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News from the Forum, Issue
7, August 2010 |
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Welcome to
issue seven of the Forum’s newsletter. We hope you enjoy
reading the articles and that you will join the members
at some of the events listed. Please keep you news
coming in. The new ‘season’ will soon be upon us so
let’s hope the summer break will have been restful and
we hope to see you on 20 November for the talk and AGM,
if not before. We would like to take this opportunity to
welcome two new group members: Bowes Local History Group
and Coxhoe Local History Group. |
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Discovered in the attic...
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northwards to
Northumberland, including, amongst others,
views of Richmond, Aycliffe, Darlington, the
Yorkshire Dales, Whitby , Newcastle and
York. Frank Thompson was a well-known
watercolourist, exhibiting four times at
Royal Academy exhibitions. His work is held
at The Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle as
well as the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool,
Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts and the Royal
Society of British Artists.
Thanks to Frank’s great grandson, all 36
prints can now be seen on Thorpe Thewles
History Group website,
www.thorpe-thewles.org.uk with details of
how to order high quality prints.
Each one costs £10.00 and is about 6 x 8
inches in size, printed on thick archive
quality paper. Examples can also be seen at
Grindon Parish Hall. They are not available
anywhere else – so this is a really
exclusive offer!
Mark Smith, Thorpe Thewles History Group |
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This watercolour sketch of The Vane Arms at
Thorpe Thewles was discovered by the great
grandson of Frank Thompson in the attic of
his house in the south of England. It is one
of 36 watercolours of the north of England
that have not previously been published, a
record of how familiar places have changed
over the last century.
Frank Thompson lived in the city of Durham
and travelled widely across the north of
England. His watercolour sketchbook is a
record of late Victorian and Edwardian
England from York |
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Bowes Local History Group – Heritage Open Day event.
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On the
second Saturday of September (11th)
Bowes Local History Group will be
putting on its usual event for Heritage
Open Day, which will consist of an
exhibition at the Parish Hall (9.00am to
6.00pm) focusing on Bowes' two major
claims to fame - the Edwin and Emma
story and the connection with Dickens
through Dotheboys Hall - as well as the
village's medieval and Roman past, which
is new this year.
The Ballad of Edwin and Emma, by David
Mallet, appeared in the mid 18th century
and was based on a true-life
Romeo-and-Juliet romance which took
place in Bowes in 1715. Rodger Wrightson
and Martha Railton were the son and
daughter of rival local publicans,
forbidden to meet by Rodger's parents so
they conducted their affair on the moors
outside the village. As a result, Rodger
caught a chill, and although near
death's door his parents would not allow
Martha to visit until near the end, and
even then they were not left alone
together. When Martha heard the news of
his death, she herself collapsed and
died of a broken heart, and the parents
relented sufficiently to allow them to
be buried in the same grave, where they
remain to this day.
The Dickens connection is that, having
heard of the exploitative 'London
school' industry around Bowes, and of
one master in particular, Charles
Dickens and his illustrator Phiz visited
the village in 1839, lunched at The
Ancient Unicorn and visited William Shaw
at his academy at the west end of the
village. Suffice to say that they didn't
get on, and Shaw was immortalised as 'Wackford
Squeers' of 'Dotheboys Hall'. Shaw's
academy was only one of half a dozen
such establishments in the immediate
vicinity of Bowes, however, and Shaw was
by no means the worst of the masters.
As well as the exhibition, guided walks
around the village will take place at
11.30am and 3.30pm, covering both topics
and ending up at the grave of 'Smike' in
the churchyard. They last about 1½
hours.
We would be particularly interested to
meet anyone with roots in and around
Bowes. We have an extensive collection
of local photographs with many
unidentified faces which you may be able
to help with, and we will also have a
scanner running on the day, so that any
photos you bring can be scanned into the
collection without you worrying about
getting the originals back!
Article by Cliff Brown, Bowes Local
History Group |
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Local
History Workshop
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Brancepeth Archives and History Group
are holding a local history workshop in
October to which they would like to
invite members of the County Durham
History & Heritage Forum. The session
‘Brancepeth Parish in the 17th Century’
will be based on the Brancepeth Church
Seating Plan which was destroyed in the
church fire. Dr Dorothy Hamilton, who
will be running the workshop, made a
hand copy of the plan back in the early
1990s as part of her postgraduate
research on Brancepeth. The workshop
will help you to understand why the
Brancepeth seating plan was made and
what it can tell us about life in the
seventeenth century parish of Brancepeth
which extended as far as Crook,
Willington, Tudhoe, Brandon and Langley
Moor. See the Events page for more
information. |
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