Conquering the Castle Narrative: Family, Opportunity and the Lived Experience at Yorkshire Castles

Beyond the awesome scale of the medieval castle, these buildings have a rich story to tell about the families that lived there and the communities around them. Taking a second glance at the physical remains is always rewarding, as Leah Goddard found when visiting Middleham and Richmond Castles for the module The Visible Past.

Over the course of a few weeks on the Visible Past module, we have been considering how castle studies and scholarship have favoured particular narratives over others when considering the subjects of their investigation. Our class trip to Middleham Castle and Richmond Castle helped not only to solidify that which we had been discussing as a group, but to demonstrate this ideological favouritism up close.

We began the day at Middleham Castle. I was immediately struck by its sheer size and magnitude, and how it dominates the surrounding town’s landscape. Upon entering the castle grounds, we were confronted with a statue of Richard III, in commemoration of his time spent at Middleham. We soon came to learn, however, that Richard’s involvement with Middleham was not as great as the statue might suggest. It was, in fact, the Neville family who inherited the castle and began re-building in the 13th century that was at the heart of much of the structure and its impressive development. Evidence could be seen in the overall layout of Middleham how certain areas were used as living quarters for visitors, staff, and the ever-growing Neville family; private space that indicated a need for this privacy, yet still closely connected to castle activity. A viewing of the structure in its entirety demonstrated to us how Middleham Castle was, as much as anything else, a family home.

Richmond Castle was our next stop for the day and, as at Middleham, the presence of the site was slightly overwhelming. However, I came to understand the reasons for this as not only was the town of Richmond situated outside the structure, but also within. Once walking through to the enclosure of the castle, this was an idea I could certainly visualize, and was described to us as an ‘area of opportunity’. Whilst Richmond certainly had its military uses, particularly in the Victorian era, intentional choices in the structure to connect all elements of the space stood out to me. Particularly, having the chapel perfectly in between the keep and living quarters, and as an easily accessed space, can help to demonstrate the importance of religious practice to the everyday. A walk through the gardens also prompted interesting discussions with my particular walking group as to how these spaces, natural or constructed spaces such as the chapel, could further our ideas on the daily lives and routines at Richmond.

What interested me the most about both Middleham and Richmond was their importance as domestic spaces and family homes. There is a misconception from many (myself included, until learning more on this module) that castles are purely military spaces designed for protection against siege. Where in truth, castles are multi-purpose structures designed for everyday use as well as military prowess. I found it a shame to understand how this misrepresentation came to be, and consider the lived experiences of those who inherited, resided in, or worked within these spaces as almost fleeting in favour of a supposedly grander story.

This misconception is challenged within both of these sites and others like it; choices made in the layouts and floor plans of a space can reveal just as much as the structure’s materials or preservation. And as a group we were consistently challenged to rethink our pre-conceptions, what we saw before us, and the intentions behind the structures we were engaging with. I felt that I had left this experience with a further interest in heritage and the presentation of history, as well as a knowledge of how close inspection and consideration of the visible past can reveal much more than thought at first glance.

Separation, Socialisation and a Sense Monastic Life

Visiting historic sites allows us to experience the sounds, spaces and structures of the medieval past in a special way, inviting new ideas and questions about their significance. At Yorkshire’s monastic sites, it can emphasise connections with nature as well as highlight isolation and the distinct ways faith was demonstrated at these places, as Scarlett Walker found when visiting of Mount Grace Priory and Rievaulx Abbey for the module The Visible Past.

As soon as the coach pulled into the car park, the first thing to notice about both Mount Grace Priory and Rievaulx Abbey is the complete isolation. Both buildings are cut off from ordinary life within the stones of their monastic building. Mount Grace is built at the bottom of a valley and is completely surrounded by nature. The sound of pheasants and geese is prominent when there and, even in modern life, the hum of the motorway is a distant sound. At Mount Grace, the idea of isolation is built into the very foundations of the monastery. This is demonstrated by the reconstructed monastic cell, which shows how the monks would have lived separately from each other. These were self-reliant houses with gardens to grow food and working tools, such as a loom in the attic. There was a hole in the wall where food would be delivered to them, which was curved to keep them from seeing each other. The monastic cells were situated around the edge of the cloister. The cloister was the only area of socialisation the Carthusian monks would have had each week when they went to church in the chapel, of which the bell tower is still visible. The tower rises above the cloister, suggesting it is the focal point of the monastery and the most significant part for the monks living there, where they could demonstrate their faith.

