theGUIDE

SPRING 2016 A GUIDE TO BRITAIN FROM BRITAIN’S BEST GUIDES

THE REAL BEALE

ACTOR SIMON RUSSELL BEALE ON SHAKESPEARE

THE STORY OF BRITISH THEATRE • OSCAR WILDE IN LONDON • THE RUINED ABBEYS OF YORKSHIRE • LEGENDS, LIES AND LORE

16 4 4MyFavourite… 34 Tour deForce 26 PlayOn 16 Legends, Lies andLore 14 Interview 8 4News British GuildofTourist Guides©2016 Publisher: Editorial Assistance: E: [email protected] Editor: Email: theguide association for BlueBadgeGuides(thehighest guidingqualification inBritain.) national the This magazineisproduced by theBritishGuildofTourist Guides – Contents NLN ODNWLSNORTHERN WALES LONDON ENGLAND a classic view ofCambridge Blue BadgeGuidesonenginehouses,skate nightsand Wilde’s life inLondonandtheabbeys ofNorthYorkshire Two BlueBadgeguidestell usabouttheirtours: Oscar looks atthehistory ofBritishtheatre Marc Zakian Comedy, tragedy andfightinginthestalls – Fact andfictionfrom Britishhistory playing Shakespeare Actor SimonRussell Beale onthechallenges of romantic intrigue Blue Plaques;pioneeringphotography; QueenVictoria’s Shakespeare’s 400thanniversary; 150years ofLondon’s Marc Zakian @ Mark King blue-badge.org.uk •www.britainsbestguides.org 30 IRELAND 8 Blueprint Travel MediaT: +441743 231135 Display advertising: W: www.mypec.co.uk T: +44 113 257 9646 MYPEC Design andprint: CTADGREENBADGE SCOTLAND

ISSN: 2053-0439 take you ononeofthetoursyou’ve read about. hope you willbookaBlueBadge touristguideto stunning historiclandscapeIurge you tovisit. a visitto Yorkshire’s ruinedmonasteries, a time forSpring, guideSarah Cowlingtakesuson fascinating insightintotasteand fashions. should behonoured andthatinitselfgivesa The Deanof Westminster Abbey chooseswho few whowere great oncebutnowlongforgotten. Valhalla formany ofourgreatest writersanda after hisdeath. Transept of Westminster Abbey inthe1990s, long the beautifuleast-facingwindowofSouth playwrights. Wilde’s memorialwas onlyaddedto now acknowledgedasoneofourmostloved Thompson takesyou onawalk withOscar Wilde, of stage. uncovered inMarc Zakian’s articleonthehistory our world-class theatre culture. All thisis well asnotableproductions thathave established with storiesofourgreat actorsandwriters, as fascination fortheBard. tells usabouthispreparation fortherole andhis season. Inaninterview withSophieCampbell, he production of playing Prospero thisNovember intheRSC’s all measure. has beenenrichedandstretched beyond Rhetoric hestudiedthere, ourEnglishlanguage and Guildhall. Drawing ontheClassicsand to visitorsofyoung Shakespeare’s schoolroom in thiscommemorative year willbetheopening by thegreat manhimself. As excitingasanything touch themulberry tree saidtohave beenplanted being withtoomany touristswanting toseeand that oncebelongedtoShakespeare, hisirritation Place’s ownerdeliberately pulleddownthehouse exhibition atNew Place–hisfinalhome. passing inaseriesofevents thatincludeanew willbemarkinghis hispresumed birthday – 23 – Stratford-upon-Avon, where hediedon April anniversary since William Shakespeare’s death. whole country willbemarkingthe400th issue isdedicatedtotheatre, asthisyear the Welcome totheSpringissueof TO ‘THEGUIDE’... A WARM WELCOME If you have beeninspired by ourmagazine, I And talkingoffinereligious buildings, justin Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey isa In thisissue, BlueBadgeguide, David We explore thewideraspects ofBritishdrama The great actorSimonRussellBealewillbe I finditironic thatinthe18thcentury New The Tempest British GuildofTourist Guides Philippa Owen, Chairto the in the ‘Shakespeare 400’ The Guide . This 3 NEWS History, Culture and Events

New Place Yo u r Bard This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare in Stratford. Shakespeare’s death. Stratford-upon-Avon – The site of New Place – Shakespeare’s the town where he was born, schooled, died Stratford home that was demolished in 1759 and is buried – is celebrating the writer with by irascible clergyman Francis Gastrell – is a series of projects. being re-displayed for the anniversary. The In April, the Schoolroom and Guildhall foundations of the kitchens and cellars will will open. The 15th century Guildhall has be on view for the first time and the sunken been restored with a lottery grant, providing Knot Garden will be restored to the original Henrietta Ferguson, Blue Badge Guide public access to the schoolroom where design alongside the Great Garden. Opening young William learned to read and write. in June, this attraction features a dynamic BLUE BADGE An exhibition will detail Tudor school life, new exhibition that follows Shakespeare’s evoking the writer’s own image of the life in his Stratford home. TOURIST GUIDES schoolboy ‘creeping like a snail unwillingly For a Blue Badge Shakespeare Blue Badge Tourist Guides are the official, to school’. The public opening provides tour in Stratford visit: professional tourist guides of the United the missing link in the story of William www.britainsbestguides.org Kingdom – recognised by the local tourist bodies and VisitBritain. The Blue Badge is the UK’s highest guiding qualification, awarded only after extensive training and thorough examination. There are over 1000 Blue Badge Guides in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – each region has its own badge. We guide in all the UK’s major tourist attractions, as well as its cities and countryside. The Blue Badge is the qualification of excellence in heritage guiding. In 2014 Guild guides

worked with over Shakespeare’s Schoolroom & Guildhall 1.5 million UK visitors A PICTURE OF THE PAST London’s Science Museum is telling the The British Guild of Tourist Guides story of William Henry Fox Talbot, a pioneer is the national association of Britain’s Blue of photography. The exhibition charts the life Badge guides. Since its foundation in 1950, of the man who, during the 1830s, created the Guild has dedicated itself to raising the first working photographic negative, as and maintaining the highest professional well as inventing the science of developing standards. and printing images. Our guides work in the UK’s museums, By drawing on one of the world’s most galleries, churches and lead walking, comprehensive and important collections of cycling and driver-guided tours throughout Talbot’s work, this exhibition tells the story of the country. Our members work in over how photography was born and how it 30 different languages. If it can be guided, changed the way we see the world. we will guide it. Fox Talbot: Dawn of the Photograph at the Science Museum from April 20 to September To find out more or to book: Fox Talbot, 1846 11. You can also visit his family home and +44 207 403 1115 [email protected] © National Media Museum, Bradford museum at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. www.britainsbestguides.org

