Hurry, York Art Gallery Closes Until 2015

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Hortoris

Art?

York has lots to offer the resident, day trippers or tourists. It is easy to take facilities for granted and not make use of them when they are free and available particularly when there is so much choice.
Beware one such choice will be lost when York Art Gallery in Exhibition Square closes at the end of 2012 for a major redevelopment.

Hurry Down to Art & Music

The last major exhibition will be ‘Art & Music’ the display that brings together the humanities of visual art and it’s historic relationships to the symbolism of music.
See Bridget Riley, LS Lowry and contemporary works before the enforced shut down.
The Art Gallery is free to visit and is part of the York Museums Trust. The Trust is an independent charitable trust which manages York Castle Museum, Yorkshire Museum and Gardens, York Art Gallery and York St Mary’s.
The Friends of York Art Gallery have around 600 members, and are keen to increase this number. They say ‘You’ll find our membership subscription simple and great value for money!’

Redevelopments Can Take Longer Than Anticipated

York has a tradition of reinventing spaces and bringing them into modern, current day use.
On a project that will last until at least Easter 2015 refurbishment and redevelopment will take place after the gallery closes at 2pm on 31st December 2012.
The Little Gallery is currently explaining the plans that include opening up hidden spaces and increasing display areas.This involves creating a new first-floor gallery in the space above the Main Gallery and expanding into the rooms next door.
The City Archives will be moving to new premises in Explore at the City Library.
Two of the new galleries will showcase the internationally significant collections of British studio ceramics.
The garden space at the back of the gallery is likely to become the new entrance as efforts are focused on making the new facility even more visitor friendly.

You do not need an excuse to visit York but if you wish to see the Art Gallery in it’s current pomp then hurry on down soon.
See our other articles on ‘Contemporary Art from New School House Gallery York’ and ‘Quilts Museum and Gallery for Quilters’.

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Wainhouse Tower Dye-Works Chimney

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Hortoris

Wainhouse Tower and rooftop

Contrary to popular belief Wainhouse tower was not intended to be a folly. It was originally designed as a chimney for the local dye works in 1873. By 1912 it had become a folly and was purchased via a ‘shilling fund’ organised by the Halifax Courier and donated to Halifax Corporation.

A landowning activist Sir Henry Edwards supported the new West Riding Smoke Prevention Society and their campaign against Washer Lane dye works that was owned by John Edward Wainhouse. Soon after starting the chimney Wainhouse sold the dye works but retained his interest in the chimney. The design was modified to include the octagon, corona and final pinnacle which have given rise to other names for the tower including Wainhouse’s Folly and Octagon Towers.

The tower is 250 feet high and is said to have cost £15,000. A staircase of 400 steps winds round and round between the chimney bricks and the the outer casing. Every now and then there are window slits and two viewing platforms.
Great views of the surrounding Calder valley, Kings Cross, Blackstone Edge, Castle Hill and Sowerby bridge can be seen from this vantage point.
During the Second World War Wainhouse Tower was used as an observation post but never functioned for its original purpose as a chimney. Never the less it was the basis of a major falling out of the two main parties John Edward Wainhouse and Sir Henry Edwards of Pye Nest estate.

Wainhouse Tower

Credits
Wainhouse Tower and rooftop by Tim Green aka atoach CC BY 2.0
Wainhouse Tower by sk8geek CC BY-SA 2.0
It is inexpensive to visit but opening times to climb the tower are very restricted see link

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Printers Still In Business

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Hortoris

Thank goodness that there are many British and Yorkshire printing companies still in business.
The digital age of texting, tweeting, poking and what have you is all very well but I like ink on paper. (Is it OK to say Kindling?).

Leeds Sports Centre Print

I do not usually go to the sports centre for my fix of ink on paper. However at Fridays badminton game I was like an amorous shellfish and pulled a muscle.
After an early shower and waiting for my fit opponents, I lurked around reception reading the usual flyers for local attraction, theater programmes, visitor attractions and the like. Then I discovered a printers delight, enough bumph for an ink sniffers orgy:
Free large format magazines were available in addition to the local free newspaper.
‘Sport’ a 62 page weekly seems sensible fodder for a sports centre.
‘Shortlist’ for film, cars, news, tech etc seems a bit too lifestyle for for the fit and energetic but wait until you see the other magazines.
Thirdly was ‘Freestyle’ with 90% glossy adverts and ‘Stylist’ a chunky 76 pages on The Art Project as the main theme for this weeks issue.
Last and probably least but most costly was a 16 page, smaller, 8″ square brochure printed for Leeds Council. Entitled ‘Taking the lead’ it is a summary of the strategy for sport and recreation in Leeds 2006 to 2012.
Only just in time could be a new mantra for local authorities as six and two thirds of the seven year period covered has already been and gone.

