A Cumbrian Castle with hidden Jacobite history

by Deborah Swift

I'm really lucky in that I live close to many old houses and castles. One very close to my house is Sizergh Castle which has a fabulous tea room and lovely gardens.

The name Sizergh dates from the 9th century and was originally spelled sigaritherge, meaning Sigarith's pasture (sigarith is a female name.)

The castle has been home to the Strickland family for nearly 800 years, beginning in the 12th century, and is still lived in by them today. So well-connected were the family, that a Strickland was chosen to carry the English banner at Agincourt. During the Wars of the Roses the family were Yorkists, and in the succeeding generation were linked with the Parres of Kendal - the family of Catherine Parr, wife of Henry VIII.

The original medieval Great Chamber, now the dining room, contains portraits from when Lady Strickland acted as governess to James Stuart, 'The Old Pretender' in exile in Paris. There is one of the young James, and also a bust of Bonnie Prince Charlie (his son). For the first time this weekend a relic of this time, the glorious bedspread of James II will be on show at Sizergh. The bedspread, made in Goa India, is sumptuously embroidered with gold thread and portrays mythical birds and beasts, and was given to Strickland family by the King as a thank you for their loyalty. If you visit Sizergh in the next few weeks you can see it on display, and also hear the conservator talk about the conservation of rare textiles.
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But the Strickland family's support for the Jacobite cause led to a decline in their fortunes, and the castle could no longer be updated to current fashions.  Because of this, its core remains largely untouched, and we are able to stretch back in history all those years to see the original Elizabethan Manor House flanking the 14th Century hall and pele tower.


The photo below is from an article on the castle by Matthew Penmott, and I can heartily recommend his site on the Castles of Cumbria.

The Strickland Arms in the Parish Church, Kendal

The original Pele tower gave protection against scottish raiders. On the courtyard front is the Strickland Coat of Arms. The main entrance leads today into a Tudor Great Hall, which has since been adapted by different generations of the family into a series of smaller rooms. An Elizabethan corner block and wings enclose a courtyard, and on three sides of the castle the remains of a moat is visible even today.

Hard Times
In 1891 the ornate panelling from the Inlaid Chamber, along with various furnishings, was sold to the V& A for a thousand pounds, to raise cash to keep the house maintained. What a decision to make!

But now, after more than a century, and thanks to the Victorian and Albert Museum, the original panelling and stained glass which was tailor-made for the room at Sizergh, has now been returned home to the castle on permanent loan. (Pictures from The Guardian) The beautifully wrought panels were inlaid with English Poplar and “Bog” Oak to create a three dimensional effect of geometric and strapwork motifs.

Ghost of the Starved Lady
In the Pele tower, ghostly sobs denote the presence of a lady whose husband, before a raid by the Scots, locked her away in a room with an impregnable door - presumably to keep her safe. But her husband died and the terrified servants abandoned the place. The poor wife starved, and as she tried to claw her way out she went slowly mad. Her screams supposedly still haunt Sizergh on dark and spooky nights......

Apart from the attraction of the ghost, Sizergh Castle is managed by the National Trust and is well worth a visit - beautiful grounds and gardens too, along with more than a thousand years of history! If you go along in the next few weeks you will also be able to view some 17th Century Flemish tapestries, rare examples featuring stories from Plutarch, including the tale of Anthony and Cleopatra.

As many of you know, I have a keen interest in the 17th Century, and you can find my novels set in this era here, or on my website www.deborahswift.com

Cabinet of Curiosities by Charlotte Wightwick - Fashionable Fruit: the craze for pineapples

Pineapples are having a fashion moment. Everywhere I look, I seem to see them: on clothes, jewellery and homewares, from shoes to jumpers, necklaces to candle-holders, pots and knick-knacks. It isn’t hard to see why. They are immediately recognisable, brightly coloured and – at this drab end of winter - evoke tropical sunshine and exotic locations. As a design feature, what’s not to love?

It isn’t the first time the pineapple has been at the centre of fashion. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century there was a craze for the ‘king of fruits’ – and the reasons for it were very different from today.

Dunmore Pineapple

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Pineapples originated in South America. They were cultivated very early, due to the fact that in the right conditions they will fruit all year around. Early western explorers brought them back to Europe – and across to other tropical regions, where they quickly spread - as an example of the abundance and exciting discoveries of the New World. During the seventeenth century, such was their rarity that they were given to royalty as gifts. The symbolism around them – as the king or queen of fruits, as a representation of a new Eden, or of a new tempting ‘apple’, even associations in Catholic countries with the Virgin Mary – quickly grew, as did their reputation as the most delicious of all fruits.