4 from around the UK A Sign of the Times This year marks the 150th anniversary of London’s Blue Plaque scheme. In 1866 the Royal Society of Arts started to place commemorative plaques on buildings across ITV’S YOUNG VIC the capital. The roundels are now part of the urban landscape, highlighting famous but A national broadcaster is filming an newly opened Yorkshire Studios. Exterior unlikely neighbours: Jimi Hendrix lived next ambitious eight-part drama following the locations include the grand 18th century door to GF Handel (separated by one wall early life of Queen Victoria. The series stately home, Castle Howard and the and three centuries) while George Bernard follows the monarch from her accession to minster school yard in York. Shaw and Virginia Woolf both lived at the the throne aged 18, through to her The series will air later this year on ITV, same address a few years apart. courtship and marriage to Prince Albert. opening with a 90-minute special and The oldest surviving plaque dates from Jenna Coleman, best known for her followed by seven one-hour episodes. 1867, commemorating Emperor Napoleon starring role in Dr Who, takes the part of Based on the diaries Victoria kept as a III on his former residence in King Street, Victoria. The early episodes explore the teenager, according to producers it will Westminster. The oldest plaque to a woman queen’s relationship with the raffish Prime ‘explore the scandal, corruption and is for writer Fanny Burney, whose 1885 Minister, Lord Melbourne (played by Rufus romantic intrigue, involving everyone from plaque is at 11 Bolton Street, Mayfair. There Sewell). Their close relationship became a the humblest dresser to the Mistress of the are now more than 800 commemorations popular source of gossip that threatened to Robes, the lowliest bootboy to the Lord across the capital. destabilise the Government. Chamberlain’. ITV are hoping that it will be It is the first drama to be filmed in the the popular successor to Downton Abbey. English Heritage took over the running of the London Blue Plaque scheme in 1986. There was a pause in 2013 due to government cuts, but now the scheme survives thanks to donations. Nominations for recognition come from members of the public. English Heritage is marking the anniversary with a series of events on May 7 and 8. Tour London’s Blue Plaques with a Blue Badge Guide: www.britainsbestguides.org

Castle Howard

5 News

Costume Drama Seventh-generation family boss, Tim Angel At this year’s BAFTA ceremony, the professional costume house in the Frankenstein he couldn’t do a fitting, award for Outstanding British world. Their giant warehouse in north so he sent over a body cast. Contribution to Cinema went to London boasts eight miles of rails, The company is led by its seventh- world’s oldest theatrical and film storing one million items of clothing generation family boss, Tim Angel. costumier, Angels. that has featured in famous films, Two decades ago he opened a fancy Morris Angel opened his second- including: James Bond, Star Wars, dress store on Shaftsbury Avenue, hand clothing and tailor’s shop near Pirates of the Caribbean, and close to Morris’s original tailor shop. Covent Garden in 1840. Its proximity Harry Potter. Some of the items hired to the public to London’s theatres made it popular For Shakespeare in Love, Angels are from original film stock, so party with actors – who at that time had to dressed over a thousand extras in goers can find themselves wearing buy their own costumes. When a Elizabethan costumes. During the original outfits from the Spice Girls thrift-minded thespian came in hoping filming of Evita Madonna became Movie or Kevin Costner’s jerkin from to ‘borrow’ some clothes, a theatrical pregnant, and they had to remodel her Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. hiring business was born. dresses to cover up the bump. When Apparently politicians and royalty are 175 years later, Angels is the largest Robert De Niro was playing regular customers.

Inspirational home of the Brontë family

Set against the stunning Yorkshire moors, the Brontë Parsonage Museum houses the world’s largest collection of Brontë manuscripts, furniture and personal possessions. Visits by groups of 10+ can be tailored to suit a particular interest. Please contact us and we will be happy to suggest a talk, walk or special tour that will bring your visit to life.

OUR 2016 EXHIBITION: Charlotte Great and Small During 2016 we will be marking the bicentenary of the birth of Charlotte Brontë with a special exhibition curated by best-selling author Tracy Chevalier. This will be supported by a full programme of other celebratory events. Keep in touch with the latest news at www.bronte.org.uk.

Haworth, Keighley West Yorkshire BD22 8DR 01535 642323 www.bronte.org.uk Open November-March 10am-5pm daily, April-October 10am-5.30pm. Last tickets sold 30 minutes before closing. Closed during January. Honorary Patron: Sarah Lancashire Reg Charity: 529952 Reg Company: 73855

6 10 Gr sci

Spons Interview: Simon Russell Beale Interview:

Beale in King Lear at the National Theatre

www.britainsbestguides.org © Mark Douet/ArenaPal 8 Actor Simon Russell Beale talks to Sophie Campbell about his passion for the Bard SIMON’S SHAKESPEARE

“I don’t know exactly how The Tempest “Actually, I find The Tempest a very is going to work,” said Simon Russell cold play,” he remarks. “I think it Beale, “I must give the director a ring.” reflects Prospero as a control freak, The actor, who so effortlessly high-handed to say the least. commands the massive stage of the Shakespeare was dealing with old age, Olivier and holds enormous audiences and assessing the end of life. ” But he rapt, was tucked into the very smallest knows that Doran’s production will be corner table in his favourite hotel in a digital and acting spectacle, an Covent Garden, drawing on an assault on the senses, and that does e-cigarette and ignoring a plate of tiny intrigue him. He also believes in a pastries on the table. flexible approach to the He was talking about his role as Shakespearean canon; he doesn’t feel Prospero this coming November, in the plays should be set in stone. the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Some time ago he found himself final production of its Shakespeare 400 doing a season of plays for the former season, celebrating four centuries since director of the Globe Theatre, Dominic the playwright’s death. You may have Dromgoole. He realised he was seen the posters of the actor’s face, speaking words he didn’t really luminous, staring out of a background understand. “The word ‘grece’, for of digital blue. example, means ‘step’,” he explained. Gregory Doran is the director in “Nobody knows that, and I thought, question. Russell Beale is working with hang on, Shakespeare’s a genius, but him on The Imaginarium and has he’s not God. So I changed it to ‘step’ already been to the performance and nobody noticed. I didn’t tell capture studio in Ealing to have his Dominic. He’s much stricter than I am. face and body measured so they can But many people only come to see a ‘digitise’ the actor. particular Shakespeare play once and “Gregory rather cleverly sent me an my job is to communicate it clearly. email about trying to find the modern Fortunately it’s a very malleable text.” equivalent of the 17th century Simon Russell Beale was born in masque,” he says. “The idea is to 1961 in the Federation of Malaya. Both recapture the concept but not the his parents were doctors. His father reality – we’ll never know exactly what was in the army and travelled widely form they took. ” The email was clever with his wife and six children, so because it piqued Russell Beale’s Russell Beale boarded at St Paul’s interest during a year when he is Choir School in London, as his father more in demand than ever as a had before him. He also followed him leading classical actor and one of our to Clifton College in Bristol and to finest Shakespearians. Gonville and Caius College at 9 Interview: Simon Russell Beale Interview:

Simon Russell Beale and Sam Mendes, BBC Shakespeare Festival 2016 © BBC/Guy Levy

Cambridge. There their paths diverged: competent. Suddenly, the headmaster Since 1995, he has been a regular at instead of becoming a medic, he went gave me this speech and I remember the Royal National Theatre and has to the Guildhall School of Music thinking ‘wow, I like this, this fits very tackled an incredible range of roles in a and Drama. well.’” His first stage part was Hippolyta variety of media. He made such a “I remember having to read the ‘Dogs in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, wearing memorable Widmerpool in the Channel of War’ speech from Julius Caesar at an ivory and gold dress made for him 4 film of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to choir school,” he said, “I don’t think I by his formidable grandmother, who the Music of Time that the Anthony was shy, but I wasn’t musically very would come to take him out from Powell Society made him its president; St Paul’s Cathedral Choir School school every fortnight. he cantered the stage as King Arthur in He played Desdemona in Othello at the Monty Python spoof Spamalot; and Clifton and his talent was noted by his nailed the role of George Smiley, John English teacher. “Weirdly, he was always Le Carré’s anti-hero, in the radio series rather sneery about actors and he hated The Complete Smiley. the RSC – though he thought Alec When did he know he was more Guinness’s Macbeth was good and he than a jobbing actor? “I don’t know loved Guys & Dolls. When my parents when I first realised that people were came after exams he said: ‘He must coming to see me,” he replied, “I think do English,’ and then, ‘I wonder if perhaps the stuff I did with Sam Simon has ever considered a career Mendes… there have been moments in the theatre?’” In the end it was the RSC that transformed his career. First he Since 1995, he has captured audiences’ hearts in a series of been a regular at the often outrageously camp comic roles. Then, in the early 1990s, he received Royal National spectacular reviews for his performance Theatre and has as Konstantin in Chekov’s The Seagull and went on to work with the rising tackled an incredible young director Sam Mendes, then range of roles in a based at the RSC, later founder of the Donmar Warehouse. variety of media 10 when things really changed – when I Washington DC, the largest repository played Konstantin, or during the of Shakespeare material in the world. Season of Fops at the RSC. But I All of which reinforces his reputation never feel safe. And that’s not as a formidably intelligent performer, actorly hyperbole.” who describes himself as ‘an Meanwhile he has dabbled in academic manqué’. He is too modest Shakespearean tourism, dragging his to mention his First Class degree in personal trainer, who is a friend, on a English from Cambridge. walk around Shakespearean London When I met Russell Beale, he was and is fascinated by the Rose Theatre tired at the end of a successful run of in Southwark. Though, to his Mr Foote’s Other Leg in the West End, embarrassment, he has never visited ready for a few days off before a Anne Hathaway’s cottage in hectic year of Shakespearean events, Stratford-upon-Avon. “Isn’t that including curating the BBC’s website terrible?” he said, rolling his eyes, for Shakespeare’s birthday on April “But I have been to the birthplace and 23 (though the material will be the Visitor Centre, which is next door. accessible until the end of the year.) I am a Shakespeare anorak, so I He was deciding between chilling loved it.” down in London, which he has grown His anorakdom includes a to love almost as much as his home fascination with the printing and county of Wiltshire, or escaping for a production of the plays: “Why was short break. Did it ever get to him, the Troilus & Cressida not available for the relentless pace of theatre? “The thing First Folio? Did they put in Timon of is,” he said, “you can’t say ‘could you Athens instead? Why is the first just give me five minutes? 7.30, that’s quarter of Hamlet such a mess?” He is it, you’re on stage. I have occasionally intrigued by David Garrick and the thought ‘I could walk out’. But only other great 18th and 19th century occasionally.” Shakespearean actors; he has made a And taking another drag on his documentary on the First Folio and is e-cigarette, he finally gives in to a a governor of the Folger Library in tiny pastry. Richard Eyre and Simon Russell Beale Photos: Nobby Clark Photos:

Joseph Millson, Simon Russell Beale and Dervla Kirwan in Mr Foote’s Other Leg 11 Interview: Simon Russell Beale Interview:

“Actually, I find The Tempest a very cold play,” he remarks. “I think it reflects Prospero as a control freak, high-handed to say the least”

www.britainsbestguides.org The Tempest Royal Shakespeare Company 12 13 off the rails

During the early days of the railways in the 1840s, third-class carriages were open-topped. Poorer travellers would get wet in the rain and were blasted with steam and soot in tunnels. To stop them sneaking into second or first class there were no corridors between carriages, so guards had to Money in the Kitty pass along the train outside on the running board.

The 18th century courtesan Kitty Fisher is known as our first female ‘celebrity’. She gave pictures of herself to potential lovers concealed in the lid of a snuffbox. In 1759 she became the talk of London when she fell off a horse in St James’s Park and was revealed not to be LEGEN wearing underwear. When the Italian diplomat and seducer Casanova visited London he witnessed Fisher eating a thousand-guinea bank note on a slice of bread and butter. Legend has it that the nursery rhyme ‘Lucy Locket lost her pocket/Kitty Fisher found it’ refers to a spat she had with a rival prostitute. LIE PORKY DINE The food fad of the Ancient Britons was a pig’s trotter. Not any trotter, but the porker’s right foreleg – a mysterious food ritual that continued for centuries. Thousands of animal bones found at an Iron Age site in Glamorgan have shown this curious pattern. Three-quarters of pig bones excavated were of pigs’ right front legs, leading archaeologists to conclude that it must have been an ancient super snack. FACTS AND ALOT of STONES

In 1915 Cecil Chubb went to a public auction in Salisbury. His wife had sent him to buy dining chairs but instead he bought Lot 15 – Stonehenge. Chubb purchased the ancient monument for £6,600, possibly as a romantic gesture to his wife. The more likely explanation is that he wanted to keep the monument in local hands, stating that he thought a ‘Salisbury man ought to buy it’. Chubb gifted Stonehenge to the nation at the end of World War One. 14 NDS BOTTOM FEEDER

ES, Off London’s Strand, on Carting Lane, is a lamp built AND to be powered by sewage from the Savoy Hotel. This is the city’s only remaining example of a Webb Patent Sewer Gas Lamp. Today it uses mains gas, however a flue from the Savoy’s sewers used to pipe the hotel’s waste gases to the lamp on 'Farting Lane'. The current version is a replica.