Sunday Newspaper Print

My experience with free magazines got me on edge counting the weekend papers. The Sunday paper had 6 newsprint sections, two gash supplements and two glossy magazines.
That excludes the free loose inserts advertising shirts, furniture, bodyline classes and Sky.
I would be remiss in not thanking the lady who delivered a 328 page Ikea catalogue to me in the garden on Saturday. Unlike newsprint it wont turn into compost but you can’t have everything.

Think of the environment and resist the urge to print out this article!
Spare a thought for printers who work at printing not printers that sit on a desk next to a computer and squirt ink around. This alternative printer has 3 parts, the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.

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Recycle Wheelie Bins

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Hortoris

I urge you to recycle your Wheelie Bin before they take over our back streets. They meet weekly down your street or on local corners then scatter to the four winds when you want them back home. I think they must be breeding but you don’t often see the small ones together with these 440 ‘s above.

Even if you brand them, with a house number for example, they never seem to come home. There is one way to get your wheelie bin back, if you cover it in a camouflage plastic green scene or piece of ‘artwork’, then it will always return to embarrass you.

According to today’s Daily Telegraph ‘Under new Big Joke council rules, every adult in a household as opposed to just one would be fined £110. This would mean in theory a student flat containing five over-18s could be hit with a £550 fine. Families with grown up children still living at home could also face the increased fines.

The new penalties cover offences such as putting a bin out too early or taking it in too late, leaving extra sacks of rubbish and over-filling. ‘

Binmen refuse to empty wheelie bin containing apples

Cor’ I bet that gave the gardener the pip – which jobs worth de-cidered to make that decision?

A dustman goes into a Chinese takeaway and says to the owner, “Where’s yer bin?”
“I been Ripon.”
Realising the Chinese chap has misunderstood, the binman smiles and says “No mate, where’s ya dust bin?”
“I dust bin in Ripon I told you” says the Chinaman.
“No, no, where’s yer wheelie bin?”
“I weally bin in Ripon.”

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North Yorkshire Flora & Rare Plants of Teesdale

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Hortoris

Viola rupestris_3

Upper Teesdale lies in four counties Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire.
On Widdybank Fell there are two plants not found anywhere else in Britain. The rock violet or Teesdale violet, Viola rupestris and Sandwort or Minuartia stricta.
On the Yorkshire side of the divide we have many rare plants and flowers. Mickle Fell contains examples of my Alpine favourites the Gentian verna although this photo is from Europe look out for the blue flowers.
Spring Gentian (Gentiana verna) Frühlings-Enzian
On nearby Cronkley Fell is home to mountain forget-me-nots another blue mountain flower – it must be in the Yorkshire water. Perhaps it is more to do with the underlying limestone rock outcrops where Drays octopetala and rock roses Helianthemum canum thrive.
A UK exclusive is Yorkshire Milkwort that is a plant only found on the fell and in Wharfedale.
High Force has a thicket of Juniper and many rare Hawkweeds and botanically interesting Ladies’ Mantles.

Flower Lovers Wild Selection From Teesdale

Treasures of the dale are to be found in the meadows of North Yorkshire.
Look out for the Globe flower Trollius europaeus with its bold yellow flowers.
Dark purple marsh orchids, shrubby Potentillas and mountain Pansies would not look out of place in most gardens.
I will leave the Parsley fern and horse-tails out of my garden but in the wild dale they hold botanic interest.

Trollius europaeus

“Wild Flowers of Yorkshire” by Howard Beck is a guide to the wild flowers most likely to be found in our county together with more details on some of the rarer species.
Book Cover

Credits
Viola rupestris_3 by amadej2008 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Spring Gentian (Gentiana verna) Frühlings-Enzian by Werner Witte CC BY-NC 2.0
Trollius europaeus by Nick Turland CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ‘shot in Austria but growing in Yorkshire ed.’

