Godalming Museum Gertrude Jekyll ~ Old West Surrey Loan
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Godalming Museum Gertrude Jekyll ~ Old West Surrey Loan Box Contents: 1. Gertrude Jekyll and Old West Surrey .......................................................................................p 1 - 2 2. Notes on the objects in the box ....................................................................................................p 3 - 5 3. Places to visit ...................................................................................................................................... p 6 - 7 1. Gertrude Jekyll and Old West Surrey Gertrude Jekyll (pronounced to rhyme with treacle) was born in 1843 in London but moved to Bramley at the age of five. The youngest daughter in a wealthy family, she was educated at home, developing a great love of west Surrey and a fascination with its landscape, architecture and people. As a young woman, Gertrude Jekyll trained as an artist and she moved in intellectual and artistic circles. Her family left Bramley to live in Berkshire, but on the death of her father, Gertrude and her mother returned to west Surrey, to Munstead. Here Gertrude Jekyll developed the garden which was to become so well known and commissioned a young architect, Edwin Lutyens, to build Munstead Wood. She had a long and successful career as a garden designer and author. She died at Munstead in 1932 and her grave stone in Busbridge churchyard, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, is engraved “artist, gardener, craftswoman”. In 1904 Gertrude Jekyll published a fascinating study of the local area, called “Old West Surrey”. It was the result of years of research, much of it ahead of its time, including interviews with older residents, records of dialect words and local sayings and the collection and detailed investigation of a wide range of objects. The book is very well illustrated with photographs taken by Miss Jekyll herself (she had a dark room to develop the photographs at Munstead Wood). Old West Surrey begins with Gertrude Jekyll’s motivation for writing the book: 1 “So many and so great have been the changes within the last half-century that I have thought it desirable to note, while it may yet be done, what I can remember of the ways and lives and habitations of the older people of the working class of the country I have lived in almost continuously ever since I was a young child.” It is a highly readable book, though naturally written for adults. Children might particularly enjoy p 180 – 183, where Gertrude Jekyll copies out an autobiography written by an elderly friend: “it was all written in capital letters with a dot carefully put between each word. For all its odd childishness there was something about it that seemed to give so pleasant an idea of the simple happiness and contentment of rural life in the early nineteenth century”. Gertrude Jekyll describes samplers (p95 – 99) the work children did on the farms (p184), their behaviour and games (p184) and how they were dressed (p 199 – 200). Chapter 18 is all about smugglers. This loan box contains a copy of Old West Surrey, a copy of the Shire book about Gertrude Jekyll, a booklet “Lutyens in Waverley” and a selection of objects similar to those featured in Old West Surrey. PLEASE HANDLE THE OBJECTS WITH CARE – THEY ARE ALL MUSEUM PIECES AND OF GREAT HISTORICAL VALUE – THANK YOU 2 2. Notes on the objects in the Box The Mousetrap ~ “Home made mouse traps were in general use” Gertrude Jekyll illustrates three different hand made mouse traps on p56 of Old West Surrey. You might also like to look at her pictures of, and notes on, a rick-settle (p21) and a granary (p29), both raised on pillars with “rat-proof caps of stone or oak” and the granary with a hole in the door for the cat. OBJECT OLD WEST SURREY PAGE REFERENCE Mouse trap p 56 Lighting ~ “Procuring and maintaining artificial light” Gertrude Jekyll, writing in 1904, says “In these days of cheap matches and lamps for mineral oil, one can hardly realise the troubles and difficulties in the way of procuring and maintaining artificial light for the long dark mornings and evenings of nearly half the year, that prevailed among the cottage folk not a hundred years ago.” People who lived in the town of Godalming had had gas lights since 1830 and electric light briefly in 1881 and then from 1902. However Miss Jekyll was writing about people who lived in the surrounding villages and in the countryside, who did not have access to the same services (in some cases until after the Second World War). Nowadays all we have to do is flick a switch! Gertrude Jekyll describes the process of making rush-lights, quoting the 90 year old lady she had interviewed who