By the early eighteenth century, the quest was on to grow pineapples in Europe. This was difficult – they need a constant tropical air and soil temperature to thrive, and the technology was not initially available. This changed with the development of hothouses, initially in the Netherlands. These swiftly spread across Europe and by the middle of the eighteenth century, it was fashionable for rich aristocrats to have their own ‘pinery’.

C18th Wedgewood tea canister, pineapple design.

Source: Victoria and Albert Museum, London

No-where, it seems, was this trend more pronounced than in England. A movement towards conspicuous consumption meant that pineapples became the ultimate in luxury. Hothouses were incredibly expensive to build and expert gardeners were needed to nurture the delicate plants over the two-three years it took for them to fruit. In the eighteenth century, it was estimated that the “the average total cost of the cultivation of just one pineapple was about £80 (nearly £5000 today) – about the cost of a new coach.”*

Pineapples became a necessity at the grandest dinner parties and country-house gatherings, crowning a pyramid of fruit as a mighty centrepiece. But such was their expense that they were often left intact, not eaten, and re-used over several weeks until they started to rot. In some places, it was even possible to hire a pineapple if you wanted to impress your guests, although of course it was much better if you could take them on a genteel tour of your very own hothouse.

The craze for pineapples went further than just for the fruit itself. They swiftly became used in all sorts of places, on items as diverse as clothing, reticules (small handbags), snuffboxes, wallpaper and crockery. Having your portrait painted with a pineapple also seems to have been a popular choice, as the example below from the Cwmmau Farmhouse, owned by the National Trust, shows.

Gentleman proudly holding his pineapple,

Cwmmau Farmhouse, National Trust.

Photo: author's own

The motif became embedded into architecture, with stone pineapples often decorating the tops of pillars and gates, especially at the entrances to grand stately homes. No-where is this shown more clearly than in the mighty Dunmore Pineapple (which can now be rented as a holiday cottage from the Landmark Trust!) This has led to the supposition that the pineapple was seen as a symbol of hospitality, although Fran Beauman convincingly argues in her 2005 book ‘The Pineapple: King of Fruits’ that for many it was much more about asserting status and conspicuous consumption than hospitality per se.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the first imported pineapples started to appear, at much lower prices than the home-grown version. Although this meant that a taste of the fruit was within the reach of a middle-class household for the first time, the fruit was often in poor condition and English pineapples remained a true luxury item for the time being. The advent of refrigerated shipping and improved canning methods towards the end of the century and in the early years of the twentieth, however, spelled the end for the pineapple as a symbol of social cachet.

* Fran Beauman, The Pineapple: King of Fruits (2005, Vintage)

1940's Knickers and Ruby Slippers - Celia Rees

I recently visited the Hollywood Costume Exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum*.  It was very popular. I went with my daughter and we were reduced to a shuffle as we wound round the different areas of the exhibition but that didn't matter. The slow progress gave us more time to look. I have to admit to being as star struck as anyone and standing in awe in front of the most iconic outfits: Scarlett  O'Hara's dress made from curtains, Marlene Dietrich's top hat and tails and Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's Little Black Dress.

'Look!' We whispered to each other. 'That's it. The real one!' 

It put one back in touch with favourite stars, favourite films, favourite film scenes. It was also sobering to think that many of the stars who wore these costumes were dead while the clothes they wore lived on.  

For me (once I'd got past the boggling stage) the most interesting aspect of the whole exhibition was the research process that the designers went through to create these costumes, their painstaking attention to detail. The History Girls routinely post about costume. Marie Louise Jensen did a piece about Men's Clothing in the 1700's just this week. When you are writing historical fiction, it is important to know what your characters would be wearing. Finding out is often uppermost in our minds, that is why we blog about it. We look at different sources, just as the film designers do. Museums, like the V & A, with specialist departments can be very helpful, and then there are books on costume. There is also, of course, the internet. Sometimes helpful. Sometimes not. An internet search for '1940's knickers', for example, can take you to some very strange places. The garments featured under 'retro' bear little resemblance to my granny's pink bloomers or to the rubber roll ons I remember women struggling into in the Fifties. But one has to persist. it is important to know what one's character would be wearing, right down to their underwear.

As I shuffled round the exhibition, I realised that there was another dimension to this. It is not just important to know what a man or woman would be wearing in 1789, for example, but it is important to know what your character would be wearing. We have to know who our character is before we can decide what clothes he or she would put on in the morning. It is important to get the period right but clothes tell us a great deal about personality as well as position and status in life. I'd always instinctively known this, but here it was spelt out for me. One whole area was devoted to just this: Deconstruction.

'On every film, the clothes are half the battle in creating the character. I have a great deal of opinion about how my people are presented. We show a great deal by what we put on our bodies' 

Meryl Streep

One is always attracted to areas of special interest and one of mine just happens to be pirates. When I first saw Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, I immediately thought of Blackbeard. The pigtails and plaited beard, the stance. But the designers also channeled Keith Richards for both his 'look' and his personality. That was interesting. With care, one can improvise. An insight like that can make a character a whole lot more than a historical clothes horse. 

