Hooptedoodle #211 - Like Icarus, ascending on beautiful, foolish arms

I read somewhere, recently, someone describing someone's written output (not mine, I hasten to say) as a stream of the uninteresting, enlivened here and there with brief moments of the inconsequential. It occurred to me that my Hooptedoodle folio must get precious close to just this, but - since I have a certain house standard and tradition to maintain - I feel I should persist with the current editorial policy.

Today's Pointless Post is merely to note the quick passing of a coincidence - a wow, just fancy that moment which is unlikely to distract you from your day's purpose nor tax your belief set. These things happen, after all.

I have been doing a lot of reading about sieges in the English Civil War, at least some of which is directed towards developing a workable siege game. One of the sieges I am about to come back to is the Leaguer of Chester.

When I'm reading the history of battles, campaigns and so on I very much benefit from having a decent map to hand - I seem to be unusually bad at visualising a geographical area without such an aid - there have been many occasions, reading on the bus of Napoleon's adventures in Saxony, for example, unable to unfold Loraine Petre's flaming maps, when I have nodded stupidly at a bewildering list of German villages in the narrative, and tried to ignore the fact that I have once again completely lost the plot. So one of my bits of preparatory work for my continuing siege research was to find some decent maps of Chester online, and print a couple off. I found, and printed off, this one

which dates from 1580, and is not ideal, since it predates the siege and thus shows none of the relevant details, but is a good start.

Now I have been having a tidying-up session this week, and I felt that it would be a good idea to put my printed map somewhere safe so that I can use it when I get back to reading the Chester stuff (probably next week). My splendid idea was to fold it and put it inside my favourite Chester book, John Barratt's The Great Siege of Chester. The bad news is that I will never possibly remember where I put it, but the good news is that I might get a pleasant surprise next week when I open the book again. You know how these things work.

So I opened the Barratt book to store the map, and - purely by chance - the book fell open at exactly the same map. I didn't even know the map was reproduced in that book. OK - the limited subject range obviously has a big effect on the probability, but what were the chances of that? Would you take me on at any dice game on such a day? Should I break with tradition and buy a lottery ticket?

Nah. It was just an isolated fluke. There will be another one along soon, and it will probably be just as useless.

Almost certainly.

In passing, just for a bit of fun, my post heading is supposed to be an oblique reference to flying pigs (a British euphemism for a very unlikely event) - can anyone tell me where the quote is from? If it helps, it isn't Icelandic - no, I didn't think that was helpful either. [If you solved it using Google you are a tosser, by the way.]

The Chester Trip

Evidence - there's not a lot of contemporary stuff left, but here the repair to the main
breach in the wall is clearly visible

On Sunday, I went down to Chester for a few days looking at the ECW sites. I went with an old friend, whose name – as it happens – is Chester. Merely a happy coincidence, but I shall take care to make it clear to which Chester I am referring, as necessary.

Our preparation for the trip was mostly in reading John Barratt’s fine The Great Siege of Chester, and booking ourselves on to a couple of guided tours.

Monday we walked around the walls – there is a very good set of visitor information boards for the ECW period, featuring excellent artists’ impressions of how the various locations looked in the 17^th Century. As far as we can tell, these painted views are not available in any publication or online – I am still checking, but they probably should be.

In the afternoon we went for a guided walk around the battlefield at Rowton Moor (about 4 miles outside Chester’s walls) with Ed Abrams, who offers a fine blend of enthusiasm and expertise – his Civil War Tours enterprise is heartily recommended.

In the evening, we had arranged to have dinner at The Brewery Tap, in Bridge Street, which was the home of Francis Gamul during the siege, and is where Charles I spent the nights before and after Rowton Moor. I was very pleased with this little bit of historical tie-in (and the food was great). I guess our meal was rather more cheerful than Charles Stuart’s must have been the night after the battle. In passing, I was also delighted to learn that Gamul’s daughter was christened Lettuce, a name which appears to have drifted out of fashion lately.

Original, with new bits - the Water Tower, near the old port

A tax called murage was collected to pay for maintenance of the walls. The
officials in charge of this were called Murringers - here's a list of some of them 

Captain Morgan's cannon - OK, it's a monument - certainly, an iron gun
carriage would take a bit of shifting

Gone but not forgotten

Chester (the person) at the Phoenix Tower. Legend has it that King
Charles watched the battle of Rowton Moor from the top. He
must have had remarkable eyesight - you can't see Rowton from here.

Looking down Foregate Street from the Eastgate - much of this part of the city
was destroyed in the siege, and most of what you can see in this picture is Victorian

Eastgate Clock

Near the South-East corner of the old city - this area saw some of the most fierce bombardment

The rear portion of this pub was the house of Francis Gamul, who was Charles' host
at the time of Rowton Moor

The scene of the first stages of Rowton Moor - there are three modern villages
built on the old battlefield

Ed Abrams, the expert guide (left), discusses the role of dragoons at Rowton with Chester

There are very few contemporary buildings still visible at Rowton - this one, by
local tradition, may have been a dressing station for the Royalist wounded.
The farmer has refused permission to survey the field.

