Almost back to work

Hello again. I know I have been away for a long time.

The plan was to continue the blog with a “diary” around the events of the Heavy Horse Project. Well it’s not started yet or anyway the first spadeful of earth hasn’t been turned. We are at the planning and permissions stage. The game plan is still to have it completed by lambing next year. The time frame for the project will depend on the planning permission time frame.

Still all of us down the Horse end continue to be optimistic.

We had our first carriage drive of the season last week and the troops are getting back into working mode. Lots of long-reining and sledging and some practise carriage rides. The horses seem happy to be back at work after the boredom and restrictions of winter.

Another plus for the HHD is that Emma will be able to recruit a full time Groom.HR is in process of producing the Role Profile so that the post can be advertised.

The Stable Block shop now has Shire Horse book marks as well as postcards and will be getting Jigsaws to sell soon.

Yippee

 

Winter Warmer

Sorry been absent for a while – holidays and so on.
Anyway we have started winter operating at the farm. We are closed to customers Monday to Friday and open 1100 to 1600hrs Saturday & Sunday.
For the Heavy Horse Dept. it’s a time for losing weight and getting fit.

At this time of year we bring the horses in overnight and then let them out during the day until around 1500 hrs. So for us that means we get to muck out the stables of 7 Shires, 2 Donkeys and 2 Shetlands. We normally use the small tractor and trailer for disposal of the presents that are left for us on to the “heap”.
The other added bonus we get this time of year is that all the horses appear to develop a sort of mud magnetism and invariably come in coated from hoof to nose. So grooming takes a little longer. All the troops like to be nice and clean and shiny before they go out the next morning to continue their plan of bringing as much of the field as they can into the stables, so that we can put it back into the field. It’s a kind of symbiosis: they get clean I lose weight.
You gotta love em

Here’s mud in your eye

A clean horse is a happy horse

So there I was ( i’m  Jacob) minding my own business in the field when Mummy called me over and took me in to the stalls.Little did I know that it was bath night.First off my hooves were picked out and cleaned,then I was brushed all over to remove mud and loose hair;then my feathers (the hairy bits at the bottom of legs) were washed and made shiny white and lastly my main and tail were brushed.

And then I was put back out in the field.

Well whats a chap going to do when he’s all clean and sparkly.

“Mud mud glorious mud nothing quite like it for curing the blood”
Noel Coward

If you look closely you can see Captain hiding by the side of the tree.Not sure if he is embarrassed or just dodging his bath.

Keeping going with the personal care theme.

Murphy and Jacob making sure they are perfectly groomed

Conjuring up New Tricks

Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but you can teach them to a mature horse.
Queenie who is 12 yrs old has never been ridden. Now that Lady her latest addition to the Heavy Horse Dept. is enjoying her teenage years mummy is exploring new adventures.
For the last couple of weeks Emma has been getting Queenie used to the idea of being ridden. To start with Queenie was introduced to the weight and feel of a saddle and harness in the stalls – basically she just wore them for a while.

Queenie showing off her saddle

Next came lunging with a single and a double line while carrying a saddle (with stirrups hanging but secured so as not to rattle about).

Queenie enjoying lunging

The next step in the process was to add weight to her back, basically Emma lying across the saddle and then Emma sitting in the saddle and riding her.
It’s all gone extremely well Queenie is now being ridden up to a trot and seems to be taking to it like a duck to water.

Who said being ridden was difficult!

Which just goes to show that there’s a lot more to a Shire horse than just good looks and a lovely temperament

Sledging : its not cricket

Murphy our biggest Shire continues to get fitter after his long lay off due to a hoof problem.Nobody told Murphy  that part of his ongoing recovery is regaining his fitness and muscle tone.This week saw Murphy having his first go at being longreined for about a year.He came through it like a star.

Emma longreining Murphy

Also enjoying new training was Jasper.This year the plan is to introduce some agricultural demos using the troops.To start with they will be asked to pull a roller and a harrow.The harrow is by nature a noisy bit of kit so we need to get the horses used to it.For training Jasper was connected to the sledge and walked around the field followed by Holly making noises with the chains.To start with it is a gentle noise to give him time to adjust to it ie not frighten him, then the noise level is gradually raised.The target being a happy Jasper who ignores the sound of the chain/harrow.