The isolation was also similar at Rievaulx Abbey. To get there we had to go down a rather steep hill to reach the car park which was set away from the building. It is very far away from any modern-day roads and is completely buried in the walls of nature. It was surrounded by tall, steep hills of shrubbery and trees, and was also built near the river Rye, which was visible as we drove away from the abbey. This is evidence of how the monks who inhabited Rievaulx would have used nature and ingrained it into their daily lives. Although there is a sense of isolation present in the placing of Rievaulx Abbey it has a different sense to the idea of isolation than that of Mount Grace Priory. Mount Grace believed in separation from each other as well as the world outside of the religious order, whereas Rievaulx had shared dormitories where the monks lived among each other as well as communal eating space and places of worship. This was done in the magnificent church building which is still visible today and towers over the complex. The sheer height of this church demonstrates that it was at the centre of monastic life. The church and cloisters were built surrounded by fields, which created enclosures for livestock, orchards and made it easy for agriculture, demonstrating the self-reliance of the abbey. These walls are still visible at the site today and give a sense of what life for a monk would have been like. Rievaulx Abbey also has an infirmary, the location of which is still visible at the site. This would have been where they took care of the sick, older monks and it formed the earliest surviving infirmary complex in a Cistercian building in Britain. It demonstrates the monk’s need to look after each other and their own.

Another thing noticeable after visiting both abbeys was the difference in design. Mount Grace Priory has a simplistic build to it, an idea of necessity rather than aesthetics. The monastic cells were small and simple, with a room for sleeping, a room for praying, an attic upstairs for working and a small garden in the back for growing vegetables and supporting themselves. Even the belltower, which was the centrepiece of the priory, was smaller than the typical idea of a belltower, built for purpose rather than design. Rievaulx, however, was gothic and impressive and it towered over the landscape, letting everyone know it was there. Everything about Rievaulx Abbey was lavish and striking from the large windows and high ceilings, where stained glass would have allowed light to shine down onto the altar and into the most significant part of the monastery. The abbey was built over three floors and shows its imposing nature, a dominating presence over the surrounding countryside. Although a lot of the walls are ruins, the height and the nature of the walls are still visible at the site, and it is clear that the building was seen as significant in this period.

Place, space and community in Yorkshire castles

As part of the module The Visible Past, first year students study castles from different perspectives to understand the significance of these buildings and the people who used them. But it is only when exploring the sites themselves that knowledge of these spaces can really be put into context. Here, Ashanti Carlton shares her thoughts on visiting Middleham and Richmond Castles.

We began with the first site that we visited, Middleham Castle, which is in the middle of the town. The first thing you see is the gatehouse and the sheer thickness of the walls. What was also immediately evident was the size of the windows, especially in comparison to a lot of examples that we had previously studied, hinting at the occupants’ wealth with intricate designs combined in and around the windows.

As you first walk in you see a statue of King Richard III, which looks quite striking against the surroundings and stands out but shows a connection to the space. What I found to be enjoyable when learning about the space was not the focus on a specific individual in relation to the space but rather more of a focus on physical aspects in the space, such as the kitchen areas and the size of the domestic space, areas that we usually don’t associate with castles straight away but were important to everyday life. What was also interesting to see was the size of different spaces within the castle itself, for example the dorm-like space for the religious figures living within the site, also something that we don’t always immediately think of in the context of castles. Similarly communal garderobes (toilets), weirdly a common theme through both the spaces we visited!

Next, we visited Richmond Castle, which was again surrounded by the town but differed from Middleham Castle visually. For example, when you think of a castle on a hill with a large keep that’s what Richmond looks like, especially with it being on top of a hill, from which you could look out for miles. Within the castle there is a distinction of spaces that are in ruins and that are still standing, such as the space where important occupants would live and, again, another fixation on the toilet that was within the space, which I found quite funny. Next to this space are gardens in the grounds of the castle, which were quite beautiful and a nice thing to have to break up the space. I also enjoyed looking at the surrounding area from the top of the keep, despite the rain.