This is almost the only official recognition of the fact that an important
battle was fought here. The monument is close to what is thought to be a mass
burial in an old lime pit.

Tuesday morning we joined Ed’s colleague Viv (who was in costume) for a tour of the Civil War sites within the city, so we were back on the walls again. Informative and very entertaining – again, recommended.

Behind many of the shops in The Rows, in the old city of Chester, are these vaulted
medieval cellars, which were used as storehouses and also as bomb shelters during the bombardment

The Bear and Billet - this pub was originally the house of the keeper of the old
bridge over the Dee, and the copious windows were originally access to a warehouse,
to store goods coming over from Wales

Different time, different approach. As roads improved and commercial transport
became larger, gates changed from  being a means of keeping enemies out to a way
of letting friends in. The Wolf Gate on the right is one of the original gates, the
much larger New Gate next to it is clearly intended to give a prestigious welcome to
the city.

On the Wednesday, we set out on the trail of King Charles. We had intended to move on to the battlefield at Montgomery, south of Welshpool, but the weather warnings for the following day were a bit alarming, and we decided, since Montgomery is not far from the same latitude as Birmingham, that we should not stray so far south. In the event, we went to have a quick look at Denbigh Castle, which is where Charles stayed after his visit to Chester. We stayed overnight at Maeshafn, near Mold, and the next day we had a rather stressful drive home through howling gales and very serious rain. No real problems for us, but we saw a number of large trucks which had blown over, or blown off the road.

This is fine - what has become a standard approach - but I have some misgivings.
Jolly signboards give bilingual information so that Miss Williams' class from the
primary school can identify with life in a medieval castle, and it's great that kids
have such a resource available, but you won't find very much about the actual
history of the place. I checked in Denbigh town library, and there wasn't much there,
either. Is there a tacit assumption that primary schools are the only people who visit such sites?

Chester Trip – Preamble

It isn’t Regensburg, but my ECW trip to Chester is on. I’ll be going there with a friend from 1^st to 3^rd December – the hotel is booked, so we’re going. We have both read John Barratt’s excellent book on the Great Siege, so the idea is to have a look at what remains of the Civil War sites, and the odd pub would be all right too.

Chester is not unfamiliar to me; as a child, I used to visit the place – and especially its zoo – but in those days the journey from Liverpool was a bit of an epic – long and tiring. We didn’t have a car (I had a rich Auntie in the Wirral who had a pre-war Vauxhall, but she didn’t really speak to us), so sometimes the journey involved a train from Birkenhead Woodside station (which I think you would struggle to find now), sometimes not, but it always involved a few of those green Crosville buses. It is an attractive city, and it looks the part for an ECW trip, but I am aware that very little of it dates back to the Civil War. For a start, much of the city was destroyed in the siege, and there have been frequent improvements over the years since then. The walls are marvellous, but a substantial part were widened and turned into a promenade for the townspeople in the 18^th Century.

I originally had a picture of a wartime Crosville Guy Arab bus here
- it was pointed out that not only was it too early, but it was probably red.
Here's a proper Bristol Lodekka from the 1950s, with the correct livery of Tilling Green

We’ve made bookings with Ed Abram’s fine Chester Civil War Tours operation – we will definitely be going on the standard tour, and, though the Rowton Moor tour is not officially open so late in the year, we have the offer of going there too if the weather is passable and if the farmer is happy to let us on his fields. Serious walking boots will be taken. There is also an interesting tour of ECW public houses, but we may do that ourselves in the evenings. I was recently walked around the field of Eggmühl by a uniformed fusilier of the 5^th Bavarian infantry regiment from 1809, so being taken around Chester by a Royalist gentleman in full period costume for 1645 will be quite normal.

It would be nice to wander a little further afield – Brereton’s trip up to Mostyn is a possibility, as is a quick look at Nantwich, or Beeston Castle – but the main thing we have to decide is what to do about our 4^th day. Originally, my colleague found he had to be back in Scotland on the 4^th day, but he has subsequently got out of his prior engagement, so an extra day is again available. We could stay on in Chester, of course, but I fancied a trip to Ormskirk – they had a nippy battle there – quick but influential, it effectively finished off the Royalists in Lancashire in the First Civil War apart from the garrisons at Lathom, Greenhalgh and Liverpool. Also, we could have a look for the site of the original Lathom House, pay our respects to poor old Lord Derby, who is interred in the local parish church (in however many separate bits), and – failed trump card! – I have family in Ormskirk who kindly offered hospitality, but, alas, the dates don’t line up and they have other plans! Like many local people must have done in the 1640s when they learned that Rupert or Brereton were coming, they have obviously made quick evacuation arrangements when they heard about our trip. Not a huge problem – we can still go to Ormskirk, or we could go over to Yorkshire and have a look at Marston Moor, or Adwalton (less easy to find), and someone has suggested Pontefract Castle.

Homework

Now that we are definitely going, we can approach the details with a bit more focus.

What fun!