Jasper successfully ignoring the chains

Jasper without the sledge

Animal pens and bunny hotels

Project Manager, Paul Coleman, updates us on things underground.

The Folly is under siege, this time from below.  We continue with the scientific approach of investigations and are radaring the ground for bunnies !!

They may be cute until they dig too close to the walls with their burrows, forming an extensive network of tunnels which can and are causing problems with the stability of the walls.

The area around the Folly is peppered with rabbit activity – what we’ve been doing is investigating where they are and how big their warrens are. But how do you check whether their tunnels are causing a problem or not and the extent of them.  Well, just like on TimeTeam we are using specialists to see under the ground – Peter Masters of Cranfield University is our expert, using his specialist equipment which is dragged behind him to slowly show a picture of the ground around the Folly walls.

He is using a technique called Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR),  which send electro magnetic pulses to the ground which are bounced back to the receiver and allows us to map out structure and features buried below us.

Some of the holes are ok and not causing a problem but we’ve found 2 areas which will need to be stabilised.

Not only have we found bunny hotels, it has also shown areas of previous buildings (now long gone) which were located around the Folly – we believe these to have been the old animal pens when the Game Keeper was in residence.

If a lamb has a cough is it a little hoarse?

Been away for a bit but have maintained my fitness levels by helping out during lambing again.

Two catching a ride from Mum

So what news is there?  Well the farm staff / volunteer welfare facility a.k.a the new tea room is due to become a reality amongst those present on the 11th May.  It will have wondrous white goods, tables, chairs and a carpet.  As we will need to remove our boots to enter this palace of cake and sundry comestibles, there is a plot afoot to make us all resplendent in Turkish slippers at the bottom of the stairs.

Will my slippers fit?

Over the next couple or so weeks I will be able to run a commentary on the progress of the Heavy Horse Project.

Watch this space . . .

Queenie (standing) keeps an eye on Lady two years old this June (catching some rays)

The big reveal

Project Manager, Paul Coleman, gives us an update on the Folly.

The scaffold coming down

For those not fortunate to have visited Wimpole recently, what a view hits you.  From every approach you can we see the Folly, with its new crown as it rises above the park. The scaffolding is down, hoorrrraaaayy.

The sound of chain saws lingers in the air as our ranger team start to get on top of the years of scrub which has surrounded the walls and has choked the ornate moat. Work to remove the felled timber has included using horses, horse logging, see our Forester Simon’s blog for more on this.  Over the next few months you will gradually see the ground being tendered, brambles removed, barbed wire taken down.

So what’s happening now…..

• The rear staircase is being crafted,
• The support walls outside for the balcony start to get rebuilt,
• We clear a vast pile of earth,
• The doors get repaired,
• Historic locks and door hinges get made to replicate ones from old photos,
• Inside we continue to repair the lower floors,
• We get to grip with flattening the ground where we made a little mess over the Winter,
• . . . and most importantly we get to admire the fab conservation work on the walls

If you visit the house, don’t forget to go to the Chancellors Dressing Room to admire the views.

We will be reporting on more conservation works over the next couple of weeks, so check the blog again.

We Plough the Fields and Chatter

The good news is the Heavy Horse Project has been given the go ahead. Much joy in the horse department and carrots all round.

As part of the planned enhancing of the HHD’s contribution to the estate and the visitors enjoyment (and knowledge of the magnificent Shire Horse) we are planning to show off the troops agricultural skills this year.

I guess pretty much everybody will know that you can’t just stick a plough on the back of horse and tell it to pop off and do a few straight lines. Training is needed for the horses and for the “driver(s)”.