Looking back at the visits what was great about them was both the sense of community that you can see built up surrounding these castles, instead of them being isolated places, and also how the community is involved with the castle space.

Cramped and Communal to Space and Secure: Contrasting Castles in Medieval Yorkshire.

In one of our last teaching sessions before lockdown, students on first year module The Visible Past headed out into the Yorkshire countryside to explore Middleham Castle and Richmond Castle. Here, Emma Gizzi shares her experience of these site visits. 

Our class in front of Richmond’s impressive front.

As we shifted our focus from monastic life and architecture, we spent the next three weeks on castle studies to understand how the visible remains of sites can reveal a great deal concerning many narratives in medieval history, such as nobility, authority and community. In consolidation of the knowledge we have recently gained, we headed off to visit two of Yorkshire’s most visibly impressive castles, Middleham and Richmond. Guided by Carolyn Donohue, Liz Goodwin, and Anthony Smart, it was time to put into practice what we have learnt. 

The coach journey through the sunny Yorkshire countryside to Middleham was very picturesque with much to let the eye wander on, notably even reminding us of ecclesiastical life again as we passed the remains of Jervaulx Abbey on the way.  Once we arrived, immediately we were greeted by the imposing fourteenth-century curtain walls surrounding the twelfth-century hall keep which dominated the town, and entered through the north-east gatehouse into the courtyard. 

Middleham Castle’s kitchen

Once the group photographs were taken, Carolyn guided us through into the keep itself, with walls measuring up to 3.7m thick making it one of the largest by area in the country and a strongly fortified structure which could protect itself and its occupants from the elements. We could also see how domestic the space was, too, with the presence of water wells at both ends and the remains of where the vaulted ceiling would have been, separating the kitchen and cellar on the lower level where we stood and the great chamber and hall above. A further sense of separation and control could be seen in how limited the stairway access is, including the remains of the bridge that would have been used by the castle’s nobility; providing secluded access from the southern ranges into the keep.  

As we headed outside the keep into the southern courtyard we paid particular attention to the decorative remains of the fourteenth-century chapel and Prince’s Tower, as well as the fifteenth-century privy chamber and latrine tower. All of these adhere to the notion of community and a place of residence, with the Prince’s Tower and privy chamber serving to provide for the maternal and feminine members of the household, and the latrine tower as a fine example of the latest medieval hygiene methods. Before allowing us to explore and gather research for ourselves, Carolyn made a final point that the castle’s history should perhaps primarily be associated with the Neville family, since they fundamentally augmented the castle’s significance architecturally and politically, even though more recently the heritage is closely linked to Richard III. This king resided at the castle and also it is believed his only legitimate son, Edward, was born and died at Middleham.  

The entrances of Middleham Castle

For those of us who decided to investigate the top of the keep and check out the surrounding views, Carolyn’s words of how the legacy and beauty of the landscape must have mattered to the occupants certainly rang true, as we noticed to the south the site of where William’s Hill once stood; a wooden motte and bailey type castle probably built by Count Alan Rufus, future founder of Richmond Castle, or his brother Ribald. Moreover, Liz’s words of how the use of light at Middleham was a key indicator of who would have inhabited specific spaces could also be seen, as we noticed significantly smaller windows with less of them in domesticated areas than there was in areas of accommodation that was reserved for the nobility.  

The view from Middleham Castle

As we took a break for lunch, we got back on the coach and headed into the market town of Richmond, where my pals and I decided to opt for some local pub food before we all reconvened outside the entrance to the castle. While Middleham is a fine example of what can be perhaps a cramped and communal experience of castle living, Richmond illustrated an open and more architecturally defensible type of castle; a comparison extremely useful for our studies. As we stood beside the impressive 30m high keep, Carolyn gave us an introduction to its Norman heritage and the vast amount of eleventh and twelfth-century architecture, including the stone curtain wall, the great archway that forms part of the keep, and Scolland’s Hall. The keep as stands today exists from the twelfth-century and is said to be one of the best-preserved castle of this scale and age in the country.  