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Pontefract Cakes are Yorkshire Delicacies

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Hortoris

Haribo Liquorice Pontefract Cakes

Pontefract Cakes are Yorkshire Delicacies that rank alongside or ahead of other sweets named after Yorkshire towns. Harrogate toffee may be a premium product but hasn’t got the tang of a good Pontefract cake. Doncaster butterscotch is hard to find now-a-days but it used to be a kids staple bought loose from an old sweet jar.

Pontefract grew liquorice plants potentially since Roman times although credit is give to The Black Friars for cultivation. The roots provide the raw material for your Pontefract cakes. Roots can be 4 feet long and by crushing and boiling the sweet juice is extracted. As discovered in 1760 by George Dunhill a local chemist if more sugar is added the sweet becomes a true Yorkshire delicacy.

Licourice is made into lots of other sweets such as boot laces, wheels, pipes and cigar shapes. For Pontefract cakes more liquorice liquor is added to the mix which also includes flour, treacle and glucose. The round cakes are then stamped or impressed with a seal. Such a seal from 1614 is kept in a local museum. All seals have a motif of a bird on a gate that represents Pontefract Castle.

Spain and Turkey have developed the growing of Licorice and UK cultivation has slumped. The plants are still used in the manufacture of tobacco.

Find out more about Liquorice and Yorkshires Sweet Tooth
Great British Brands - Bassett's Liquorice allsorts

Grow your own drugs and Herbals

Book Cover

Photo Credits
Haribo Liquorice Pontefract Cakes by hddod CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Great British Brands – Bassett’s Liquorice allsorts by brizzle born and bred, CC BY-NC 2.0

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Walk Around Harewood

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Hortoris

Harewood House is the focal point of Harewood Village and an attractive destination for a trip out. Set above the lower reaches of the River Wharfe there are woods and views to suit most folk. Do not let this signpost from the garden put you off. The charms of the house, bird garden, planetarium and even the special visiting events shouldn’t stop you exploring a bit further afield on foot. The Leeds Country Way skirts parts of the Harewood Estate and Harrogate walks also promote walking trips around Harewood.

Walking the Harewood Village by the ‘Walking Englishman’ offers one route and a chatty photographic record of his trip. For a rainy blog on a similar theme try Yorkshire Walks.org Ordnance survey Pathfinder map 672 covers the area at 2½ inches to 1 mile and I find this scale is easy to navigate at the slow pace I walk.  Eccup reservoir and Golden Acre Park are all within walking distance and Harewood was the base for the recent 20 mile charity walk in aid of Breast Cancer. Ebor Way from Ilkley to York passes through the Harewood Estate and the Dales Way Leeds Link is close by.

For a walk of a length to suit yourself I would just recommend strolling around the gardens and grounds at Harewood House. There is an entry fee but that is much lower than going around the house itself and it if free for members of the Royal Horticultural Society and other organisations probably have similar arrangements.  The new Himilayan garden the ponds and the bird garden are all worth exploring in some detail, yet you are never far away from a cup of tea.

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South Riding and God’s Own County Book Club

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Hortoris

Book Cover

Preface to Yorkshire Book Club South Riding (A6)

South Riding can now be seen as an old 20th century classic. It was written in 1936 and published posthumously after Winifred Holtby’s untimely death from Kidney disease at the age of 37.
Winifred was a university friend of Vera Brittain and they lived in the same house where Vera’s daughter, Dame Shirley Williams was being brought up.
David Holtby, Winifred’s father was Yorkshire Wolds farmer and her mother was the first female alderman on East Riding Council.

Yorkshire God’s Own County Book Club Opinion

South Riding as we know is a fictional place (who would want a third of our county in the south?)
Fortunately that is the main fiction and the book is based on acute observation of pre-war local government.
The humour and characterization is absolutely wonderful demonstrating insight across the social spectrum.
Winifred’s socialism is evident but never overwhelms the tales caused by the drama of a county council whose ‘apparently academic and impersonal resolutions daily revolutionised the lives of men and women….’