FICTION FROM BRITISH HISTORY

No Space Invaders Baa The Outer Space Act of 1986 allows magistrates to issue

Codes 2007 Fairy © The Graphics warrants against invading aliens, Sheep recognise members of their flock. A team of unless they have a British scientists have shown that sheep can remember licence to invade. at least 50 of their friends’ woolly faces. 15 Feature

Marc Zakian looks at the history of British theatre , The Barricade. Photo: Johan Persson Photo: , The Barricade.

Les Miserables PLAY ON

CURTAIN UP Modern British theatre was born in 1600, some 20,000 people a day went brothel – places for ‘corrupting youth Elizabethan London. In 1576, in a to see the plays, one in ten of the and lewd and ungodly practices’. little-known parish on the edge of the city’s population. The Puritans’ attempts to close the City, a wooden building was nailed The theatres launched England’s playhouses were thwarted by theatre- into place. This was England’s first first celebrities: tragedian Richard loving royals, who patronised acting playhouse, the Theatre, a new home Burbage, comedian Will Kempe and companies and paid them to for acting and entertainment and the writers Will Shakespeare and his rival entertain at court. forefather of every stage ever built in Kit Marlowe – said to have been a But in 1649 the king was beheaded Britain. spy who faked his death and went and Protector Oliver Cromwell took Londoners loved their new into hiding. charge. Actors were condemned as playhouse. They were not short of The more Londoners loved the paid liars and ‘rogues and entertainments – public hangings, theatre, the more the city officials vagabonds’. Stages were demolished, taverns, bawdy houses and bear hated it. They denounced playhouses players whipped and anybody baiting – but the theatres eclipsed as breeding grounds for ‘vagrants caught witnessing a performance them all. New stages shot up around and whoremongers’ – not entirely fined five shillings. A two-decade the city, packing in any punter without reason, Philip Henslowe, long interval curtain fell on the

www.britainsbestguides.org prepared to part with a penny. By owner of the Rose Theatre, also ran a business of show. 16 Bankside, the Thameside setting for the Rose, Globe and Swan theatres, was home to the ‘Winchester Geese’, prostitutes who plied their trade from brothels on land owned by the Bishop of Female roles were played by Winchester. Standing on the young boys in Shakespeare’s shoreline, they waved in time. These lads became potential clients, arms skilled cross-dressers and turning like the their ability to handle necks of geese. heavy women’s skirts on stage gave us the term ‘drag queen’.

Marlowe The Globe Theatre

The more Londoners loved the theatre,

An Elizabethan theatre the more the city officials hated it

17 Feature

Charles II © National Portrait Gallery Nell Gwynne © National Portrait Gallery

discovered that the actor playing the father.” When the king protested at FIT FOR A KING main female part was still shaving. her coarseness, she replied, “your King Charles II was restored to the So, in 1662 Charles issued a royal Majesty has given me no other name throne in 1660. One of his first acts warrant declaring that all women’s by which to call him.” Charles was to grant royal patents for the roles should only be played by immediately titled the little boy performance of plays. females. The Merry Monarch loved Earl of Burford. Writers rushed to devise work for the theatre, and he loved its actresses Nell retired from the stage aged 21 the newly licensed playhouses. In even more. and was gifted houses close by the Shakespeare’s time theatre had played royal palaces in Windsor and at Pall to both commoner and noble, but Mall. Charles’s deathbed wish was: Restoration drama was to become NELL GWYNNE “Let not poor Nelly starve”. King the preserve of aristocrats and ‘Pretty, witty Nell’, as diarist Samuel James II honoured his brother by the wealthy. Pepys dubbed her, has been called paying Gwynne’s debts and awarding Congreve, Dryden and their England’s first female celebrity. Born her a pension of £1,500 pounds a contemporaries populated plays with into poverty, her mother drowned year, equivalent to £10 million in characters the audience would while drunk in a ditch near today’s money. recognise, telling stories of society Westminster. Nell became a folk shenanigans, rakish behaviour and heroine, the Restoration rags-to- courtly cuckolds. riches Cinderella who began work as APHRA BEHN Women had been banned from an ‘orange girl’ selling fruit in the Behn was Britain’s first female performing in Tudor and early Stuart King’s Playhouse. A year later she was playwright and one of the first women England, with female roles played by acting at Drury Lane. She was reputed to earn her living by writing. Like boy actors; this led to a series of to have been illiterate, which makes Gwynne, she was the daughter of a mishaps involving boys appearing in the task of learning roles in some poor family and rose from obscurity to drag. One such incident occurred 50 plays a year extraordinary. attract the attention of King Charles II. when a performance Charles II was The love affair between Charles and Employed as a spy, under the code watching stopped unexpectedly. The the actress began in 1668 when name Agent 160 she travelled to the king sent servants backstage who Gwynne was watching a play. In the Netherlands with instructions to turn next box sat the king, more interested an enemy agent for the Crown. The in Nell than the performance. Charles mission left her bankrupt and, after a William Congreve invited her to dine, along with his short period in debtor’s prison, she (mis)quoted Restorationis writer. a much He brother James. After supper, the royals started writing for money. has left us several well-known discovered they had no money to pay Behn wrote and staged 19 plays, as sayings, including: ‘Music has and Gwynne had to foot the bill. “Od’s many as the most popular male charms to soothe a savage fish!” she exclaimed, imitating the writers of the time. Her most famous, breast’, ‘heaven has no rage king, “but this is the poorest company The Rover, is a comedy of Englishmen like love to hatred turned, I ever was in!” adventuring in Italy, featuring nuns, nor hell a fury like a Gwynne became the king’s ‘official courtesans and jilting wenches. woman scorned’, and ‘o mistress’, soon bearing two sons by She published under several fie, miss, you must him. Legend says that one day Charles pseudonyms, including Mrs Bean and not kiss and tell’. called on Nell and she summoned her Astrea. Behn is buried in Westminster eldest by yelling: “Come here, you Abbey, not in Poets’ Corner, but little bastard, and say hello to your outside in the East Cloister. 18 Aphra Behn © Victoria & Albert Museum Sir John Vanbrugh © Gabrielle Enthoven Collection SIR JOHN VANBRUGH A SERIOUS STAGE Vanbrugh was a man of extraordinarily broad talents. He Libertine theatre of the ‘Merry Monarch’s’ England gave was the architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, way to censorious drama in the early 1700s. Managers an MP and political activist involved in the plot to avoided new plays, fearful of prosecution for staging overthrow James II and playwright behind several of the work that was not ‘morally instructive’. Restoration’s most popular, but radical plays. One show bucked this trend. The Beggar’s Opera by John The Provoked Wife, first staged in 1697, is the story Gay premiered in 1728, becoming the most popular stage of a wife trapped in an abusive marriage who wants to production of its time. It was the first drama to mix leave her husband and take a lover. The play’s liberal dialogue and popular songs, creating the genre of attitude to women’s status outraged some sections of the musical. Restoration society. The opera satirised politics, poverty and corruption. © Victoria & Albert Museum © Victoria

