psmv5: The church house

We have known about the Church House Inn at Holne for some years now, during which time it seems to have mainly been closed and I don't think we ever managed to eat there, although we did manage the odd drink. An old building, until recently owned by the church and said to have been originally built to house the people building the church adjacent - a story which is not confirmed at reference 2, which talks of the late 16th century for the Inn. We were once told that being owned by the church complicated trying to make a living out of the place, with various things being forbidden.

It is now open again, I think for four and a half days a week, although it does not seem to run to a website and its standing with Companies House, snapped above, is a bit murky, at least to me. The people near Dudley (near Birmingham) at line 3 appear to have the property on a long lease. In any event, not many days to make a living in.

One of the reasons we have kept an eye on the place is that our one-time next door neighbours, some years ago now, used to stay there from time to time, from time to time meeting the then Archbishop Ramsey there, the chap noticed at reference 1. The Inn certainly knows about Ramsey as he is in some of the pictures on the walls, some of them in full regalia. Decent of him to bother to dress up for such a small place.

But no mention of holidays in Devon in the Chadwick biography that I can find - not that it is the sort of biography where one would expect to find domestic details of that sort. On a higher plane altogether.

Having somehow ascertained that it was up for Sunday lunch, the day after we arrived from Chippenham we decided to walk down the hill from Forestoke to the village and give it a go. With rollator naturally, if only because we could take it in turns to take a break on its seat on the way back up. The first item of interest was the plant snapped above, which put us in mind of the mystery plant at reference 3. Google Images seems quite keen on hemp agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum), one of the other Eupatoria or Eutrochium maculatum. This last ruled out, I think, on the grounds that it is a north American plant. All in all, not much further ahead.

There were blackberries and some of them had quite a good flavour.

There were also some dwarf cyclamen coming into flower, which was odd as my understanding was that you usually grew them at the base of trees where the ground would be very dry in the summer when they were dormant. Certainly, my father did very well with them at the foot of the two hazel nut trees flanking his short drive. And the white ones in our own garden do best at the top of the garden where there are lots of trees large and small and the ground is rock-hard in the summer. Which is probably not the case above. Drained yes, dry no.

We arrived at the Inn quite early, around 12:00, which meant that they could fit us in, despite the reserved signs scattered about. We both opted for the roast beef Sunday lunch, which turned out to be rather good. It may have been that we did well to take an early lunch, when it was all quite fresh and had not been standing around in bains maries for hours.

On a subsequent visit we learned that the white confection to the left of the beef was a cunning blend of parsnip, swede and cream, a blend that the chef knew from his childhood. A blending which did involve a blender. It was rather good and BH has plans to give it a go herself.

A chef who is clearly signed up to the theory which says the greater the number of trimmings and vegetables the better. Variety more important than quantity or quality. A theory I am not signed up to: I prefer to get a decent whack of a few things that I can get stuck in to. But not a problem on this occasion.

Next to us we had some twigs in water, which had come into some leaf and which had grown lots of roots. Had some potion been added to the water? How long would the twigs last?

While across the bar, we had an ancient radio, very like the one my parents bought in the 1950s, but of a brand I had not heard of, that is to say McMichael. I learn from reference 4, that it was a serious company in its day, doing serious work during the second war, eventually being absorbed by GEC in 1981. My memory is that the white piano switches (as they were called) were fashionable in the 1950s, but were frowned on by radio cognoscenti who preferred the mechanically more reliable rotary switches, visible here right and left.

The hours one used to spend trying to pick up signals from strange places far away - with some of the radios of this sort having rather more stations than this one, some of them exotic indeed. Television being, at the time, quite some years away, at least in our house - although my elder brother did manage to install a 9 inch set - housed in a substantial & fairly fancy wooden cabinet - in his bedroom. Maybe it had valves and stuff like that and got quite hot when it had been on for a while.

The radio was found, we were told, in a skip, more or less in working order.

Before attempting the climb home, we paid a visit to the church, which sported a very small side door. No idea why.

Also a pair of old, if not particularly big, yew trees. One of them is alleged to have been planted around 1300, around the time the church was built.

Piano still there, captured at reference 5 before the piano series was properly underway, well before the search key was added for convenience of retrieval. But captured just the same, that is to say, back in 2018: I had forgotten that the series was that old. Possibly made by the Broadwood who featured in the history of the RLYC, noticed at reference 7. As I recall, he was well regarded there because he was very rich and, despite being in trade, was not pushy. Knew his place in the world.