I was also halted at another point on my shuffle round. In front of the costumes for Shakespeare in Love, there was a quotation from Joseph Fiennes who played Shakespeare. When contemplating the part he looked for:

'[The] human element - all things [one] wouldn't associate with being a genius... I put aside all reverence and adopted the attitude that as soon as I put on those tights I was Will Shakespeare.'

Even though I had no idea that was how Joseph Fiennes found his way into the part, I immediately identified. When I was writing The Fool's Girl, I had to discover my own way round Shakespeare the genius. I did so by finding my Will Shakespeare in Mr Fiennes. When you see something like that, it is a good feeling, as though your insight is vindicated.

I found much to think about as I went round this exhibition. Just as it is on the screen, so it should be on the page.  Nothing is accidental. Everything is there by design and clothing should suit the character, not just by being right for the period but right for the person. 

Once in a while, costume and clothing can do something more.  One of the last exhibits is Judy Garland's costume from The Wizard of Oz. It is worth the long, slow shuffle. The power and magic of L. Frank Baum's fantasy is eloquently expressed in the contrast between Dorothy's faded, dusty blue gingham dress and the dazzling brilliance of the ruby slippers. It is all there in the costume. 

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

*The Exhibition is on until 27th January, so you still have time to catch it if you are quick.

'Just click your heels together three times...' by Sue Purkiss

So many things go to make a good book, don't they? Characters, dialogue, ideas, perfectly juxtaposed words, pacing, suspense, setting - and that's just a start. But what about films - what makes a great movie? A great director, a brilliant script, imaginative cinematography, a great story - the right stars, good music, fabulous camerawork - and would costume be up there on the list?

Up until a couple of weeks ago, when I went to see the exhibition of Hollywood Costume at the Victoria and Albert, I'm not sure it would have been up there. And yet, if you think of the Wizard of Oz - isn't Judy Garland, in that blue and white dress and the red sparkly shoes, one of the first pictures that comes to mind? And which is most familiar to you - the title The Seven Year Itch, or THAT dress?

Judy's dress is at the exhibition, as is Marilyn's. Batman, Spiderman and Catwoman lurk disquietingly above eye level. Meryl Streep is there, in the guise of Margaret Thatcher, Karen Blixen and Donna from Mama Mia. Sharon Stone crosses her legs as she gazes into the camera. Brad Pitt pops up all over the place. Harrison Ford unfurls his whip: Darth Vader looms and Ming the Merciless glowers. Elizabeth 1 stands proudly in all her regal splendour, as played by Bette Davis, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. Alfred Hitchcock's icy blondes, in their tailored suits and elegant court shoes, stagger beneath the onslaught of birds and knife-wielding shower freaks. Jack Sparrow swaggers in his raffishly romantic coat and enormous hat.

But it's not just a series of tableaux - far from it. There are commentaries from directors, designers and stars, and we begin to see that the costumes we eventually see on screen result from a network of discussions and input from all three. The shape of Indiana Jones' hat, for instance, was based on the design of authentic western stetsons - but the shape was altered to suit the shape of Harrison Ford's face, and the tilt of the brim changed so that his eyes would be visible to the camera. Darth Vader's iconic costume, on the other hand, developed from a root around in the props store; someone surfaced with an old gas mask, a steel German helmet and a voluminous cloak - and there you have it, a legend was born.

There was a sumptuous display of costumes from historical dramas. Elizabeth 1 featured strongly. From the 1939 film with Bette Davis, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, there was a gorgeously elaborate red velvet number. It was copied from a contemporary portrait; the designer was completely faithful to the original, and every detail was precisely rendered. Designers in more recent films have taken a slightly different route; they've done the research too, but they've allowed other factors to come into play; in Shakespeare in Love, for instance, there's an element of playfulness and fantasy, and in Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett (right), the costumes are used to accentuate the state of the character as she changes and develops. So they look authentic, and they tell us something about what's going on in her mind, but they are not exactly as Elizabeth would have known them.

Mostly, I was fascinated by this exhibition for its own sake - this is just a tiny glimpse of the treasures it has on offer, and it's staged most cleverly - but it did strike me that there was a relevance here to writing historical fiction. We often discuss and agonise over the issue of accuracy; we're on painful tenterhooks in case an anachronism sneaks underneath the radar. And of course for our own satisfaction and because we owe it to our readers, we're always going to strive for authenticity. But we are creating an artefact, which has many different aspects which work together to create a certain whole. What we create will never be a simulacrum of the past; it's a fiction, an illusion. So, I just wonder: maybe this is a touch heretical - but perhaps we shouldn't worry quite so much...?