The boss (Emma) has spent some time at Gressenhall learning how to Harrow, Roll and Plough with their resident Suffolks. Recently 12 of the HHD volunteers went with Emma to spend the day at Gressenhall and have a go. http://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/Visit_Us/Gressenhall_Farm_and_Workhouse

Here we all are waiting on Richard Dalton, Gressenhall Farm Manager, to tell us how to steer a straight line behind the horses. There are two Suffolks harnessed up nearest is Reg the most experienced and the biggest at a metric ton .On the other side of Reg is Jimbo who is a tad smaller.Reg is standing in a furrow and Jimbo is on the ledge. For those of a certain age it helps to remember how they filmed Alan Ladd and his leading ladies. The two different sized wheels are adjusted to change the height of the furrow.
Below is what it’s meant to look like.

Apparently in the good old days the horses and the ploughman – or woman my mum did this in the war while in the Land Army- would plough 11miles in a day. One furrow and I was cream crackered, well almost.

As well as ploughing we had a go at harrowing – no I am not going to say it. That was a bit easier. I went first on this and I particularly enjoyed after the first turn being told to overlap on the previous run while maintaining a straight line. It was at this point that I told the instructor that I couldn’t see the previous run. Luckily Reg could see the last run so we went off in the right place and I managed not to take him too much off the straight and narrow. That’s not me below by the way.

All in all we had a great day and are all looking forward to putting some of the more charming agricultural methods on display at the farm.

The boss is going to start with rolling and harrowing which will be the easier ones for training to start with, I am assuming she means for training the horses but she was looking at me when she said it.

Topping out at the Folly

The crenelations all in place on the tower

Paul Coleman, Project Manager, updates us on the Folly project.

We’ve been celebrating at the Gothic Folly, bring together the craftsmen, consultants, National Trust advisors, staff, volunteers and sponsors who have all been involved so far in the project to mark the ‘topping out’ of the crenelations and the last stone inserted which marks the completion of this phase of works.

Inserting the last stone!

But we’re not finished we have a few months work left on site, there is still lots to do but whilst its very cold we are encouraged to see the signs of spring as snowdrops poke up and trees come into bud.

For centuries, builders have celebrated the moment the building structure reaches its topmost point. This tradition was originally there to bring good luck on the building and ward of evil spirits.

This old age tradition of topping out , for many years involved a yew branch or sapling featured in the ceremony.  So at the Folly we will have a legacy of our ceremony, we are looking at the landscape around the building to research and put in place the historic planting scheme and for the building to have a fitting back drop.

18th Century engraving of the Gothic Tower

We know from historic documents – the pen and ink drawings from 1749, 1774 water colour and 1777 engravings that the Folly may have had a backdrop resembling a Fir tree plantation.  This has long gone and we have an area of mixed species of self-sown trees which are encroaching on the views and this important area.

Folly illustrated on the Frog Service

 

Sanderson Millers original design for the Folly

 

The images resemble a fir or evergreen which had distinct drooping branches and the shape is very similar to that of a Deodar Cedar.

The deodar cedar is one of three cedars found in the British Isles along with the Lebanon cedar (Cedrus libani) and the Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica), but its shape is very different from the others.

From a quick search we have information that the Deodars were introducing into Britain in 1831, Atlas in 1844 and Lebanon in 1638, however the Folly was conceived in 1749-51 and completed in 1772 – so are we looking at artistic license or from the Architect or Landscapers of that time being well travelled individuals who had seen these desirable species on their world wide travels ?

However, I would like to think we are looking at the Deodar – as it has such a fitting history.  The tree is the Himalayan “Tree of God”, comes from the Sanskrit word ‘devadaru’, which means ‘timber of the gods or divine wood’.

The wood is fragrant and used to make incense, distilled into essential oil and is a disinfectant. The fragrance from the tree makes it insect repellent and due to its anti fungal and repellent properties has been used for making rooms for storage of meat and grain – but not at the Folly ! when the Game Keeper was in residence.

It is alleged that in its native country sufferers of asthma or breathing problems are advised to sit under a Deodar tree in early morning.

However what ever tree we decide to be planted, it will be a celebration of both the works but also making the Folly sit at the top of the hill with a stunning backdrop of evergreen and over the years we will see these stately conifers giving the historic character back to the building.

So please give us your thoughts,  any budding tree experts would be welcome to join the debate.