Southwell Workhouse

Class-conscious readers of this blog will have observed that many--no, nearly all--of our visits in the UK have concerned the upper-most one per cent--no, the upper-most one per cent of the upper-most one per cent--of the population, economically and historically. And so, in an effort to provide balance, we visited Southwell's famous Workhouse, a trend-setter in early 19th century approaches to community care for the poor, the ill, the widowed, the orphaned, the unfit, and, yes, the lazy and the idle: the Takers.

But first, just a wee bit of background. The 1601 Poor Act provided that each parish would care for its needy, providing funds for a modicum of food, fuel, clothing, etc., enabling said needy to remain in their homes/hovels. This "outside" dole worked for a while. But by the early 1800s, things changed. Machines took away jobs; 200,000 troops returned from the Napoleonic Wars on the Continent; agriculture had its usual up and downs. The demand on parishes increased astronomically. But in Southwell and other places, they had an idea. Why not bring the dole "inside," creating workhouses where the poor could "earn" their keep, where idlers could be separated from the truly needy? The workhouses would be open to all, but upon entering, males would be segregated from females, husbands from wives, children from parents, and all made to work in redundant and unrewarding activities. (Is this what Marx called "alienation"?). The workhouse was to be necessarily unpleasant, thus encouraging people to become productive and to find (non-existent) jobs, and stand on their own feet. Oh, husbands and wives and children and parents could be reunited for an hour on Sunday afternoons. But no more "outside" dole.

Thus the Workhouse at Southwell and hundreds of other places in Britain. One tours this bleak place in the company of an audio-guide and dramatization wherein the agent of the local lord comes to see what is going on. Of course it is all appalling. Only in the last room of the Workhouse is there a display on the history of "welfare" in the UK that puts it all in some historical and political perspective. One should credit the National Trust for trying to tell this sad story at all. But the more recent context might have come earlier in the narrative.

As a WWII buff, I was always perplexed that the Brits unceremoniously dumped Churchill and his order even before all the dead of WWII were buried. It was about the conditions of the poor and the middle class in Britain, and opportunity. They had had enough. Fed up. For centuries. And they had earned better. The new Labour government enacted sweeping social reforms, providing benefits for maternity, unemployment, sickness, widows, and retirement. Great Britain has had free universal health care since 1948. The "outside" approach prevailed. The Workhouses are a monument to human suffering. And to greed and hard-heartedness.

The Southwell Workhouse

Meaningful documentation throughout the Workhouse tour

Ditto

4 oz of meat, three times a week

Our founder, the Reverend J. T. Becher

In the children's classroom

Learning aid

Takers

Thought for the day, every day

Able-bodied mens' work-yard, latrines, and vegetable garden beyond

Dorm

Hardwick 2

The Sea Dog Table, 1560

Comfy bed chamber; tapestries...

Ditto

Upstairs dining, from another period

Music room, sort of

Great plaster relief all over the house

A bit of the view; they say Bess liked to take her guests up in the towers after
dinner and show them the rest of her land, which was all the eye could see,
360 degrees, much of Derbyshire and a good bit of Nottinghamshire

Right across the road, Old Hardwick, which Bess built on the site of her dad's
earlier house; it had been finished only four years when she embarked on New
Hardwick; Old Hardwick functioned as servants' quarters, etc., for a time, and
then emergency back-up great house; then was torn down; much remains
however, and you can walk up four flights in one wing

Some of the remaining interior at Old Hardwick

Ditto

Wider view of Old Hardwick

View of New Hardwick from Old

Parting/dorsal view of Hardwick; incredible place...