View from Richmond Castle

Unlike Middleham, which fell into ruin in the seventeenth-century, Richmond remained almost continually in use by authority of some sort until the early twentieth-century. For instance, in the nineteenth-century a barrack block and armoury was built, with the armoury being adapted for later use as a cell block for conscientious objectors during the First World War, although the barrack block is now demolished. We also noted how domesticated and opulent the castle once was too, with Scolland’s Hall, which included a kitchen, buttery and pantry, overlooking the river beside the ‘Cockpit’ garden. Once we set off to explore ourselves, we made sure to investigate some of Carolyn’s suggestions, notably the eleventh-century St. Nicholas chapel featuring visible traces of red paint which would have been used to mark out the lines of masonry, showing how medieval decorative colour schemes would have looked. Upon inspection of the keep, we were greeted with a rather spacious interior that differed considerably to the remains of Middleham, with three floors including a great chamber and small rooms accessible usually from only one entrance. While this furthers the notion of Richmond being a practical defensive structure, it also supports the significance of hierarchy and separation that typically exist within castles. 

Richmond Castle

Since you can never grasp the physical sensations of light and sound, along with the power and emotion of space you are studying, it was a vitally important experience for our studies, and thinking back now whilst considering the current circumstances, it was lovely way to end our first year of studies at York St. John. 

 

 

A Trip to the People’s History Museum

In this post, third-year student Mel Hewitt reflects on a trip to the People’s History Museum as part of the module Early Victorian England.

 

 

On the 24^th October, the English Literature and History departments organised a free trip to the People’s History Museum in Manchester. This was not an experience that I could let pass me by as I had never been to the museum before and since the trip was free, it seemed the perfect opportunity!

The People’s History Museum is dedicated to teaching people of all ages as well as inspiring everyone to get involved with ideas worth fighting for such equality and social justice. The museum is split into two galleries; the gallery on the first floor starts at the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and finishes at the end of World War Two in 1945. The gallery on the second floor picks up after World War Two and concludes in the present day.

Not only did the museum have these two galleries open to the public but they also had an exhibit dedicated to the women’s rights movement through history with banners from the Suffragette movement up to signs displayed at the Women’s March this past year. I particularly enjoyed this exhibit as it was highly fascinating to be so close to the banners that led the marches to get women the vote. I recommend this exhibit for those who want to know more about women’s history; the ground floor covers part of this but the main gallery on the first floor includes information on the formation of the Manchester Suffrage Society in 1867 and the Women’s Social and Political Union founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her sisters in 1903. It was somewhat emotional to read of their struggle to gain the universal vote which paved the way for other rights to be introduced.

An incredible piece of the museum for me was on the second floor. The second floor of the museum focuses on social issues post-1945 and there was a section dedicated to the fight for LGBT+ rights. This part was something else entirely as it is a part of history close to my heart since my dissertation topic is on the struggle of the LGBT+ community since 1945. However, I soon realised that LGBT+ history plays a bigger part than I first thought since dotted around all floors of the museum are little notecards that explain the progress of LGBT+ history from 1819. It was heart-warming to see LGBT+ history being pushed to the forefront since it is so often ignored in historical education.

 

 

It is extremely easy to get lost in the museum, there is so much to read and learn. I think that because it is brilliantly set out, you can follow the timeline of events perfectly and in detail.

However, if wandering around a museum is not what you enjoy (though I highly doubt that), the museum has a wonderful gift shop boasting an impressive book collection covering subjects such as local history, women’s history and LGBT+ history. Across from the gift shop, there is café that has a lovely view of Manchester, so whilst your friends or family soak in the history, there is always the option of a coffee and a slice of cake (their chocolate orange cake is amazing!)

On a final note, I’d like to say thank you to the History and English Literature departments at York St John University for offering us this fantastic opportunity! It was an incredible experience and one I’m likely not to forget.

Studying Sources at York Minster Library

In this post James Gray, a 1st year History student at York St John, shares his experience of working at the York Minster Library as part of the module, The Visible Past.

The aim of this visit was to better understand the resources that were at the disposal of historians, especially those that were stored in the archives at York Minster Library. The library was originally a 12^th century Archbishop’s chapel with the original Minster Library being above the modern day Minster gift shop, before being moved to Dean’s Park at the Old Palace in around 1810.