The Beggar’s Opera The Beggar’s

19 Prime Minister One of its targets was for her defining role in The Winter’s Tale. David Cameron is a Prime Minister Robert The prince’s brother – the future direct descendent of Walpole. The PM was King William IV – followed suit. King William IV outraged and in 1737 Dorothea Jordan, the actress daughter and the actress responded by introducing of a stagehand was his mistress and Dorothea The Licensing Act which life-long companion. During a Jordan. authorised the Lord 20 year relationship they had ten Chamberlain to censor or illegitimate children. ban plays. This act remained in place until 1968. DAVID GARRICK At only five feet four inches, with a STAGE FIGHTS muted voice and an ‘inclination to Elizabethan playgoers were more stoutness’, David Garrick was an like football hooligans: shouting, unlikely matinée idol. Yet the late 18th drinking, pissing and brawling their century performer became one of the way through performances. most important actors in British history. The Georgian audience was equally As a boy he attended Samuel rowdy. There were only two London Johnson’s school for gentlemen near theatres licenced for plays and when Lichfield; there were only three pupils the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane burned and Garrick amused everyone with David Garrick down in 1809, the playhouse in Covent impersonations of his brilliant but © National Portrait Gallery, London Garden increased its ticket prices. Riots chaotic headmaster. When the school broke out during a performance and closed due to lack of money, Johnson Edmund Kean people refused to leave, so the Bow and his former pupil walked down to © National Portrait Gallery, London Street police were called. This simply London to find fame and fortune. inflamed the situation and protests Garrick soon tasted success. As continued until 2am. leading man at Drury Lane Theatre he Rioting continued for 64 days. At one moved away from the bombastic style of point, a coffin was carried in bearing his peers, developing a more natural, the message ‘here lies the body of the easy way of performing that is familiar new price’. The theatre manager hired today, but was revolutionary at the time. celebrated boxer Daniel Mendoza to He was the first actor to be buried in calm the crowds. This tactic misfired, Westminster Abbey, in Poets’ Corner, infuriating the mob until finally the old next to the monument to William prices were reinstated. Shakespeare. An actor could now be Even the royal family indulged in the regarded as a member of respectable occasional theatrical fisticuffs. In the society. In later years, actors including late 1790s King George III and his son Henry Irving and Laurence Olivier were The Prince of Wales attended the same buried alongside Garrick. performance. The pair hated each other and when both arrived at the same time the king, in a rage, punched his EDMUND KEAN son in front of a shocked auditorium. As a child, Edmund Kean ran away The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was from school to be a cabin boy. He licenced by the monarch, so to avoid hated life at sea so much he pretended further incidents the management built to be lame and deaf, deceiving doctors two royal boxes; one for the king, one into sending him home. Clearly, for the prince, with separate entrances performing was in his blood. for the feuding Georges – features Desperate to be a serious actor, he that are still in started touring in pantomime and place today. circus until Drury Lane rescued him When the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane caught fire in 1809 its owner, MP and Prince George from poverty and obscurity. He playwright Richard Sheridan, was in had infuriated his triumphed as Richard III, Shylock and straight-laced Hamlet – to such acclaim that one parliament making a speech. He father by reviving critic observed: “Seeing him act was made his way back to the theatre the royal tradition of like reading Shakespeare by flashes and sat down in a tavern opposite. having affairs with of lightning.” His friends remonstrated with actresses. His very Kean was a roustabout rogue, the him, was this not too public mistress was prototype ‘bad boy’ actor. He would upsetting to watch? “Not at Mary Robinson, a gallop his horse through London and all,” he quipped, “a man performer, dramatist, up the theatre stairs, and even kept a may take a glass of novelist and celebrity tame lion in his drawing-room. wine at his own figure nicknamed ‘Perdita’ He founded the Wolves’ Club in the fireside.” 20 As a child, Edmund Kean ran away from school to be a cabin boy. He hated life at sea so much he pretended to be lame and deaf basement of the Coal Hole pub on the Strand. Supposedly for oppressed husbands ‘forbidden to sing in the bath’, in reality it was an excuse for drinking and womanising. Kean’s affair with the wife of a City businessman ended in a public shaming. His Drury Lane audiences reacted by booing and pelting him with fruit. Kean’s last appearance was in 1833, playing Othello. During the performance he broke down, crying in a faltering voice: “O God, I am dying”. The great actor was carried home, where his last words were: “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.” KINGS OF COMEDY The 19th century saw a huge growth in demand for theatrical entertainment. At the start of the Victorian period there were still only two licensed playhouses in London. But the old duopoly was unworkable and in 1843 the Licensing Act was repealed, ushering in a boom that resulted in the building of modern London’s 40 West WILD ABOUT OSCAR End theatres, numerous ‘fringe’ venues The dramatist, novelist, poet, and and hundreds of regional playhouses. wit Oscar Wilde rose on a tide of Wilde Oscar The two licensed London theatres comic genius, then sank in one of went in different directions: Covent the great personal tragedies of Garden became the home of high- Victorian England. brow musical drama (today, the Royal During the 1890s, he won fame Opera House), and Drury Lane turned and fortune with three hugely & Albert Museum © Victoria to pantomime and melodrama successful society comedies, featuring spectacular stage effects such including his theatrical masterwork as working paddle steamers and The Importance of Being Earnest. charging horses. Though married, Wilde was gay As electric lighting and hydraulics and fell in love with young Lord were introduced, the scale and Alfred Douglas. When the details excitement of the on-stage of his private life emerged Wilde pyrotechnics grew. In the 20th century was arrested, convicted on charges these evolved seamlessly into the of sodomy and gross indecency before he gave up the ghost he modern megamusical. then sentenced to two years’ quipped: “I am in a duel to death Playgoers developed a taste for hard labour. with the wallpaper, one of us has to comedy. By the 1870s, a generation of Though he continued to write go.” In his last days, sipping writers including Arthur Wing Pinero brilliantly, he was a broken man. champagne in the cheap hotel he and Oscar Wilde were fashioning On leaving prison Wilde exiled muttered: “I am dying beyond my sophisticated, witty dramas for the himself to a shabby hotel in Paris. means.” When he finally Victorian middle classes. Bankrupt and mortally ill, a month succumbed, he was only 46. 21 Sir Henry Irving as Dr Primrose; Ellen Terry as Olivia in Olivia © National Portrait Gallery, London

