Festive flora at Gressenhall

Mistletoe (Viscum): A parasitic plant that grows on many of the apple trees in the museum’s orchard

The Word ‘mistletoe’ comes from the (old English mistiltan). It may come from the German word Mist which means dung and Tang for branch, since mistletoe can be spread from the droppings of birds as the move from tree to tree.
In pre-Christian societies across Europe, mistletoe was seen as a representation of divine male essence and thus a symbol of fertility and vitality. The mistletoe used today in celebrations is thought to be the same type used by the ancient druids in their sacred rituals. Indeed they held the plant Viscum album to be holy.
With the arrival of Christianity this pagan belief like so many others was incorporated in to new religion. The earliest documented case of kissing under the mistletoe during the Christmas season dates from the 16th century in England, a custom that was very popular at the time. According to an old Christmas custom a man and a woman who meet under a hanging of mistletoe were obliged to kiss. The custom may be of Scandinavian origin.

Holly (Ilex aquifolium): A prickly evergreen associated with Christmas.

European Holly (Gaelic: cuileann) was sacred to the druids who associated it with the winter solstice and wore wreaths of it on their heads. For the Romans, holly was considered the plant of Saturn (Jupiter) king of their gods. European Holly has always been traditionally had a strong association with Christmas. In heraldry holly is meant to symbolize truth. Henry VIII wrote a love song “Green growth the holly” which alludes to holly and ivy resisting winter blasts and not changing their hue “So I am and ever hath been unto my lady true”….or so he said?
In the extremely popular and best-selling Harry Potter novels, holly is used as the wood in the titular character’s wand.

Between the 13th and 18th centuries before the introduction of turnips holly was cultivated for use as winter fodder for cattle and sheep. The less spiny varieties of holly were preferred, and in practice the leaves growing near the top of the tree have far fewer spines making them more suitable for fodder.
Holly wreaths are often part of the Christmas traditions, as is the popular carol The Holly and the Ivy.

Chestnut tree (Castanea sativa): the provider of chestnuts a traditional Christmas food.

The roasting of chestnuts goes back centuries, when people turned up the heat on these nuts for more than just festive fare. Chestnuts became a staple in the mountainous regions around the Mediterranean Sea thousands of years ago, in part because most cereal grains couldn’t grow in these areas. These flavourful nuts are low in fat, high in fibre and full of vitamins and minerals. Evidence of its cultivation by man is found since around 2000 B.C. Alexander the Great and the Romans planted chestnut trees across Europe whilst on various campaigns. The Greek army is said to have survived their retreat from Asia Minor in 401-399 B.C. thanks to their store of chestnuts. Dioscorides and Galen, wrote of chestnuts to comment on their medicinal properties – and of the flatulence induced by eating too many of them.
Roasting sweetens the nut’s raw, bitter flavour, which could also help explain its history of being eaten around Christmas when celebrations usually involve eating sweet things.
There doesn’t seem to be any consensus on when and where people began the tradition. Early Christians believed the nut symbolized chastity, which, although that theme does not tie in directly to Christmas, does to religion. Some historians say that roasting chestnuts dates back to the 16th century, when vendors sold them on the streets of Rome. Other scholars put their debut in Portugal for St. Martin’s Day, and in Modena, Italy for St. Simon’s Day.

Scott Tampin, Heritage Gardening Trainee

A Proper Winter!

As a Heritage Gardening Trainee under the Skills For The Future programme, you have to be prepared for all kinds of weather, and having previously worked as a coppicer in ancient woodlands, I have experienced some pretty harsh conditions in my time. That said this winter has been pretty darn cold! It’s been like the winters I’ve heard so much about from those of a more ‘advanced’ age.

Working one day a week at the National Trust’s Peckover House in Wisbech, I’ve experienced some very chilly early morning drives along the A47 – not my favourite road at the best of times! It’s often been dark and cold, but when you’re greeted by the sight of Peckover’s garden under a fresh blanket of snow or still in the grip of an overnight frost, it somehow seems worth it. Sometimes the cold means you simply can’t do a lot gardening-wise, but that’s when you disappear for the day into the machine shed to service lawn mowers, scarifiers, aerators and chippers. In gardening you quickly realise that there’s always something to be getting on with.

One recent job at Peckover was the annual pruning of some long-established apple trees. Again it was a bitterly cold day, spent halfway up a metal ladder – hard on the fingers – trying to remove all the unwanted top growth and maximise the fruit crop for the coming season. Despite the conditions, it was a lot of fun. Gaining a better understanding of how to grow and care for fruit is one of my key areas of interest during my year, so this was all good experience.

I am now over the halfway point of my traineeship and revelling in the variety of opportunities still coming my way. In the past month alone I have been able to attend a Garden Organic event on unusual vegetables, met many of Gressenhall’s Friends and Passholders, attend a two-day garden design course, carry out some more hedge laying, learn more about orchard management at Oxburgh Hall, do some coppicing at Houghton Hall and attend a course on growing fruit in school grounds at Ormiston Victory Academy. All this, in addition to the regular work at Gressenhall and Peckover and working two days a week at a local primary school, means that my diary is rarely empty! That’s just how I like it. Being busy with a variety of jobs, places and activities becomes addictive.