The ancient painted screen, an unusual survival. Pulpit also unusual, not least because it has detached steps, to be found in the north transept. Presumably not much used. The columns may well be granite monoliths, as found in a number of churches in the area.

A nice feature was a collection of photograph albums with a fine collection of photographs taken in and around Holne. We rather liked the idea of being able to give your family treasures to the church, where someone might actually look at them, rather just sticking them in the attic or chucking them in the skip. The archbishop is to be found top left, his wife top right.

The pews were relatively modern, so there must have been some money in the system, despite the small size of the village and the steady decline of church life.

A long serving vicar got pride of place outside. Now, it seems, better known for his grave marking the site of a cross which did time as a gatepost - rather than for himself or his long reign over the parish. See reference 11.

Strawberries in the lane on the way home. Not something one usually sees in quite this format.

A fine display of what we thought might have been old man's beard. However, today, the Google Images majority suggestion is golden clematis, and I agree with him.

The view to the east, approaching Forestoke.

Later in the day, I thought I would take a look at Holne moor, opting for rollator and road rather than the gravel track which takes one out onto the moor proper. But it served well enough to remind me why one goes to places like Dartmoor. The near silence and the views are quite something.

I got a little past the top of the hill between Forstoke and Venford reservoir, far enough past to be able to see part of the reservoir, this being made easier by most of the surrounding trees having now been chopped down in the interests of biodiversity or something.

PS 1: Broadwood does not check out properly. A Thomas Broadwood was the second son of the the original John Broadwood and he did go into the family business early in the 19th century, best known to Bing & Google for having given a piano to Beethoven in 1817. A Thomas Broadwood was the commodore of the RTYC in the 1870s, so the dates are wrong. Then Google turned up reference 8, from which we learn that Broadwood the piano people made a piano (No.48433) for Broadwood the commodore for his yacht Minerva in around 1875, a piano which eventually found its way to Bonham's in 2010. Then at reference 9, we have another Thomas Broadwood, son of the first one, 1821-1881, with mentions of both Ryde and Torquay, the former at least smelling of Cowes. This may well be the yachting one. On the other hand, this morning, I can find nothing in the RLYC book about his being a good chap, despite being in trade. Maybe I conflated him with another good chap.

PS 2: I tried the long search key at reference 3 again this morning. Google finds no hits. While Bing is more generous, turning up a variety of odd stuff, including two hits on the blog. Clicking on either of them takes one to 2024 as a whole, rather than to the post in question, that is to say reference 3, but it is still odd that Bing does rather better on this one than Google. In the kind of searches that I make, it is usually the other way around. Maybe Bing is not so insistent on a search result being pointed at from lots of other places, that you are only visible if enough other people (excluding your friends and relations) are pointing at you.

PS 3: had another go at hemp agrimony this morning, using a cropped version of the first snap, a version which brought out the organisation of the leaves better. Google Images sticks with hemp agrimony. I got confused by finding in Bentham & Hooker that hemp agrimony in the Asteraceae family is not related to the agrimony genus in the Rosaceae family. Having got through that, and turning up the relevant Wikipedia entries, I decided that Google Images had got it right. The only fly in the ointment being the very weak toothing visible in just a few of the leaves. Reading the Bentham & Hooker entry suggests more teeth. My take-away being that, somehow, there is botanical knowledge lurking in Google's mountain of disorganised (unorganised?) data. And I am reminded that the old-fashioned approach of Bentham & Hooker, together with its careful, hand-drawn illustrations, provides good confirmation. Maybe not so much use in making the identification in the first place. And no further ahead with reference 3, which now appears to be something quite different.

PS 4: OED knows all about this muddle of agrimonies, without being very clear about how the muddle came about. But one common thread appears to be the medicinal uses of both. Another is Mithridates Eupator, the ruler of the kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. According to OED, he also found time to take an interest in botanical matters, inter alia, seeding the present confusion.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/ramsey.html.

Reference 2: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1107381?section=official-list-entry.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/his-and-hers.html.

Reference 4: https://www.mcmichael.org.uk/history.htm.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/church-snaps.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/piano-1.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/shanklin.html.

Reference 8: https://www.bonhams.com/auction/18138/lot/22/the-minerva-piano-broadwood-no43833-circa-1875/.

Reference 9: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Broadwood-135.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holne.

Reference 11: http://www.dartmoor-crosses.org.uk/holne_churchyard.htm.