Lord Olivier, the first-ever actor to be Feature made a peer, and on his death was honoured as the last person ever to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh THE MASTER Sir Noël Coward was known as ‘The Master’, the genius of the theatrical and musical world famed for his legendary witticisms and cool poise. He never stopped IRVING AND TERRY writing, maintaining that “work is more fun than fun”. Henry Irving and Helen Terry were the Coward took Oscar Wilde’s drawing-room comedy tradition most celebrated actors of Victorian England. and remodelled it for the 20th century, writing some 50 In 1871, at Hyde Park Corner, Irving jumped out of a plays including Hay Fever, Private Lives and Blithe Spirit. carriage that was carrying his pregnant wife. Her constant These are still regularly revived today. mocking of his theatrical ambitions had culminated in the Toward the end of his life, Coward was asked by an final insult: “Are you going to make a fool of yourself like interviewer: “How do you account for your success in so this all your life?” Irving walked off into the night, never to many fields – acting, directing, writing, painting, music?” see her again. Noël replied: “Talent”. Irving became the great classical player of his time; the actor-manager, who ruled London’s Lyceum Theatre for two decades. He invited Helen Terry into his company to play RUN FOR YOUR LIFE Ophelia to his Hamlet and Portia to his Shylock. In 1952 a murder mystery opened in the West End. 64 years Live Irving, Ellen Terry left a spouse for a career on the and over 26,000 performances later, The Mousetrap is the stage. As a teenager, she married the celebrity artist George longest-running play in the world. Fredrick Watts – she was 16, he was 46. Ten months later she More than 400 actors have appeared in the Agatha abandoned him to return to the stage. Christie drama since it opened, including the late Richard In 1895 Henry Irving became the first actor to be knighted Attenborough. One member from the original cast is still in and Terry later became the second actress to be made a the show, the late Deryck Guyler, who died in 1999, provides Dame. No longer branded as thieves and professional liars, the pre-recorded voice of the newsreader in the first act. A actors had reached the status of society Sirs and Ladies. prop also survives from the opening night – the clock above Writer Bram Stoker was also Henry Irving’s business the fireplace in the main hall. assistant. The actor’s gaunt aspect and quirky mannerisms were the inspiration for the character of Count Dracula in Stoker’s eponymous novel. NOTHING TO BE GLUM ABOUT An adaptation of a 3,000 page French novel about political conflict in Paris is an unlikely candidate for show biz success MY LORD! and back in 1985, the stage version of Les Laurence Olivier was the most acclaimed stage actor of the Misérables (aka in theatrical circles as ‘The 20th century. His high-velocity performances in Glums’) was panned by critics. But the Shakespeare brought a new energy to classical ticket-buying public saved the show from acting. A battle-ready Henry V oblivion and it is now the longest-running and spidery Richard III musical in the world, with over 12,000 demonstrated a performances in London alone. physical daring that culminated in a famous headlong deathfall off a 12-foot-high platform in Deryck Coriolanus – performed Guyler when the actor was 52. These performances inspired later generations of actors from Anthony Hopkins to Kenneth Branagh. Olivier’s personal and professional relationship with actress Vivien Leigh turned him into a celebrity. The glamorous couple were the ‘Brangelina’ or ‘Posh and Becks’ of post- Noël Coward

© National Portrait Gallery, London Gallery, © National Portrait war Britain. In 1970 ‘Sir Larry’ was ennobled as 22 The Mousetrap

64 years and over 26,000 performances later, The Mousetrap is the longest- running play in the world

Les Miserables,́ One Day More. Photo: Johan Persson

23 Feature

Playwright George Bernard Shaw sent Winston Churchill an invitation to Pygmalion, saying: “Here are two tickets for the opening of my new play. One for you, and bring a friend – if you have one.” Churchill returned the tickets, responding: “I’m sorry that a previous engagement precludes my attending your Bristol Old Vic auditorium: Philip Vile opening night. I shall be happy to come to the second night – if THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE is the oldest Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1812 continuously working theatre in London. There have there is one.” © Victoria & Albert Museum been four playhouses built on this site, the first dating back to 1663. The present theatre with its lavish 2,000 seat auditorium dates from 1812. It is best known for staging big musicals and is owned by composer and producer (Lord) Andrew Lloyd Webber. It also claims to be the world’s most haunted theatre, with no less than four resident ghosts, including the ‘Man in Grey’, an 18th century nobleman with a cloak and sword whose body was discovered in a walled-up side passage. Actor Charles Macklin regularly haunts the backstage, wandering the corridor where, in 1735, he killed a fellow performer in an argument over a wig. And when an actor is nervous, the friendly apparition of pioneering early Bristol Old Vic: Jon Craig 19th century English clown Joseph Grimaldi turns up to guide them on stage.

THE THEATRE ROYAL AT THE BRISTOL OLD VIC opened in 1766 and is the oldest continually operating theatre building in Britain. With its horseshoe- shaped auditorium and red and gold decor, the Georgian building remains one of the most beautiful theatrical spaces in the world. The theatre has launched careers of several leading contemporary stars including Jeremy Irons and Daniel Day-Lewis.

THEATRE ROYAL, RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE. Built in 1788, this is the most complete Georgian theatre remaining in Britain. Originally known as the Courtyard Theatre, it is laid out in a horseshoe to mimic the inn-yard performance spaces used by travelling players in medieval times before the advent of permanent playhouses. The theatre seats 214, but in the 18th century they squeezed in up to 400 spectators to make as much money as possible. The galleried auditorium has three levels; at the top were the cheap seats with a kicking- board balcony that Georgian patrons would stomp on disapprovingly if they didn’t like the acting. In its long history, the theatre has hosted Georgian star Edmund Kean and contemporary luminaries including Dame Judi Dench and Alan Bennett.

One can only imagine what those pioneering Elizabethan players nearly 500 years ago would make of Britain’s Theatre Royal, Richmond www.britainsbestguides.org remarkable theatrical heritage in this second Elizabethan age. 24 Visits

THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM THEATRE & PERFORMANCE COLLECTION is the most important in the UK. It includes papers, manuscripts and

. Photo: Catherine Ashmore . Photo: memorabilia of many of Britain’s great theatre luminaries. The museum’s new Curtain Up exhibition John Owen Jones (The Phantom) as Red Death in Jones (The Phantom) John Owen Masquerade Co. Useful Theatre Ltd & Really Mackintosh © Cameron runs until 31 August 2016. It explores the theatre traditions of London’s West End and Broadway, with costume displays and set models from The Lion King, Matilda the Musical, War Horse and A Chorus Line.

THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY is home to the largest collection of actors’ portraits in the country – including many of images featured in this article.

For a theatre tour with a Blue Badge Guide visit www.britainsbestguides.org

A Chorus Line Photo: Jonathan Hordle © Rex Features

25 Tour de force Tour

David Thompson follows the story of Oscar Wilde’s life in London A WALK ON THE WILDE SIDE Words and pictures: Marc Zakian Marc and pictures: Words

26 James Fox Cigar Merchant Statue of Oscar Wilde

“When I was an art student in the “Oscar’s very public demise played “By the time Wilde 1970s, Oscar Wilde was our fashion out across the capital. Wilde’s marital icon,” says David Thompson. “The home was on Tite Street in Chelsea, came down to London floppy hair, the sweeping jackets, the where he lived with his wife flowers; he wasn’t afraid to be seen Constance – the wealthy daughter of in the 1880s he was an and that’s what we wanted to be at art a leading barrister – and their two established society school; noticed. If we could be as children. It was a loving marriage stylish, witty and brilliant as Oscar we and they were feted as the ideal figure in search of a would surely make it.” Victorian couple. reputation” “Three decades later I rediscovered “But across town in the West End, Wilde. I was a newly-qualified London Oscar lived another life. He kept arranged for the police to guard the Blue Badge tourist guide leading gay gentleman’s chambers at the doors and to deny him access. history walks in Soho. Oscar was the Albemarle Club in Mayfair, where he Queensberry spent three hours lead character in a story of outsiders would work, sleep and entertain. prowling round the building, living in the West End at a time when These were conveniently close to the ‘gibbering like a monstrous ape’. homosexuality was punishable with St James Theatre where Wilde’s “Determined to confront his son’s life imprisonment. plays were being performed to lover, on 18 February 1895 “Wilde developed his flamboyant resounding acclaim. Queensbury burst into the Albemarle style while a student at Oxford. He “It is a short walk from the theatre Club demanding to see the was a poster boy for the aesthetic to the Savoy Hotel on the Strand. En playwright. Finding him absent, movement that championed art for route was The Crown, one of Victorian Queensberry left a calling card the sake of beauty. Oscar decorated London’s gay pubs, where Oscar addressed to: ‘Oscar Wilde, posing as a his university rooms with peacock would meet his ‘downtown boys’. It ‘somdomite’’ (misspelling sodomite). feathers, lilies, sunflowers, china and was at the Savoy where Wilde first “Bosie hated his father and urged other exotic objects, remarking: ‘I find encountered his distinctly uptown Wilde to sue for libel. Oscar’s friends it harder and harder every day to live lover: the spoiled, reckless aristocrat met Wilde at the Café Royal and tried up to my blue china’. Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas. Oscar was to dissuade him. To no avail – Oscar “By the time Wilde came down to 37, Bosie 20; to many it appeared that had Queensberry arrested and London in the 1880s he was an the celebrated playwright was taking charged with criminal libel. established society figure in search of advantage of the younger man. “Wilde was the star of the Old a reputation. After a decade of writing “When Douglas’s father, The Bailey libel case, running rings around poetry and novels, three brilliantly Marquis of Queensberry, found out bemused lawyers to scenes of near successful drawing-room comedies about his son’s liaison he headed to hysteria in the press and public propelled him to celebrity. But, at the the premiere of The Importance of Being galleries. But when the defence apex of his fame, he was destroyed by Earnest armed with rotten vegetables produced witness statements from a devastating personal scandal. to throw at Wilde. The playwright rent boys giving details of Oscar’s 27 THE WORLD ACCORDING TO OSCAR Tour de force Tour

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. There is no sin except stupidity. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go

liaisons with ‘illiterate, working class, had been the cause of Wilde’s boarded a train to leave England, East End boys’, Wilde’s case collapsed. misfortunes, in 1897 they were briefly never to return. Mayfair remembers “The revelations led to criminal reunited, until their families him at the site of the florist shop charges of sodomy and gross threatened to cut off funds. where he bought his famous green indecency against Wilde. As he “Wilde’s final days played out at the carnations – Victorian symbols of ‘gay awaited his arrest at the Cadogan shabby Hôtel d’Alsace in Paris. Unable pride’. The St James tobacconist James Hotel in Knightsbridge, his friends to work he remarked: ‘I have lost the J Fox is home to a small museum that urged him to escape to France, but joy of writing’. On 30 November 1900, proudly exhibits Oscar’s bills for his Oscar could only mutter ‘The train has aged 46, he died. favourite black cigarettes. gone. It’s too late.’ “London made and destroyed Oscar “And Soho, the streets where men “Oscar eloquently defended himself Wilde. For many of us he was a like Wilde roamed as outcasts in in court, speaking of ‘the love that dare martyr; the first major public figure to Victorian times, is now a welcoming not speak its name’. To no avail, stand up for his sexuality at a time home to London’s proud gay culture. Victorian society had turned against when gay relationships were a We have much to thank him for.” Wilde and he was sentenced to two criminal offence. years’ hard labour. “Ironically, the city that destroyed For a tour with David Thompson contact “On release from jail he left Wilde’s reputation now celebrates him at: [email protected] England, living in impoverished exile him. His statue stands opposite in Italy and France. Although Douglas Charing Cross station where he 28 Sunderland is an ideal place for groups and coach parties who want to explore this vibrant city by the sea. Visitors will be surprised and delighted by its fascinating history, coastal scenery, beautiful green spaces, heritage and cultural attractions and world class events that bring Sunderland to life.

