter home soon to ease his mother’s worries.
James O’Neil
Saturday 13th November 1915 – Nr Houplines, Northern France.
James pulls his coat tightly around himself. It’s really nippy today. The rain is holding off thankfully but the cold has got into his bones, his fingers and toes are numb. They moved into this trench only yesterday, relieving the lads from the other battalions, and already he’s sick of the sight of it. The German lines aren’t far away; if he was daft enough to stick his head up he’d be able to see them!
There was shelling earlier and his ears are still ringing from it. Luckily most of it missed them just here, but some unfortunate sods further down the line would have got it.
As James stamps his feet and shuffles around in an attempt to get warm he thinks of his family back home. He hopes his mother isn’t too worried, that his brothers are ok. He wonders if his father even understands what’s going on in the world, locked up in that asylum for so long now. He’s seen a few lads that’ll probably be heading to the same place after all this.
And now the terrible noise has started again, a shell comes over and lands with a terrible thud. Then another… and James feels the warmth of his own blood running down his arm inside his jacket. The pain comes like an electric shock, he feels dizzy, the sky grows darker, the ground comes up to meet him.
As he comes round he can feel himself being pulled, dragged. The noise seems distant now. He can’t be sure if it’s because he’s gone half deaf or if he’s further from it. Faces leaning over him. Being moved again, lifted. But now the faces are familiar; his mother, his brother Joseph, his little niece Winifred. The pain washes over him, it’s getting dark again, and he’s tired. So tired. And then nothing.
Clare standing at the trench line
Thursday 12th November 2015 – Nr Houplines, Northern France.
I am stood in a freshly ploughed farmer’s field, the sun is warming my back and there’s just a gentle breeze. The slight dip running across the field behind me is clearly visible from the shadows cast by the low winter sun. One hundred years ago today my great-great-uncle James was brought here, to the battle front, and stood very close to where I am now, tucked down in a trench, maybe even the one I’m stood in front of.
The German trenches would have been visible across the flat fields but stood here in the peace of today I am finding it hard to imagine the noise, the smell, the fear that surrounded this place a hundred years ago.
This would have been James’s last full living day. What on earth was he feeling, thinking, seeing? Could he imagine that he wouldn’t see the sun set tomorrow?
As I bend to place a poppy cross in the earth I see a lead bullet from a shell, I pick it up to take home as a memento. It’s most likely bullets like this one that caused James’s fatal wounds. I say goodbye to the Front Line of November1915 and head off to visit James’s grave, behind the lines and near to where the Field Hospital would have been.
The cemetery at Bailleul is quiet and beautifully kept. Row upon row of white headstone mark the last resting place for so many soldiers. I find James’s grave and finally give him his medals, a poppy wreath from the family and a photograph of himself in uniform.
Each side of him are men that died the same day, 13th November 1915… beside them, men who died the following day, and the day after… and the next.
I look up and nod thanks across to the cemetery gardeners who are tending the graves in the next row, who keep the place so tidy for these never-to-be-forgotten soldiers… these men and boys… these sons, brothers, fathers and uncles, who will still be here in another 100 years.
I leave James with his silent companions. I will be back to visit again one day.
At the time The Weaver’s House was built, Valentine’s Day would have already gained currency as a celebration of romantic love, thanks to the works of Chaucer. The traditions of gift-giving were still a few centuries away however.
If you do fancy making a medieval treat for your sweetheart, you could try this lemon cake recipe.
Gardens like the one at The Weaver’s House would have been used to grow herbs for remedies, as well as to make dye for cloth. In medieval times women used eye drops made from the plant Belladonna, to dilate their eyes and make them look seductive. Its derivative is now used as a cardiac arrest drug. Hearts and flowers indeed…
Weaver’s Garden.
St John’s Church, which stands at the other end end of Spon Street to The Weavers’s House, is in the news this week. A relic of St Valentine will be displayed at the church during a special mass on Valentine’s Day.
In this post, Communications Officer Jess shares a recent visit to a building very close to The Weaver’s House.
I have passed St John’s Church many times but this was my first visit. Like The Weaver’s House and many of the Spon Street buildings, it is medieval, and though it is now close to many large modern developments it is easy to imagine how it must have dominated its surroundings in times past.
On entering the church I was interested to see that although it was mid-January, there was still a large and beautiful crib on display. One of the guides explained that this would be left up until Candlemas on February 2. I had heard of the tradition but had not seen it observed before.
The East Window
It was immediately clear that one visit was not going to be sufficient to see everything that St John’s had to offer. There is some stunning stained glass, an impressively huge wooden lectern and the Stations of the Cross which are sited around the church.
The piscina
There was also a piscina for returning holy water directly to the earth, I hadn’t seen one like this before. There are many detailed carvings including some Green Men which I am particularly keen to return to look at properly.
I had probably complicated things for myself by taking my son, he is only three but he enjoys looking at old buildings particularly when there are ‘things to spot’. It was a particularly cold day when we visited and we had also picked the day the boilers were being replaced so the church itself was chilly – we headed into the modern hall at the back. As it was Saturday morning there were refreshments available.
We were made very welcome throughout our visit, the guides clearly have an absolute wealth of knowledge which they are happy to share. Due to its location it would make an excellent inclusion for visitors to The Weaver’s House to compare these two contrasting medieval buildings.
