The Old Grammar School in Market Harborough
Last week, when we were holidaying in Leicestershire and Rutland, I snapped almost two hundred photographs. I shared a handful of those images with you - illustrating blogposts. Today, I simply wish to share some more previously unseen pictures from that lovely week away. We could have easily chosen this week but I am glad that we didn't because it's rather grey and chilly and we have seen some rain in the past three days. It's hard to believe that just a week ago we were applying sun lotion.
Strangely weathered gravestone at Tilton-on-the-Hill
Ceremonial horseshoes in the Castle Hall, Oakham
Modern stained glass window in Melton Mowbray church
Another view of Normanton Church, Rutland Water
Passer-by in Oakham
It's an interesting variety of photos and I don't think I've ever seen a tombstone weathered that way. Bizarre!
ReplyDeleteI realize the ones shown are just ceremonial, but I thought a horseshoe was meant to be mounted with the ends turning up... to keep the luck from spilling out.
In Rutland horseshoes are hung tips down, or upside down, apparently to prevent the devil from making a nest in the bottom of the horseshoe.
DeleteThat Old Grammar school is incredible, but I wouldn't walk under it!
ReplyDeleteWell it has been there five hundred years so I think you would be pretty safe Margaret!
DeleteA great set of photos.
ReplyDeleteYour taste is excellent sir!
DeleteAnother set of beautiful pictures from your week away; thank you for sharing them with us!
ReplyDeleteThe gravestone looks really strange (and so do the horseshoes), but I remember having seen similarly weathered ones on old cemeteries in many places.
I am sure you mean stained glass window and not "class" - or maybe there is a class room for Sunday school in that church. And is it a fox on that tree? I don't think I have ever seen a fox in a church window before.
Thanks for pointing out my mistake. Much appreciated. Another thing that is in that beautiful window is a very small Melton Mowbray pork pie!
DeleteSome lovely scenes there, YP.
ReplyDeleteMore evidence that we were in a lovely part of the country JayCee.
DeleteHe gets his art, stationery, computer and office supplies from Colemans of Oakham.
ReplyDeleteWell-observed Inspector Dunham!
DeleteWhat a beautiful and well preserved building the Old Grammar School is, built in the days when few were able to afford an education.
ReplyDeleteThey are all interesting photos - apart from the last one! I'm particularly drawn to the stained glass window, and reading Librarian's comment, have studied it carefully, and yes, it is a fox in there!
Castle Hall Oakham, would be worth a visit just to see the ceremonial horseshoes.
The horseshoes were on every wall Carol. It was quite a sight and they go back centuries! Until I walked in there I had no idea.
DeleteI was away last week too enjoying the sunshine. I'm glad you had a nice time in Leicestershire. It's Greg's birthplace and where we met.
ReplyDeleteWhere exactly was he born and where did you meet ADDY?
DeleteLooking at the modern stained glass window, there is fruit, conkers and even a 'magic' mushroom tucked away neatly in the tree. I reckon when you got bored with the sermon, the mind would hunt out all the little things decorating the tree.
ReplyDeleteThe window even contains a small Melton Mowbray pork pie!
DeleteThat gravestone is super creepy. I wonder why on earth it weathered that way?
ReplyDeleteI thought the same, Steve! What kind of stone is that?
DeleteIt looked as if beetles had burrowed into it. I guess that it is just hard sandstone with a softer section in the middle.
DeleteI love the church on the breakwater. What is this Solemans company of the bag the slim and fit looking tousled haired young man carrying? Not that I really noticed him.
ReplyDeleteIt's not Solemans but Colemans - a stationery business in that town. I suspect the young man was off to meet his girlfriend... or boyfriend. You never know these days!
DeleteGreat photos.
ReplyDeleteSecond what Kelly said about the horseshoes. Made me think of my mother. She would always say that the horseshoes should have the legs/facing up because otherwise you are letting your luck run out.
Same reply as I gave Kelly... " In Rutland horseshoes are hung tips down, or upside down, apparently to prevent the devil from making a nest in the bottom of the horseshoe."
DeleteAs Kelly mentioned above, it is bad luck in our culture to hang horse shoes that way. The ends should be pointed up to catch good luck.
ReplyDeleteI ponder on the house on stilts. I'm guessing it was a station house of sorts with trains/horse drawn wagons or such passing underneath or is it just near an area that is prone to flooding? There has to be a reason because I think it would be unbearably cold on the feet during the winter time.
It was put on stilts to allow the butter market to take place below the classroom and to keep the market people dry during bad weather.
DeleteThe horseshoes and the pock-marked gravestone remind me of Felix Randal (online) by the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
ReplyDeleteFelix Randel the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining ...
Those horseshoes were hammered out in the smithy for the nodding drayhorses which Hopkins observed outside English taverns.
The eulogy for Felix the blacksmith recall that of the Welsh priest R.M. Thomas.
You remember Davies? He died, you know,
With his face to the wall, as the manner is
Of the poor peasant in his stone croft
On the Welsh hills.
Thomas was agnostic and gloomy and seemed to regret his religious vocation.
Hopkins struggled with the dark night of the soul and said on his deathbed *I am so happy !*
Haggerty
Your stone looks as if it built itself around a fossilized piece of coral or something.
ReplyDeleteThe horses must have been huge!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what exactly is a "ceremonial" horseshoe, anyway?