Kristine Hughes – Page 59 – Number One London

The Duke of Wellington Tour – Video Highlights – Part One

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you video of the places we’ll be visiting on The Duke of Wellington Tour in September. Today, we begin with our first stop – London.

The Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria, above, where our journey begins.

Apsley House, the first stop on our tour, where our group will be given a private, guided tour of the property.

Afterwards, we’ll visit the Wellington Arch.

We’ll then proceed by private motor coach to the Tower of London, where we’ll see the exhibition being mounted to illustrate the Duke of Wellington’s influence upon the Tower in the capacities of both Constable of the Tower and Prime Minister. Here’s a video that provides some background on the office of Constable, as well as Wellington’s influence on the Tower. We’ll also be meeting with the Ravenmaster of the Tower, who regularly posts amusing pictures of his charges on Twitter.

You can find the complete itinerary and pricing for The Duke of Wellington Tour here.

Do You Know About . . . . . . Victorian Farm?

Amazingly enough, I only discovered the six part documentary called Victorian Farm when I was trolling around Youtube recently. The show follows three modern day people spending a year as Victorian farmers in Shropshire and originally ran for six episodes in 2009.

From the BBC website:

“Historical observational documentary series following a team who live the life of Victorian farmers for a year. Wearing period clothes and using only the materials that would have been available in 1885, historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn are going back in time to relive the day-to-day life of the Victorian farmer.

“The project is based on the Acton Scott estate in Shropshire – a world frozen in time, lost in Victorian rural England. Its buildings and grounds are cluttered with antique tools and machinery collected by the Acton family, who have lived on the estate since the 12th century.

“Working for a full calendar year, Ruth, Alex and Peter are rediscovering a lost world of skills, crafts and knowledge, assisted by an ever-dwindling band of experts who keep Victorian rural practices alive.
The team move into a Victorian smallholding on the Acton Scott estate that has not been used in nearly half a century. Their first task is the restoration of the cottage. As incoming tenants, they help thresh the previous summer’s wheat crop, their first experience of steam-powered machinery. Alex attempts to sow a wheat crop using horse-power. Ruth and Peter install a range in the cottage and take a trip to the canals to load up on coal. It’s time for the apple harvest, so Alex and Peter turn their hand to making cider. Ruth explores the challenges of Victorian cooking by making preserves ready for winter and cooks her first meal on the range. And the team must learn shepherding skills the hard way as the first livestock arrive on the farm – a flock of Shropshire ewes.”

I adore this series, as watching it is a bit like getting a private history lesson – housewifery and animal husbandry are brought to life along with nearly forgotten crafts, skills and traditions. Here’s the link to the first episode.

Because of viewer response to the series, the BBC went on to film Edwardian Farm and Victorian Pharmacy, followed by War Time Farm, all three series also featuring Ruth, Alex and Peter. These should hold you for a few weeks, at the very least – enjoy!

And From Elsewhere On The Web . . . . .

Regency History – The Print Room at Queen Charlotte’s Cottage, Kew
Discovering London – Bird’s eye view maps of Victorian London
Blog for the Immortal American Series – A Regency Palette – popular Regency fashion colours
Sir John Soane’s Museum – Adam’s London: Then and Now – Carlton House, Pall Mall
Past Horizons: Adventures in Archaeology – The Archaeology of a Dress
Downton Abbey Cooks – Mrs. Patmore’s Infamous Raspberry Meringue Pudding
The Art of Mourning – The Hair Work Collection
Royal Central – Palace moves to protect online presence of royal family members
UK Destinations – Visiting stately homes on horseback
C18th Girl – Law enforcement and the criminal courts – Yorkshire 1718-1775

The Wellington Tour: Exciting Changes!

Not so long ago, Victoria and I believed that we had the itinerary for The Wellington Tour finalized and that it was done and dusted, but instead we’re finding that it’s a fluid, ever evolving thing. One could even say that it’s got a life of its own. I recently received an email from the curator at the Tower informing Victoria and me that they were going to be mounting an exhibition this summer on the Duke of Wellington’s influence upon and changes to the Tower made whilst he was both Constable of the Tower and Prime Minister.

While we don’t have complete details regarding the Exhibition as yet, Victoria and I deemed it important that we take it in during The Wellington Tour in September. Accordingly, we have changed the itinerary by substituting the Tower of London for St. Paul’s Cathedral on Saturday, September 6th. Until further details arrive, you can read on to learn more about Wellington’s influence on the Tower of London.

Above – Items belonging to the Duke of Wellington shown previously at the Tower. Read more here.

From the Tower of London website:

The Duke of Wellington was Constable of the Tower from 1826 to 1852. Under his invigorating leadership the increasingly smelly and sluggish moat was drained and converted into a dry ditch.

The Grand Storehouse was destroyed by fire in 1841. The Duke arranged to clear the rubble and started work on a huge new barracks, to accommodate a thousand men. On 14 June 1845 the Duke laid the foundation stone on the barracks named after his greatest victory – Waterloo.

London 1840s was the scene of rallies and disturbances by Chartists demanding electoral reform. The Tower exerted its traditional role of state power over the people, probably for the last time. More defences were constructed, including a huge brick and stone bastion that finally succumbed to a Second World War bomb, but the Chartist attack never materialised.

It was also at the beginning of this century that many of the Tower’s historic institutions departed. The Royal Mint was the first to move out of the castle in 1812, followed by the Menagerie in the 1830s, which grew to become London Zoo. The Office of Ordnance was next to leave in 1855 and finally, the Record Office relocated in 1858. An increasing interest in the history and archaeology of the Tower led to a process of ‘re-medievalisation’ in an attempt to remove the unsightly offices, storerooms, taverns, and barracks and restore the fortress to its original medieval appearance.

Visitor numbers increased dramatically in the 19th century. now it was not just privileged sightseers (who were paying for a guided tour as early as the 1590s), but ordinary people who enjoyed a day out at the Tower. In 1838 three of the old animal cages from the Menagerie were used to make a ticket office at the eastern entrance where visitors could buy refreshments and a guidebook. By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1901, over half a million people were visiting the Tower each year.

You can find more details about The Duke of Wellington Tour here.
Read on for an account of the ceremony swearing in the Duke of Wellington as constable of the Tower from The Life and Campaigns of Arthur, Duke of Wellington by George Newenham Wright (1841) by clicking here.
And you can see almost daily pictures of the Tower ravens posted by Ravenmaster on Twitter by clicking here. Black and white photo above (Beefeaters at Tower gate) also supplied by same.