We began the day outside the library, standing in the imposing shadows of the archives and the Minster itself, allowing us to admire the architecture of each building before the tour commenced. Once everyone was present, we proceeded into the reception area and were immediately met by an impressive décor that showed not only the building’s maturity, but also its importance to York’s heritage. We then moved upstairs past the Alcuin Wing, named after one of York’s most famous sons, and moved into the library archive room, which displayed numerous manuscripts and sources regarding York’s societal and noble histories. The library itself was impressive to say the least. The most eye catching aspect, in my opinion, were the great glass windows which presented several different coats of arms in a variety of colours, immediately showering the room with radiant light.

We were presented with a variety of different sources ranging from the 14^th to the 19^th centuries. These sources included Francis Drake’s Eboracum, which detailed York’s history with emphasis being placed on the its Roman Heritage, and the Fabric Rolls, which recorded the financial accounts of the Minster in regard to wages, materials etc, which were used in the Minster’s construction and continuous expansion from 1360-1827. We were given the privilege of viewing 2 of the rolls out of the 25, which were made out of sheepskin parchment over a 112-year period. The sources on view varied in language as well, ranging from Latin to Old English. An interesting lesson which we learned was that Francis Drake’s book was actually republished into smaller volumes, with certain information missing from the original. This demonstrated that secondary sources are not always as reliable as primary sources, as you may get more unique information from studying the original book.

This trip helped us all to understand sources and it really helps to the see them there with your own eyes, instead of over a computer or through a republished copy. Minster Library staff also provided us with extra information, as well as a background on each book, such as the date of the source, its author and its effect in regard to the wider historical context at the time. This is also valuable as it will allow us to include this in our upcoming portfolios. Overall, it demonstrated to us all that the necessity for primary sources and physical history is very much needed in scholarly work and that there is a great amount (120,000 to be precise) of resources at our disposal in York at the Minster Library. The trip was thoroughly enjoyable and allowed to us to put our independent research, analytical skills and learning into practice in a historical environment.

Many thanks to the York Minster Library Archivists for allowing us to visit and to Dr Carolyn Donohue and Anthony Smart for organizing such an insightful and interesting trip.

Turrets and Curtain Walls: Exploring Yorkshire’s Castles

In this post Freya Walker, a 1st year History student at York St John, writes about site visits to Middleham and Richmond Castles for the module, The Visible Past.

For the past three weeks in The Visible Past we have been studying castles, their uses and what they meant to people both at the time and through the ages. But it was visiting the castles that really put this learning into context.

First, we visited Middleham Castle, a castle which almost seemed to leap out at me from behind the houses and pubs in the village. It’s an imposing castle with an incredibly thick curtain wall, forty nine feet high keep and an impressive three story gatehouse. Sitting in the landscape, it looks like a dominating military fortress, primed for an attack on the borders. However, we quickly discovered that the castle was in fact also built for domestic bliss. Dr Carolyn Donohue informed us that c.1397 Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, started work on the castle to improve the accommodation for his growing family (twenty-two children in all). He also built plenty of rooms on the first floor for important guests to stay in, including Henry IV, who visited the castle in 1410.

Of course, Middleham Castle is more famous for being the childhood home of King Richard III, which probably explains the dark cloud which always seems to hang above Middleham. Richard lived in the castle from 1465, when he was thirteen, and left in 1468. His son Edward was born at Middleham in 1474 and possibly died there, age ten. Despite this being the focus for most tourists visiting Middleham we learnt that Middleham Castle had a long and rich history long before Richard III lived there.

After lunch in the historic market town of Richmond, we visited Richmond Castle. Unlike Middleham, Richmond Castle is visible for miles around thanks to the thoroughly captivating one hundred feet tall keep which utterly dominates the landscape around it. We learnt that the windows in second floor of the keep could have been the windows from which the lord of the castle would issue declarations to the townspeople.

Once inside the castle walls, it is clear how open and light the space within the castle would have been. Within the curtain walls, there is a mostly open space overlooking the town and the river. There would have been more buildings at the height of the castle’s use but it still would have had a considerable amount of open space.

After we learnt about the castle’s history, we were allowed to explore the castle and we climbed the hundreds of steps up to the top of the keep from which the town of Richmond and miles of surrounding countryside can be seen. It is clear once more just how visible the castle would have been to contemporaries and how important this would have made it. Richmond Castle would’ve served as a financial and administrative centre for the market town which built up around it.

