Autumn 2008
Autumn 2008 Newsletter
Upcoming Events
Michaelmas Re-Creation - Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 September
This year we have gone back to the year 1588. This is an excellent year for re-creating. The event was/is momentous and it all happens at just the right time of year for us. In June/July we could show concern and speculation about the threat of invasion and be seen preparing to defend the realm (or our little bit of it). In late August we were able to react to early news that the English seaman had put the Armada to flight and that it was being blown up the East Coast shepherded by English ships. Now come September the threat seems to have past amid rumours of Spanish ships foundering off the west coast of Ireland. But its never over till its over. Can we be sure the threat has gone for good ? Can the Spanish re-group and yet land ? These trouble our Tudors at this time.
Last Tudor Re-Creation of the year! - See details online
Halloween
Booking now for our Halloween events, don't miss out! For more details and booking online click below
Ghost Tours - Thursday & Friday 9/10 and 16/17 October 2008
Scaresville - nightly October 18 to November 2nd
October WWII - Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th October 
Our last Re-Creation of the year and the one where we try to show the start of the Hall being requisitioned. There are still one or two servicemen who return each year who were stationed here but their number is dwindling rapidly. Curiously, WWII stands in a sort of No Man's Land. Those who remember those times are now into their 70s and their children appear not to be as interested as they once may have been. In a few years when no-one remembers it and it is really history interest may revive. I'm one of those who do remember and it remains vivid. When we started these Re-Creations in 1995 there were many who remembered and they formed a high proportion of our visitors. Today it is different. It usually proves a fun Re-Creation though.
Apple Day - Sunday October 5th
We have over 60 varieties of apple in our Walled Garden and almost asmany of pears. Add to that the 10 nuvar (new varieties) we are testing(growers need to know how these prosper in different locations withdifferent soils and weather) and we have quite a range. We find wehave more varieties than most. Even the Botanical Gardens in Cambridgewanted to have some of ours to boost their modest range of just 20varieties on their apple day last year. No, we don’t have any of thevarieties like the awful Golden Delicious you find in Supermarkets. Ours are apples grown for purpose and to last from early (ripe inAugust) to late (up to Christmas). The best in texture and taste, ifyou want to know it, is Charles Ross and I’ve never seen that on asupermarket shelf.
Timber Day - Sunday 12 October
Every year I have grand notions of what we might do on this day. However, it is such a busy time of year for us, made even busier now with all the preparations for Scaresville, that we cannot do the necessary preparation for a major event. Instead as usual we shall try to have our various big saws working including the rack saw to cut up large beams and a Tour of the Kentwell trees and Judith on her topiary.
News
Tupping Time again
Its a strange thing that we do not start a new year at about this time of year. The harvest’s in, the farmers are starting to plough and sow for next and we put our rams in with the ewes. Of course, the farm year (with its tenancies) does start now but no-one else does. Although for our other activities the year is almost done and we are starting to think about next year’s programme.Anyway the rams have been introduced to the ewes. That is, the rams that survived their recent trials of strength. Unfortunately our best ram did not and was put down on the day the others went to work.
Its not only rams. Its time for the billies to do their bit too. Our billy, Noel, was lent out last year to do just two nannies and all ours went uncovered. This year we have decided to do a swap as we have some of Noel’s progeny. Noel is quiet and well behaved and we have swapped him for a young fellow who is as wild as they come and wilder still in his strange new surroundings. Will we be able to keep him in ? What will the nannies think ? We’ll soon know. When we got Noel he covered all nannies immediately and they all gave birth within about 24 hours.
Piglets
At last one of our Gloucester Old Spots has produced. We were despairing it would ever happen but 6 fine piglets have arrived from the Tamworth crossing. We now have some hopes for the other Old Spot doing likewise soon. The progeny are not so striking as our Black/Tanmworth crosses but enchanting nonetheless.Chicks
We have had such a run recently of hens with chicks that our coops are all full and one or two have been left running around on their own with an ever decreasing number of chicks in tow. More to feed the fox it seems.
