Nature – Life is a Journey

16 October 2021

Sitting high above the city of Lancaster and easy to see from many directions is the Ashton Memorial. It is very hard to miss as it stands out in the skyline or is lit up at night with coloured lights.

After having the tower pointed out on my other adventures with Janice, Mike, Karen and Lulu the dog, from the motorway, we got to visit Williamson Park. It is even more impressive up close.

It is surrounded by a lot of parklands, although in our walk up the hill to the tower, I only got to see a small part of it.

When it was mentioned that there were hangings here, it made me curious to find out more. I would have loved to climb up to the viewing level, but the hill climb and the steps up don’t mix well with a dodgy knee. So I was happy to just admire it from the outside.

So who built this imposing building, known as the “Taj Mahal of the North” and a Folly? Well, that’s a love story. Like the Taj Mahal, it is a monument dedicated by a man to his wife. The Ashton Memorial was commissioned by Lord Ashton as a tribute to his 2^nd wife Jessy, a woman who supported him in his political career. His family was extremely wealthy, but they were philanthropic with their wealth. It is written that in 1885, he served a breakfast for 10,000 people of the local population and was noted for his generosity and support of Lancaster.

The Memorial was designed by John Belcher and completed in 1909, 5 years after she had died. It cost £87,000 or equivalent to about £8.4m in 2020. It is topped with a dome made of copper and has sculptures representing Commerce, Industry, Science and Art. It stands on the top of the hill and is 150ft tall, meaning you can get a view of the surrounding countryside, Morecambe Bay and the Lake District Fells.

It is known as a Folly, an architectural word used to describe a “costly ornamental building” that doesn’t have a practical purpose. That doesn’t seem to me to be an accurate description, because this building is a symbol of love. Imagine being loved so much by another person that they want to build you a monument. A beautiful white building, with a gleaming dome sitting in 54 acres of parklands and woodlands.

The tower is now used as a location for weddings, amongst other things. I think it would be a beautiful location that is very sought after. A chance for the couple to start their wedded life at an iconic place and representative of love between two people.

However, it could also be this memorial is the means to break a curse because of the dark history of the location where this park and building are. This is not something that I read about, it was something that occurred to me.

The Williamson Park is situated in a former quarry, but before that, it was the location of hangings and specifically the hanging of nine of the Pendle Witches in 1612 when it was known as Gallows Hill. The interesting history of the Pendle Witches can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendle_witches taken from the records of the trials.

The Pendle Witches trials and subsequent hangings would, I suspect, have been known about by James Williamson, First Baron Ashton, after all, he had been the Sherrif of Lancaster in 1885. Was there a curse put on the location by the witches as they faced their hangings on Gallows Hill?

Maybe, James Williamson wanted to remove the memory of the hangings and what better way to end a curse than with love. A bit like the fairy tales of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, where love’s true kiss ends a witch’s curse. With the tower being a memorial to his wife and now the location of many couples sealing their marriage with a “true love’s kiss” the curse remains broken.

Just an idea, what do you think?

5th September 2021

As you know, I love being around nature, especially in the garden. Our garden in Adelaide gave us so much joy. It didn’t matter whether it was sitting out in it with John and Angel, or if I was digging or planting in it, I found the garden as a place of peace. I would feed the birds and give them a fresh bath water to play in. I would talk to the plants and look for signs they needed help or were doing well. I loved seeing the shadows cast by our big Lemon Myrtle tree making dappled light. I loved to see the rainbows in the water spray when I hand watered. I loved to create new spaces in the garden with John.

It was very tough to say goodbye to the garden that I had loved for 40 years, since moving into John’s house on 3rd March 1981 and making it our Harmony House. Now that garden belongs with another couple.

Here in Manchester, I don’t have my own garden, yet. I hope that I will get another home I can make into my garden haven. But in the mean time Natasha and Mark are ok with me spending time in their garden.

Living busy lives, they aren’t able to spend as much time as John and I did in ours. But it is a lovely space. Big patch of grass for Alex to run around in. Two different types of apple trees and some pots with roses or small buses in them.

Their garden gets English Magpies, small birds and grey squirrels visiting. There are also a few cats who come into the garden. Jessie, who is the family tuxedo cat, is an indoors only cat, watches the visitors to the garden through the windows.

I started my UK gardening experience by pulling out weeds. Nat and Mark lay down week mat and it works really well, except that opportunistic weeds will grow wherever they can and aren’t too fussy if all there is available is stones or bark mulch. They were very easy to pull out because the roots were all very shallow.

Unfortunately, I my knees didn’t like me either squatting down or kneeling to weed. So I couldn’t get it finished. But I told myself, I don’t have to finish it in a day. The patches I had done looked ok. I also trimmed back a couple of the roses, to neaten them up. It is hanging on to still be like summer here, so too early to prune the roses or move the pretty bulbs that Nat would like to see in a raised garden bed. Mark mowed the lawn the next day, so it looked nice.

I asked if I could get some flowers to put in the garden, just something that was bright and colourful. Mark took Alex and I to the stores that have a garden centre – B&M and B&Q. B&M is a bit like an everything shop. You can pretty get most items you need for the home from them. So a bit like Australia’s Big W or KMart without the clothing. B&Q is the DIY centre, perhaps like a Mitre 10 store as the range is not as extensive as the big hardware store Bunnings is.

Mark said that it was not unusual to go to one store and then to the other one, as often you can’t get everything you need. Luckily, the homemaker centre had both stores there. I hoped to find some simple to grow plants and some pots. I managed to find pansies, yellow and mixed, some Dianthus in mixed colours and some Chrysanthemums that were going out cheaper because they were in need of TLC. I also found some potted flowers that are ideal for bees and butterflies. There is a purple Verbena, a bright yellow Coreopsis and a Rudbeckia daisy. The three pots were 3 for £15 or £6 per pot and the punnets were multipacks. I also bought potting mix, two small rectangular pots, a set of secateurs. I was quite happy with my collection of colourful things.

Once home, (that sounds lovely), I happily planted the seedlings into the rectangle pots, in the existing pots with the roses and little bush and also in the garden where I had weeded. I had to make holes in the weed mat to put them into soil, so hopefully they will grow ok. I also I placed the new bee and butterfly plants between the existing pots.