Seeing the castles up close and experiencing what they would have been like at the time for ourselves has been critical for our understanding of how they functioned in medieval society. It really puts our learning into perspective. For this opportunity, we must thank Dr Carolyn Donohue and Anthony Smart for taking us on this trip and allowing us to expand our learning and knowledge.

Encountering Monastic Solitude and Cloistered Grandeur at Mount Grace and Rievaulx

In this post, first-year student Charlotte Fothergill shares her experience of visiting Mount Grace Priory and Rievaulx Abbey as part of the module The Visible Past.

The module, The Visible Past, instantly drew me in as it is nothing like any of my other modules. It not only allows you to learn about the sites which dominated the medieval landscape but enables you to fully immerse yourself in the experiences of contemporaries. Our trips to both Mount Grace Priory and Rievaulx Abbey allowed us to use our knowledge from the lectures to analyse developments from their original foundations. The trip to Mount Grace was a first for the module but I believe it was a good decision as it allowed us to see differences between the monastic times. Going to Rievaulx after Mount Grace shows the natures of two monasteries, how over time they became centres of wealth and power rather than places of isolation and seclusion.

In true British fashion, the day began with heavy rain, for which I had come very prepared, with two pairs of shoes. Although, this resulted in the most challenging task of having to change from walking boots into vans, whilst restrained to a coach seat. I felt so badly for my friend Lucy sat beside me, as I would not sit still. So, some words of wisdom, change your shoes (if you need to) at the Uni.

Once we arrived at Mount Grace, in keeping with ‘the visible past’ tradition, Dr Carolyn Donohue took our group photo in front of the abbey. This was followed by an overview of Mount Grace by our lecturer Anthony Smart. This ensured that we understood the most prominent parts of the abbey, such as the church and the cloister, so that we could visualise the ruins as if they were fully intact. After this, we were able to look around the ruins ourselves, for which we filled in a worksheet and took photos for our portfolio. Although you can see the A19 from the ruins, in the middle-ages this monastery was very isolated with a surrounding forest and being high up on the moors.

I am glad that our lecturers chose to attend Mount Grace first, as it feels as if you’re travelling through history, from an age that focuses on isolation and devotion to one focused on power and wealth. Once at Rievaulx Abbey, Anthony’s explanation of the church gave us a detailed understanding of the hierarchies within a monastery, as the closer a religious figure was to the altar, the more power they had. Once again, we were able to explore the site ourselves. What was very prominent at Rievaulx was the changes in the stonework from the earlier construction to the later. This enabled us to read the developments in the visible remains and to understand how the abbey changed over time.

I would very much suggest that you take as many photos as you can, as it is true what they say, a ‘picture paints a thousand words’. Primarily they helped me to remember everything I had seen. With this said, I would also recommend purchasing the guidebooks from the gift shops, as they also help to build a deeper understanding of the site over its history.

A special thanks to Dr Carolyn Donohue and Anthony Smart for leading this trip. Finally in the words of last year’s blog writer, ‘It was amazing to apply our knowledge from the classroom to reality’.

Light, literacy and learning at All Saints, North Street

York boasts a fabulous collection of medieval stained glass offering a remarkable insight into the hopes, fears and preoccupations of citizens over 600 years ago. Second year students had the opportunity to get out of the classroom and study the very special collection of windows at All Saints, North Street this month. Summer O’Brien shares her experience.

For one of our modules, Plague, Piety and Power: Europe 1300-1550, we were extremely lucky to visit and experience All Saints, North Street. The church holds a special, fragile collection, which is one of York’s most prized stained glass. Not only does this church still function as a place for worship after nearly 1000 years but it also has some amazing pieces of historical art which influenced all of our thoughts and feelings on late 14^th and 15^th century society, and how particular people played a part in social functions and roles.

As we approached All Saints North Street it was clearly evident that the church itself held fascinating stories within its walls. It is a building of deep-rooted feeling and connection to religion, not only because it is a church; it shocked us all how detailed and artistic the building is. This place of worship is definitely different to others.

We walked through the church doors into the main centre of the building itself. As we sat down on the pews, the intricate details of the church itself left me speechless. From the very top of the church to the bottom, each and every section was handled with care, precision and preservation. It really conveys York’s medieval history and the importance of religion within our city and to those in medieval society.