remembered her mother preparing the rushes. She describes how to use a flint and steel to “strike a light” and reports what an elderly friend has told her about what makes the best tinder. You can see from the wear on the steel in this box how much use it has had. Please don’t use this flint and tinder to try to get a spark! These are museum objects and will not survive this without damage. The little clockwork toy in the loan box demonstrates the principle – steel points rub against the silica coated sand paper and strike sparks. The toy will run around the floor if wound up and let go, or you can hold it by the handle and let it spin around. A cigarette lighter works in the same way. 3 Note the slider on the side of the kitchen candlestick, so that every last piece of the candle can be used. OBJECT OLD WEST SURREY PAGE REFERENCE Rush light and candle holder p80 - 85 Tinder box (containing flint, steel, damper and p85 – 86 tinder) “Strike a light” toy Candle stick p88 – 91 Snuffers and tray p91 Leather harvest bottle ~ “The mower’s drinks were many and his wholesome drink was much” Gertrude Jekyll describes how the mowers bringing in the harvest began work at daylight and had five meal breaks. By Gertrude Jekyll’s time, their beer or cider was carried in wooden harvest barrels but she also describes and illustrates the earlier leather harvest bottles, like the one in this box, which dated back to Tudor or Jacobean days. She explains that some of these have survived because they were subsequently used to hold cart grease so that the leather became saturated with grease and wood tar. To turn the leather bottles into grease holders, a square was cut out of one side, and this has been done to the example in the box. OBJECT OLD WEST SURREY PAGE REFERENCE Leather harvest bottle p146 – 150 Steel-yard ~ “Every farm had its steel-yard, the usual appliance for weighing” PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS OBJECT, WITH A HEAVY WEIGHT AND SHARP POINTS TO THE HOOKS. USE IT WITH CARE, PERHAPS JUST TO DEMONSTRATE, AND NEVER WITHOUT CLOSE SUPERVISION. I have included it because of the opportunities it offers for weighing and measuring and because it is a reminder that farming has always been a business as well as a way of life. Gertrude Jekyll gives a clear description of how the steel-yard was used. 4 a. Suspend the yard by the single hook above the pointer (shaped like a club in a pack of cards). The steel-yard is intended to weigh heavy items and is no light weight itself – you will need a strong suspension point. Originally there were two of these hooks, one over each pointer, enabling the steel-yard to be used both ways up, accommodating a wider range of weights, however this example has lost one of these hooks so can only be used one way up. b. Attach the item to be weighed to the double hooks (Gertrude Jekyll shows a sack of potatoes, suspended by the rope tying up the neck) c. Attach the weight to the small hook on the bar. The bar has a scale marked on it (though it is hard to see under the rust) OBJECT OLD WEST SURREY PAGE REFERENCE Steel-yard and detachable weight p155 – 156 5 3. Places to visit: Godalming Museum: to see paintings by Gertrude Jekyll and examples of her craftwork. The museum garden follows Gertrude Jekyll’s design for a border in a garden in Bramley. You can also see the banner for the Godalming Branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, designed by Miss Jekyll who was Vice President of the branch. Memorabilia on display includes Gertrude Jekyll’s gardening boots and her garden fork. You can also see examples of the work of her friends and contemporaries, Mary Watts and Helen Allingham. Examples of many of the types of object illustrated in Old West Surrey (from a wooden grave board to a man trap) are on display. The museum’s local studies library (open afternoons only) houses Gertrude Jekyll’s original planting notebooks, copies of many of her garden designs, and a wide range of books by and about her. Entry: free Open: Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm (4 pm in winter) Contact: 01483 426 510 or [email protected] Oakhurst Cottage: a National Trust property in Hambledon which is an example of the kind of home Gertrude Jekyll describes in Old West Surrey Entry: £2.50 - £3.00 (child), £5.00 - £6.00 (adult) (2016 prices) Open: April – Oct. Pre-booking is essential, due to the small size of the cottage. Contact: 01483 208936 or [email protected] Guildford Museum: which houses Miss Jekyll’s collection, which she donated to the Surrey Archaeological Society in 1907. 2019 note: Guildford Museum is undergoing redevelopment – so contact them before visiting to check the collection Is on display Entry: Free Open: Mondays to Saturdays, 11am - 5pm.