Cat
Did I ever mention our garden cat Alcibiades stars in a book about Country house Cats ? He was interviewed just after a bout of convalescence following serious injuries sustained in a fight. After Vets’ bills from which he and we were recovering he got so used to being coddled in the House till he recovered that he ahsn’t less so after 10 years or so he’s scrcely the garden cat any more. Well something somehow caused him to eat endlessly but put on no weight so another painful (for both of us) visit to the Vet and he new seems recovered and i notice the Vet has a brand new car.Filming
Just finished filming for a programme called ‘I own Britain’s Best Home’, which of course, we do. Doubtless the owners of other homes to be featured think likewise. All will be resolved in the Spring when the issue will be determined by the votes of viewers. Our concern is whether in the short time allotted to us we did ourselves and Kentwell justice. It is not easy to say and show everything when there is so much here.A few years back we did several bouts of filming each year. There’s much less now. Partly because so much of it is comes from independent film making companies who compete against each other on price which always leaves little money for the location. We’re often asked if we enjoy filming. With the right crew adopting an accommodating attitude it can be great fun; with others who think they have bought you lock stock and soul it can be challenging. Shortly we are to film for a German/French TV channel showing the way the English are. Luckily we won’t know anyone who watches that programme ! we did a photoshoot for an unknown (to me) band. When the girls in the Estate Office learnt who the band were they neraly fainted. Never heard of them was all I could say. Was I showing my years or my ignorance ?
Concerts
This year for us fewer, only three, performances. Fear of the weather and the economic climate (both justified in the result) persuaded us to draw in our horns. We hosted another Festival but this time the risk lay elsewhere which was good. Not a good time for festivals with, we were told, 150 cancelling this year due to lack of support. What we did learn was that our Farm area is tailor made for what are called boutique festivals, i.e. under 5,000 attending. Our festival, Festinho, had far too many fewer than that but otherwise went well. Our three shows were in their way each good. This year’s Gilbert & Sullivan was The Yeomen of the Guard which I last saw (and told the audience) about 40 years ago at the Tower of London. During the interval 3 or four people came up to me and said they saw it too but each mentioned a different year and a different star performer. I remembered nothing of it beyond the location.Anyway our players fared less well than usual at the international G & S competition at Buxton but rightly won top honours for several individuals, who were outstanding. Losing money on concerts is bearable when one does something one has set one’s heart on, as last year with Carmina Burana which I had tried to put on for about 20 years. It was excellent. I thought myself vindicated and swallowed the (large) loss without too much indigestion.
Coverage
Some recent stories about our Re-Creations have created interest. Professor Lisa Jardine, the social historian, used Kentwell to illustrate her talk on Points Of View (the old Letter from America slot) in early July. Her theme was that our society is fractured with rich and poor living distinct and unconnected lives quite unlike life in Tudor England which she said the Re-Creations at Kentwell illustrated so well and she explained how rich and poor then were interdependent and to prove it gave listeners an audio tour of our Re-Creation. It was refreshing to be used at such a level and so well to make an important point. Then a week or two back the Telegraph published a piece about one who participated here for a year a few yaers back and quoted at great length what he had made of the experience. Finally, a film is going the rounds made by two young film makers who lived among us as Participants for a year or two and showed what life was like from the inside. Each gave a different perspective on the Re-Creations.
Weather Forecasts
I can put up with the weather we have. After all there is little we can do about it apart from dressing appropriately. It’s the weather forecasters I cannot abide. First their forecasts are so long I have lost interest before our bit. Secondly, they offer their opinion about the weather - lamenting bad (is rain or cold always bad ?) and appear ever to exaggerate risk of wind & rain, snow & storm. (Can’t they forget about the hurricane ?) Too many viewers take what they say far too literally and sometimes illogically. Last year we faced numerous enquiries as to whether we had cancelled events because of floods in Gloucester. I had to point out not anly that we were 100 miles distant but also that we stand at a mighty 281 ft above sea level and that if we were flooded so would a great part of southern England. Too often we have an acceptably dull if not pleasant day here and have to fend off enquirers who say it is is pouring with rain where they are. So ? At our height here we miss even local rain and the rain 10 miles away is often of little consequence. Oh! for the days of yore when forecasters shortly gave the forecast and did not consider themselves stars of the screen or worse ‘celebrities’.