As I write, the days are getting longer and the gardens are slowly coming back to life. This winter is not quite ready to let go entirely however! One Tuesday I found myself working in shirt sleeves in warm sunshine, the following Tuesday we had intermittent blizzards and biting easterly winds. Such are the conditions in a world with an increasingly unpredictable climate, and something we all may have to get used to in the years ahead. I can’t help but wonder what sort of summer we’re going to have.

Michael Jordan

Winter on the Farm

Winter on the Farm

Hannah and I have finally thawed out from the freezing cold and are enjoy the somewhat tropical temperature of 10 degrees down at Gressenhall farm. As I didn’t last time, I shall take a few words to introduce myself, my name is Tom Watson and I am the other half of the Heritage Landscape Management trainee team. We are now four months through the scheme and are still thoroughly enjoying it! Like Hannah, I am an Environmental Science graduate from the University of East Anglia and I have a keen interest in the history of the UK’s landscape and the environment. I have previously worked on a farm and my most of family are linked to agriculture in some way. And so when this traineeship at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse became available it seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to gain skills to help me build a future in an area that I am truly interested in.

The Snow! This may come as no surprise but the considerable amount of snow we have had in the past couple of weeks greatly reduced our ability to perform a lot of conservation work. Our priority during the snow was to care for the animals and so we spend most of our time making sure everyone was fed, watered and in good health. This often involved taking a sledge hammer on the feeding rounds just to break the ice in the water troughs! Even though it was hard work at times it was a nice change to experience trying to work in such conditions. It also provided some lovely photos, of which there are many…

Even with all the snow we still managed to get the chainsaws out. We took the opportunity to cut up a large ash tree that had blown over in the water meadows a couple of months before. There won’t be any shortage of firewood next year!

Hannah undertakes her weekly placement with the Hawk and Owl Trust at Sculthorpe moor while I am working with the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s woodland team at Foxley Wood. On my placement we work in a specified block of woodland that needs to be coppiced, this involves cutting the trees down, removing any wood that can be used for poles or binders and burning any excess material that is left over. I have also had the opportunity to go over to the NWT’s reserve at Holt to inspect their ponies and repair the fences on site. It is always very interesting going on placement and seeing how such an established organisation performs conservation work on a large scale. I learn a lot every time I go and I am looking forward to undertaking all of my other future placements.

Even though the snow has been a bit tricky to work around for the past couple of weeks, work on our projects still progresses. The boardwalk leading from the farm to the river is entering its final stages and should be completed and fully non-slip for half term.

The work we do with Alison Marchant towards our Level 2 diploma in Environmental Conservation continues well. We have had lots of opportunities to practice our hedgelaying and we are now moving onto advanced training, which will give us the knowledge to be able to lay more difficult and complex hedges. We were also able to clean out the bird and owl boxes around the farm and make sure that the cameras inside them are all working. With this done we can see inside them and hopefully see some eggs hatching!

We have also been able to go on a couple more training courses that have allowed us to get on and help out more around the Farm and Museum. Before Christmas we had a two day tractor training course and before the snow hit we undertook a wood chipper course. These were both very interesting and helpful to me and Hannah and have given us even more skills and qualifications that we can take away with us at the end of our traineeships. It also meant that we could finally clear out the museums compost heap so that it can start fresh!

In the next few weeks myself, Hannah and all of the others down at Gressenhall Farm will be working to make the site ready for the first opening of this year at February half term. Something which we are all looking forward to!

Tom and Hannah   

   

Hedgelaying course

Here’s an update from one of the Skills of the Future trainees about a recent SHARE training course they attended:

Up until a day or two before the course started I didn’t have clue what hedge laying was. I thought it was basically hedge planting. The actual day it’s self was very educational and fun.

Allison of ‘Huxleyhedges’ began the day with a classroom introduction using work sheets, models and powerpoint to explain a little about her background, the tools and principles involved. After completing the theory side of our training we went out in to the field.

The hedge we would be laying had been prepared for us and all we had to do was concentrate on the actual cutting of the main stem/trunk and lay it. Sounds simple? I butchered my first one! The second one went a lot better and the third better again. By the end of the day I felt a lot more confident.

One thing I have learnt is that swinging the ‘billhook’, a big cleaver/chopper type thing is definitely a way to build up the bi-ceps! I am really looking forward to my next training day.

Scott Tampin,
Skills for the Future
Heritage Gardening Apprentice.

 

 

Happy New Year!

Here’s hoping that 2013 will be a fantastic year for us all.

To dust off the January blues over on our facebook and twitter pages we are celebrating all things Gressenhall with an A-Z. Each day we are posting photos and facts to do with that days letter. So far C was the busiest day standing for Curators, Cherry Tree Cottage, Chapel, Collections, Chairs and Clocks!

Please come and join us and let us know your suggestions!

St Nicks Barn – Deep Clean

Well, we’re getting really stuck into our winter jobs here at Gressenhall now that we’re closed (we’re open during February Half Term and then open again from March 10th 2013!)

Lauren, Curatorial Assistant is planning a refresh of the displays in St Nicks Barn down on the farm. First step is to do a big clean. This is really important and is a chance to get ‘up close and personal’ with the collections. It is a good opportunity to lookout for anything that is wrong such as signs of pests or damage. But it also means we can look out for any interesting information and features of the objects (which are a much more welcome find than any pests!)

We move the large objects out to the middle and dust them all individually with brushes. We are also using scaffolding to get up high and clean the objects, mesh, walls and ceiling. Volunteers and staff from around the site are getting involved.