Shropshire 23 - Ellesmere/ a rather large ice age block/Genus breeding/the mere/the sculpture park and Save the children

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So the teaser yesterday was about the connection between the Ice Age, artificial insemination and Eglantyne Jebb. We did not bother setting the sat nag for Ellesmere. I had travelled this road many times before . Sometimes for a trip out to see the ducks with the children. At other times it was for work. The roads were quiet and we arrived at the Mereside parking with plenty of space to park Ziggy. It would not have been good enough for Gabby. Our girl is a touch too wide for the spaces alongside the road . In the summer the walk alongside the Mere would have been heaving . Ducks everywhere . Canadian Geese , youngsters going out for walk with their parents just as I did with mine all those years ago. Pushchairs , buggies - do they call them pushchairs and buggies anymore ? The elderly out for a constitutional walk and kids heading for Cremorne Gardens and the play equipment . Today Ellesmere had a more genteel feel to it .

There were not so many ducks . A few mallards swam up with the expectation they were going to be feed . A number of swans but none of the numbers I remembered . It used to be difficult to walk along the promenade without looking down to avoid the duck poo. Today it seemed exceptionally clean. The sun was still shining and our first stop had to be the cafe for breakfast . The Boathouse cafe at first looked closed but on closer inspection there was work going on outside and there were people inside eating and drinking . We joined them. The menu was fairly basic but we paid for a good cappacino and double espresso whilst perusing the breakfast choices . A sourdough role filled to the brim with rashes of bacon, a couple of sausages , an egg and topped with a hash brown for the driver . A modest two slices of the local bread toasted and covered in butter for me. We sat for a while people watching . Folks came in and ordered pots of tea and a scone . Others pondered long and hard not quite making their mind what to order . Too late for breakfast . Too early for the lunch menu. It was warm inside and we watched the workers who in the cold were making table tops out of scaffolding planks.

Life felt good just sitting there . The driver said he had underestimated Ellesmere . He had driven through but never stopped . So there was much to talk about before we set off on a walk around the Mere. There was once a motte and bailey castle in the area probably built by one of the Earls of Shrewsbury. Henry I gave the land later to William Peverel and the town saw many conflicts with the local welsh princes including Madoc ap Maredudd of Powys . It was an area that had changed hands many time ending up back in the hands of Henry II by 1160. A bit more toing and froing went on with the lands being given to the welsh Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd who married Emme of Anjou . Llewelyn the Great was gifted Ellesmere when he married the sister of King John Ellesmere at that time was more welsh than English and governed by welsh laws . The border being fluid has moved many times making this part of the Marches part of Wales or England at different times in its history.

Having finished our breakfast and paid up we began our walk back along the mere towards the Cremorne Gardens given to the town by Lord Brownlow . I had read that there was now a sculpture park and that was what we were heading for . As we walked I told the driver about visits to the town. How I worked at the artificial insemination unit on the Wharf . AT the time run by the Milk Marketing board which had long gone . I recalled farmers ringing early in the morning to book an inseminator and asking for the semen samples they had purchased to be taken out of deep freeze to be used to inseminate their cows . Names of bulls such as Julius Caesar came to mind and breed of cows - Welsh Black , Charoloais and Herefords . The farmers had their favourites . It was an odd conversation . I remembered a colleague who lived here in a large town house which in the 1970's was almost derelict . He lived most of his time on the nearby canal in an equally derelict cottage . He drove a Lada car when they were not really known in this country and was as far left as you could ever get . He owned a Titian or so he thought . His was the original which had been lost . The one in the London art galleries was a copy he insisted . As we walked past that town house I noticed the sign rather delapidated on its door - this town house will up for sale shortly. I doubt he lived there now . There was a canal wharf in the town and I earmarked that for another day.

We arrived at the park and entered the sculpture park . It seemed that there were a few sculptures in this part of the town and the rest were scattered at various other locations around the town . We stood in front of the first. Two upright wooden posts . We stood in front of it pondering what it was . Behind us was the Mere one of the largest in England outside the Lake District . . One of nine glacial meres in the area all located in depressions caused by blocks of ice which had persisted at the end of the last Ice Age . No water flows in which makes these meres different from those in the Lake District .

In the sculpture park we came across the first of a number of them scattered around the walk. Standing in front of the first we saw two rough cut pieces of oak . Silvered by the weather . They stood close to each other and it was evident they were from the same block of wood . They must have been split down the middle by the sculptor . We needed the information board to tell us the story. The project had been called The children displaced by conflict and was a commemoration of the creation of Save the Children by Ellesmere resident Eglantyne Jebb . Initially one sculpture was commissioned but over time this grew to three. We were standing in front of the Sisters carved by Nick Eames . Said to be abstract - well it was that . An interpretation of the closeness of two sisters . Mirror images of two pieces of wood . The board went on to tell us that the wood stood strong individually and together to achieve their purpose . Without the board the idea would probably have been lost on us philistines .

Next was the John Merrill sculpture designed in the form of a overlarge displaced child . Made of oak it was intended to last a lifetime and showed the child seeking refuge . From here we moved on to what was called Sculpture 3 the Labyrinth Sculpturelogic - Grass and Granite . A traditional form this had the words refuge written at the centre in arabic , kurdish and Syrian script.

The rest of the walk was set over to wildlife meadow which probably would look lovely in the summer. There were other sculptures round the park . A pillar representing a core of earth . A hull of a ship . And then the cormorants . They sat black and brooding on a branch looking all the world like an academic in a black gown or worse the grim reaper minus his scythe .

We moved on and skirted the modern cemetery . Modern as it was obviously only 150 years old at most . A pheasant ran away from us . If he couldnt see us then we couldnt see him. Grey Squirrels everywhere . Back to the town we walked . Last stop the church . Part Norman but closed to visitors . The churchyard was ancient with chest tombs but every day was locked so my walk around was short. So to Eglantyne Jebb - born in 1876 a social reformer who founded Save the children and drafted the document that became the Declaration of the rights of the child . Her early life was priviledged . Born into a monied family growing up on her familys estates . A family well off but with a strong social conscience . Her mother had been involved in promoting the Arts and Crafts among young people in rural areas. Her sister would help found the Womens Land Army in the First World War .

She would attend Cambridge University studying History and went on to become a teacher . Not happy in this job she started to become aware of poverty in young children . IN 1918 this Ellesmere girl found hereself in Geneva where she lived and eventually died . But not before founding Save the children and raising large amounts of money for the fund. national newspapers; it was highly effective, and raised very substantial amounts of income for the Fund's work.

Her personal life was to say the least colourful . She had a lesbian relationship with Margaret Keanes and they declared they wish that at some point in history they would be able to live together as a couple or even marry. Margaret married Archibald Hill in 1913 and the relationship faltered . Save the children still works out of Geneva the place of her burial and the rights of the child were adopted in 1959 by the United Nations.

A big life for a small town girl albeit one with money and influenced . Still remembered in Ellesmere fondly .

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Comments

[Jackie]

Ducks!
I expect Health and Safety had something to do with the number of ducks.....and they certainly wouldn't allow duck poo!!! lol

[JenGog]

spain
Have you got there ? x