The Weaver's House

Tag: medieval meals

  • The Great British Dig comes to Coventry

    The Great British Dig comes to Coventry

    Last summer The Weaver’s House volunteers welcomed presenters Hugh Dennis and Christine Carr, a food historian, plus a film crew for The Great British Dig.

    Pottage (a type of thick soup) was made using a variety of ingredients including some sorrel from the garden. During the filming, Christine revealed a fact about the medieval traditions of fish eating which took place every Friday. Apparently, this included anything which lived in or on the water so extending the scope of ‘fish’ to include ducks and even otters! The programme will be shown in the springtime – so stay tuned!

    You can come and see the garden for yourself at our 2022 Open Days at the house which begin on Saturday 9 April. Our Open Days run throughout the spring and summer seasons and include Heritage Open Days in September.

  • That was 2019 at The Weaver’s House

    That was 2019 at The Weaver’s House

    What a busy year it has been for The Weaver’s House. This is the first year that we have had a special theme for every Open Day. Let’s take a whistle-stop tour…

    It doesn’t seem a blink of an eye since we began the open season with Signs of Spring, on a sunny April day. A few weeks later, we had an extremely memorable day as reenactor group Coventry Militia brought expertise, costumes and weaponry for an authentic historical experience and some exciting medieval action! We are hoping they will join us for a future Open Day.

    June and July delved into delicacies and dirt respectively, with Open Days on Tudor cooking and an archaeological dig. The Tudor recipes included Pease Pottage which visitors sampled on tiny trenchers (bread plates), and mostly declared that it was better than they expected! Coventry And District Archaeological Society (CADAS) ran the on-site dig for July, which unearthed finds including medieval pottery and later dated items such as glass, animal bones and pipe bowl/stem.

    August brought a day of Summer Fun in the Garden. Young visitors enjoyed making woolly snails, weaving and “rub-a-bug” a brass rubbing style activity, featuring mini-beasts.

    Before we knew it, it was September, and the annual festival of Heritage Open Days, this year celebrating its 25th anniversary. Back in the 90s it was just a single day. It runs across nearly two weeks now, and we opened for both weekends.

    This year, the first Saturday coincided with the Spon Spun Arts and Heritage Trail, with the house hosting artwork by Karen Rose Textiles, marking the connection between weaving and the nearby river Sherbourne. This work is currently displayed at the Healing Arts Gallery at University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire. During the second weekend, we celebrated the centenary of the birth of previous resident, Sid O’ Neil, with his descendants. Of course, we had cake!

    Thanks to the skills of the Weavers’ Workshop, throughout September the window of The Weaver’s House was turned gold, along with most of Earlsdon, in tribute to Ben Crowther.

    Although Open Day season ended in September, the house was open in October and November this year for Coventry Biennial. Three artworks were brought together to explore weaving as a historic and contemporary practice which is undertaken in almost every community across the globe. The exhibition closed in late November, ending our public openings for this year.

    We also had some private groups in of course, including the Design Nation project and visitors with ancestors connected to the area.

    What a busy year! We have next year’s dates in the diary and once we have finalised a few details, we’ll be listing them here very soon! We always welcome new volunteers, so if you have an interest in heritage, Coventry history, gardening or would just like to get involved, find out more here.

  • Making a meal of Open Days

    Making a meal of Open Days

    “The rain it raineth every day”.

    Oh and hasn’t it just? June has had a distinctly autumnal feel so far, although on the upside, the garden is looking fantastic! Medieval buildings are often pleasantly cool during the summer months but it certainly can be chilly when it’s cold.

    We were therefore surprised, and pleased, to see so many visitors considering how dire the weather had been all week. Looking at the forecast we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we might just be on our own huddled around a vat of pease pottage in an effort to keep warm.

    Speaking of the pottage, it went down incredibly well with most tasters saying that they enjoyed it… or that it wasn’t as bad as they had feared it would be! One visitor enjoyed it so much that, after several samples, he claimed to be off home to make some.  If you were that visitor, we’d love to hear how it turned out!

    We served the pease pottage on a traditional medieval trencher – basically a plate made of bread – in rather non medieval style mini-trenchers. Perhaps it will catch on and pease pottage vol-au-vents will be sweeping the nation by Christmas.

    Of course, our usual delicious homemade cakes were available in the tea room for anyone who was not enamoured of the idea of pottage!

    We also had an insight into the fascinating rules of Tudor table manners.  Our volunteers set this up as a game, a taste of which is below.

    A few comments from the visitors book illustrate the enthusiasm with which the day was received:

    “So interesting and inspiring. Wonderful volunteers, wonderful cake!”
    “Very well done especially the pease pudding and the strawberry chocolate
    cake. An unexpected gem.”
    “Very interesting. Have wondered about these buildings for years. Great to
    hear some fascinating facts.”

    It was very heartening to see that the rain did not stop play with other great events across Coventry, including a Wellbeing event at the Herbert, including the Weavers’ Workshop, and Positive Images Festival. Heritage and culture fans seems to be a hardy bunch!

    Our next Open Day is in July when we’ll have all the usual tours and refreshments, and we’ll have some added archaeological interest thanks to CADAS (Coventry and District Archaeological Society). Do join us on Sunday 21 July from 11am until 4pm.

     

  • Medieval Meals Open Day this June

    Medieval Meals Open Day this June

    What did people eat in medieval times? Our upcoming Open Day on Saturday 15 June will include delving into the delicacies of the Tudor table. Delicious or disgusting? It’s time to find out!

    We’ll also have our usual tours of the house, and the garden will be looking lovely. As ever, our fantastic volunteers will have been baking and there will be some homemade cakes to savour – these definitely fall into the delicious category.

    So do pop along and find out what a trencher is, and all about pease pudding, made famous by the nursery rhyme.

    We’ll be open from 11am until 4pm and admission is free.

     

    Please note there are no spinning demonstrations this time, the spinners will return in August!

The Weaver's House
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