As we moved around the stained glass windows, each individual section told a story. Not only a religious story, but also a story of how this church was important in medieval times. The sun was beaming through the stained glass and projected the most beautiful array of colours onto the church floor. This was the point at which I noticed how important stained glass really is. Not only does it project a story, it is there as an image of beauty and art!

One of the most famous displays of medieval stained glass in the British Isles we were able to feast our eyes on was the ‘Pricke of Conscience’ window. Situated next to the Virgin Mary, the placing of this window offered a way to ‘save your soul’ before the world ends, as depicted in the imagery. This particular window itself really attracted me, not only because of its beauty but also because of its placement in the Lady Chapel. It was intriguing to learn that each window was removed during the Second World War for preservation.

The windows show how change can occur throughout time itself. In some windows different colours such as pink, painted in during the Victorian period, highlight this. It shows how religion was still a key theme of society and preserving these stained glass windows was extremely important to people as different societies and times came and went.

One of the other windows that struck my attention was the Great East window, centrally placed in the middle of the east end of the church. The donors shown on the window, the Blakburn family, clearly emphasise that the women of their family were educated as they are seen reading in the window itself. This shows the importance of female literacy in medieval society, contrasting with the idea that all women were uneducated and incapable of reading. The donors of this window clearly wanted to place emphasis on their learning!

All of the stained glass in the church makes it really special and studying this allowed us to all broaden our minds and understand medieval society in new ways, including the emphasis on religion and conspicuous piety.

We were lucky and fortunate enough to enjoy this experience as a whole class and I would like to give a big thank you to the All Saints North Street church and their lovely staff, but to also give a massive thank you to Dr Carolyn Donohue for organising such an amazing eye-opening experience!

Cottonopolis and the Battle for the Ballot

In this post, third-year history student Catriona McKell writes about her recent trip to the Science and Industry Museum and the People’s History Museum in Manchester as part of the module 3HI505 Early Victorian England.

‘It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but, as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another.’

Dickens’s description of Coketown in Hard Times is supposedly inspired by Victorian Manchester. On a trip to Manchester, students taking the History third-year module ‘Early Victorian England’, along with English Literature students at York St John University, got to experience this Dickensian picture of a Victorian city for themselves. The Science and Industry Museum proved useful in our studies as we investigated Manchester’s past as ‘Cottonopolis’ (City of Cotton), and the global link cotton brought to Manchester.

The ‘Textiles Gallery’ in the Great Western Warehouse allowed us to see the machines that once made Manchester’s cotton world-famous, with a pre-lunchtime demonstration given by the museum showing us how the cotton was processed to make cloth. Whilst we only watched one of every machine, in a real factory there would be more than one floor with different rooms for the steps needed for the process. The noise just from one of these machines was loud enough, but to have several was so loud that workers used to have their own sign language known as Meemaw. What was more shocking was the fact that little children over the age of 5 were sent as scavengers underneath the working machinery to clean the floor and machine. The number of seconds they had to do this before obtaining a serious injury was beyond dangerous.

These offered some insight into the life conditions of factory workers at the time, a topic further explored in our visit to the People’s History Museum after lunch.

Some of the machines used to process the cotton into cloth at the Science and Industry museum.

Stamps for Cotton cloth to show the provenance of cotton  

The People’s History Museum also proved very useful in gaining information for our module, ‘Early Victorian England’.  The museum displayed numerous interactive screens and objects to explain how voting worked during the Victorian period and into the 21st century.

Chartism is one of the topics covered by the third-year module 3HI505 on the social history of Early Victorian England. The period saw the government run by property-owning men, limiting how much the working- class men (and women!) had on the politics of the country, and indeed how they led their lives. Disappointed by the Great reform Act of 1832, the Chartists looked to further reform the electoral system of the time to ensure that working-class lives would improve.

One of the documents on display at the museum was a poster by a Chartist leader, Henry Vincent, who was also a Member of Parliament. This proved particularly interesting as not only was this primary source an insight into local chartist history but also showed that the Chartists were not just from the working class.

The information that I have gained from both museums has allowed me to get a clearer picture of what life was like for society in the working period but also gave me a reminder of how much Britain benefited from the slave trade, the institution of slavery, and the commerce of colonial goods.

It was an enjoyable trip, and I would thoroughly recommend it to future students!