Hardwick 1

We're still wondering how, in our several visits to the North, we'd never been to Hardwick. It was the work of Bess of Hardwick, aka Elizabeth Shrewsbury, whom we have already met at Chatsworth. The daughter of a modest country squire, she became, through a succession of marriages (4) and deaths of husbands (4), the richest woman in Elizabethan England, not including Elizabeth the Queen. The second marriage, the Cavendishes, got her a title and the fourth, Shrewsbury, made an already wealthy woman the wealthiest. She was a compulsive builder too, including the first house at Chatsworth, now gone, and the two below, Old and New Hardwick. She died in her 80s, still building. That (New) Hardwick is still around is something of a marvel. It was built in the 1580s and is thus one of the very oldest purely residential places we have seen. Not only is it wonderfully intact, it is chock-full of period items, furniture, art, and the most tapestries we have ever seen anywhere, ever. The Devonshires lived at Hardwick for a time but quickly moved over to the new/improved Chatsworth (within sight of Hardwick, maybe 15 miles away), once it was ready. Over the centuries, Hardwick was occasionally used as a hunting lodge or overflow guest-house or refuge, but mainly as the warehouse for Devonshire family items no longer fashionable nor wanted. Thus the impressive collection of items there. New Hardwick is now a National Trust property, and Old Hardwick, literally across the street, is a ruin and is managed by English Heritage. There is so much to see at Hardwick I'll have to do two posts, again.

Full frontal postcard view of Harwick; perfect symmetry

Compare with the above needlework, done by Bess herself, a representation
of the old Chatsworth

All of the towers at Hardwick have these colossal four-foot letters announcing
who lives there

Bess was very handy with needle and thread and obviously did not have a
self-esteem issue

Bess

In the great entry hall at Hardwick, and its long table, a reminder that Hardwick
is not very far from the Medieval world, when all the members of a household,
family, guests, and servants, took their meals together 

Same hall, hung everywhere with tapestries

Everywhere

Bess' coat of arms over a fireplace; flanked by tapestries

Needlework thought to have been done by Queen Mary
of Scots (Bess' Shrewsbury husband was her official
"host" for a time)

Another great hall, covered in tapestries, and above them, beautifully painted
plaster relief scenes; and period furniture

The long hall; when it was reported to Bess that the new
Burleigh House had a long hall of more than 120 feet, she
specified that Hardwick's should be 140 feet; it remains,
by volume at least, the largest of the long halls 

Cozy fireplace in the hall

The philosopher, Hobbes, who tutored the kids over at
Chatsworth

Francis Bacon; don't know what the Bess/Cavendish' Shrewsbury connection was,
but I am sure they were close personal buds

The Queen; full-length portrait

No end of tapestry

Or fine furniture

Boat Inn

That evening found us on another canal, in Sprotbrough...

Didn't quite get the name of the canal, a confluence of two big ones

Thus

Where boats are welcome

But apparently not motorcaravans/motorhomes

But for the incredibly popular Boat Inn, which offered us
a place for the night

Nostell Priory, 2

His lord- and lady-ship in the library; note the bust (in the painting and on the wall

Moving right along to the game room, here is an 18th century billiard table;
most everything we've seen heretofore is the far more substantial 19th century
version

And here is the clock made by a very young John Harrison...
but it's not this clock for which he is possibly the most famous
of clock-makers...

Even with its nearly all-wooden mechanism; no, as a clock-
maker, Harrison spent most of his life trying to solve the problem
of  longitude, that is, measuring it, while at sea; what was needed
was a super-accurate clock or watch, accurate despite the
vicissitudes of temperature, barometric pressure, the pitching and
yawing of the craft, etc. After numerous designs, attempts, trials,
etc., he succeeded, winning the recognition (and prize) of King,
Parliament, and the royal maritime board; and history

Up in the bedrooms now

And Guido Reni

Well-worn servants' stairs

"You rang, sir?" episode #5,732

Alas, impossible to get a good photo of perhaps the best
doll-house yet

One room, lens stuck right up onto the glass; incredible

Enlarge, read, and edify yourself: Chippendale the artist, craftsman, and marketeer,
making a catalog to circulate among the elites, defining a market, etc. 

Sample pages from the Director catalog

Rose garden

Walled garden

Kiddie garden

All that's left of the Priory

On the grounds, a man having fun