Book Club Type Questions for Consideration

One reviewer says ”South Riding’ is a novel which is deeply rooted in a particular time and place – a fictionalised version of the East Riding of Yorkshire in the 1930s – but its sensitive treatment of individual hardships, combined with its shrewd understanding of political manoeuvrings, make it still a moving and thought-provoking novel ‘ Dr. P. M. Stoneman “Patsy Stoneman” Hull, . Do you consider the book relevant to the current decade and if not where is it deficient?

Of the eight book sections which has influenced our current thinking the most. Education, Highways and Bridges, Agriculture, Public Health, Public Assistance, Mental Deficiency, Finance or Housing & Town Planning?

Footnotes

Vera Brittain was a British writer, feminist and pacifist, best remembered as the author of the best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth. She was the mother of Dame Shirley Williams and best friend to Winifred Holtby.
Although Winifred Holtby passed the entrance exam for Somerville College she chose to join the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC)and was posted to France 1918. On returning to England she then went to Oxford University where she met and befriended Vera Brittain.

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Room at The Top for Billy Liar

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Hortoris

Two of the greatest kitchen sink films were filmed in Yorkshire!

1. Room at The Top starred Laurence Harvey, Donald Wolfit, Simone Signoret and Heather Sears in the 1959 film of John Braine’s novel of lust and sex.
Set in fictional Warnley, Joe Lampton is set on making something of himself with the daughter of a rich industrialist.
Joe Lampton rises swiftly from the petty bureaucracy of local government into the unfamiliar world of inherited wealth, fast cars and glamorous women until he falls for a married woman, Alice Aisgil.
The film was shot in Bradford and made use of the industrial heritage in the local buildings and the pubs in the city centre.

Book Cover
DVD or Paperback Book from Amazon.

2. Billy Liar starred Tom Courtney, Julie Christe, Rodney Bewes and Wilfed Pickles in the seminal 1962 film set in a North Country industrial town.
Working in a drab undertakers called Shadrack & Duxbury, Billy Liar escapes, Walter Mitty like, into a world of fantasy. Keith Waterhouse’s 1957 tale tells the story of Billy Fisher a teenager anti-hero who is unable to stop lying especially to his girl friends.
The film was shot on Bradford most notably using the Victorian cemetery at Undercliffe and the city’s war memorial.

Kindle Edition

Keith Waterhouse was born in Leeds in 1929 and died 2009
John Braine was born in Bradford in 1922, worked in Bingley and died in 1986

Other films with a similar appeal include A Place in the Sun, Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and A Taste of Honey. Regrettably they have less obvious Yorkshire connections. They were created by group of young British writers were referred to as “angry young men”. They focused on their view that society was dominated by materialistic values (seems familiar).

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The Super Language of God’s Own Country

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Hortoris

The great language I refer to is that used in the first book by Yorkshire author Ross Raisin. He credits the Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore by Arnold Kellett which is used to spice up the sense of place in this entertaining tale.

What the Papers Say

The reviewers and critics seem to take a shine to God’s Own Country.
‘Very Funny, Utterly Compelling, Masterful, Remarkable, Unforgettable and Beautiful’ are the word used by the Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Observer. Sunday Times, Financial Times and Independent respectively.
No wonder the book was put up for many prizes.

Use of Language

This is not the use of faux Yorkshire or southern version of a bastardised northern accent. It is a funny way of turning a phrase sometimes with the use of a word that helps paint a picture without getting out of hand.
Here are just a couple of phrases I liked in the context; ‘Father grum as a miner’s arse’, ‘clagging wet’, ‘took another glug of tea’, ‘It was towns in giant tomato coats’.
I will always think of second home owners in the Dales as ‘Towns’ from now on.

Book Cover

God’s Own Country by Ross Raisin.

Sam Marsdyke (Lankestein) works alone on his father’s farm after being expelled ‘unjustly?’ from school after girl problems. Quite bright but lacking in social skills. A new family arrive for ‘welly weekends and a picture postcard view out the bedroom window’. The 15 year old daughter leads 19 year old Sam into temptation and eventually into a painful conclusion.

Read once for fun and then again with a highlight pen in your hand to capture the words and phrases that can become your own ‘trunklements’.

Ross was born in 1979 in Keighley although he now says he was born between Ilkley and Bradford where he attended Bradford Grammar School.

Book Cover
The Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore by Arnold Kellett

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