For more information on these attractions and to find out what other things you can see and do in Sunderland visit www.seeitdoitsunderland.co.uk

/seeitdoitsunderland @SeeitDoitSund Tour de force Tour

Sarah Cowling tells the story of Yorkshire’s historic monasteries ABBEY ROADS

30 Rivaulx Abbey

“In the 12th century an argument broke out on the remote North York moors,” says Sarah Cowling. “In the white-robed corner, on one side of the river Rye were the Cistercians, a group of monks who arrived at Byland in 1131. In the grey- robed corner, a rival order of Savigniacs, who in 1143 provocatively plonked themselves across the river from the white monks. “The two monasteries rang their prayer bells at different times of day; confused monks were turning up for worship at the wrong time. But the Cistercians stood their ground, winning the ‘battle of the bells’ and the Savigniacs packed up and moved on.” Sarah Cowling has strong links with the battling abbey: “My ancestors worked at Byland Grange for generations. When the abbey was in its heyday they probably laboured for the monks as part of the great monastic medieval business empire.” Today Byland is a magnificent ruin, a majestic monument in the countryside that Sarah returned to in 2014 when she qualified as a Yorkshire Blue Badge guide. “I’d been away for nearly thirty years, but wanted to return. As my aunt says, ‘the good ones always come back, that’s what happens with Yorkshire’. I hope she’s right! “Yorkshire was the monastic kingdom of the North. One of the jewels in its crown was Whitby Abbey. Founded in 657, today it is one of the most evocative and dramatic remains in Britain, commanding the cliff-top from a wind- blown headland, the ruins visible for miles around. BBC History magazine named it as one of the 100 Places That Made Britain. “Whitby was founded by Saint Hilda. The abbess turned a plague of local snakes to stone so that her church could be built. According to local legend, this explains the serpentine ammonite fossils found on the sea shore. “Whitby was one of the earliest monasteries in Yorkshire. One of a string of abbeys founded by black-hooded Benedictines who arrived here some 1400 years ago on a mission to bring ‘prayer and work’ to the wilderness. “But much of the ’work’ was done by local peasants who were expected to give two days labour a week in return for the monks praying for their souls. The abbeys also provided education, hospitals for the sick and dying and alms for the poor. 31 Images © English Heritage

“Many of these poor souls found charity at St Mary’s Abbey in York. Established in 1088, it was one of the wealthiest monasteries in the country – the abbey church was larger than the city’s great minster. York was so rich in religious institutions that mendicants would work their way

Tour de force Tour around the city seeking alms in one place after the next – a sort of medieval ‘benefits tourism’. But how did monasteries like St Mary’s become so rich? “There was profit in prayer. Kings and knights who killed enemies in battle would pay for a monk to chant for them, hoping to absolve these sins and finance their way to heaven. “The ‘pay to pray’ abbeys inherited huge legacies from patrons seeking salvation in exchange for land and money. Silent meditation was replaced by noisy commerce and monastic estates – some of which encompassed entire counties and taxed everyone on their land. St Mary’s Abbey swung a toll rope across the river Ouse, charging boats travelling into the city of York. In 1266 the angry, overtaxed townsfolk rioted – St Mary’s repelled them by building a three-quarter mile long wall around the Abbey. “In response to this unholy greed, a new order of monks decided to take monasticism back to basics. The Cistercians, who wore white robes as a symbol of purity and poverty, were determined to return to St Benedict’s mission of prayer and rigid discipline. Benedict’s Rule – written in balmy 6th century Italy – made no reference to “Yorkshire was the monastic kingdom underpants as monastic clothing, so of the North. One of the jewels in its even in the freezing Yorkshire winters the Cistercians wore nothing under crown was Whitby Abbey. Founded in their habits. 657, today it is one of the most evocative “Bare-bottomed piety arrived on the Yorkshire moors in 1132 when twelve and dramatic remains in Britain” Cistercian monks founded Rievaulx Abbey. They started by living in simple huts, but over time these were replaced

“The Cistercians became a business brand. At Fountains Abbey they developed a breed of ‘super sheep’ that produced

www.britainsbestguides.org Whitby Abbey high quality fleece” 32 Rievaulx Abbey by grand, stone buildings housing 140 the same language (Latin) and followed 1530s King Henry VIII seized the monks, 40 lay brothers and 260 hired the same rules and customs. It was abbeys’ land and treasures and men who worked the abbey’s 6,000 said that you could take a blind ransacked their buildings. acres and shepherded its 14,000 sheep. Cistercian from France and drop him in “The legacy of this devastation has “Like the Benedictines, the an English abbey and he wouldn’t left an extraordinary imprint on the Cistercians eventually rejected the life notice the difference. Yorkshire landscape – dozens of ghost- of an austerity monk. The brothers “But the monasteries’ empire- like ruins that rise on the moors, shores abandoned Rievaulx’s dormitories, building and money-making ventures and valleys. Beautiful echoes of a living in private rooms with fireplaces, would be their downfall. Ordinary monastic empire that once ruled upstairs bedrooms and en suite toilets. people resented their power and in the the county.” St Benedict ruled that, ‘unless they were sick, monks should not eat the meat of For a tour of Yorkshire with Sarah Cowling contact her four-footed creatures’. So the brothers at [email protected] or ignored refectory meals and dined in www.sarahyorkshireguide.com the infirmary where, on weekly feast days, they would consume 16 courses, some 6000 calories a day, ten times that Byland Abbey of a labourer – the legend of ‘merrie monk’ Friar Tuck’s stout girth is based on truth. “The Cistercians became a business brand. At Fountains Abbey they developed a breed of ‘super sheep’ that produced high quality fleece, establishing Yorkshire’s international dominance in the wool trade. Their abbeys were a kind of medieval ‘Ikea’ – they all used same floor plan, featured the same furniture and books, spoke 33 MY FAVOURITE Blue Badge Guides show you their favourite places around the UK

...CLIFF TOP …is where waves pound below the Botallack Crowns engine houses. Standing proud against a backdrop of soaring cliffs, their motors ceased forever when the mines finally closed in 1914. The buildings are part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, where tales abound of fortunes gained and lost in the struggle to win tin and copper. The dramatic cliff top is carpeted with pink ...SPORTING ACTIVITY thrift, golden gorse and purple heather. The Crowns engine houses and nearby Wheal Owles have become TV stars, as mining locations in the ...is The Friday Night Skate. It’s a recent BBC Poldark series. This combination of 10-mile skate around London’s great views and relics of a past era never streets every Friday evening. disappoints. Anyone may join and there are Viv Robinson often over 100 skaters. We whizz Blue Badge Guide for South West England past the capital’s favourite [email protected] monuments – St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square – accompanied by a portable sound system playing dance music. The atmosphere is great, especially when we skate past pubs and are cheered on by the people outside. So join us or cheer us on, shout or dance when we pass you on the street. It’s all about having fun – and what a great way to see the sights! Juliet Navratilova London Blue Badge Guide [email protected]

...VIEW

…is of King’s College from The Backs in Cambridge. A meadow full of grazing cows leads to the river and beyond the chapel rises above a formal lawn, on which only college Fellows may walk. Just five minutes from the bustling city centre, it feels as though you are in the middle the countryside. It is a vista with many layers, appearing timeless but the landscaping is only 200 years old and as man-made as the chapel. I love to show this to visitors. It is a view that says ‘Cambridge’. Allan Brigham, Cambridge Blue Badge Guide, [email protected] 34 y enc g ag idin r-gu t drive The UK’s larges MAP OUT YOUR PERFECT TOUR...

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