TV - Lottery projects in the running (Wentworth)

TWO South Yorkshire lottery projects are waiting to hear whether they have been successful in winning national awards.

Wentworth Castle and Stainborough Park Trust, near Barnsley, and Altogether Better in Sheffield, who have both benefited from lottery funding, will find out if they are winners in a live show to be screened on BBC One on Saturday, November 5.

Altogether Better used lottery funding to train and support people in Sheffield to help others improve their health and well-being.

Wentworth Castle was rescued from ruin through a Lottery-funded programme of restoration.

The winning projects in each of seven awards categories will be announced on TV and each winner will receive a £2,000 cash prize.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/lottery_projects_in_the_running_1_3917757

Event - Master Cutler gets to see a real Bramah (Sheffield)

Master Cutler, Professor Bill Speirs, saw how old and new can be merged successfully when he officially opened an exhibition celebrating 200 years of scissor making by hand in Sheffield.

The Cutting Edges exhibition is housed in Butcher Works, a former Little Mesters factory in the Cultural Industries Quarter, where scissors, blades, tools and cutlery were once made by William Butcher, who was Master Cutler in 1845.

Prof Speirs also got the chance to inspect another link with the Cutlers’ Company that he represents, when he saw one of the few remaining WCs designed by Joseph Bramah, the 18th century South Yorkshire inventor, whose descendant, John Bramah, was Master Cutler in 2002.

Similar closets are still working in Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s home on the Isle of Wight.

Opening the exhibition, the Master Cutler emphasised the importance of learning from what has gone before.

“This is a very special place linking the past and the present,” said Prof Speirs.

“This site also houses Freeman College, which works with students with special learning needs, and the Academy of Makers which is made up of artists and craftspeople who not only produce some wonderful things but who also run workshops and classes for the students.

“So this is not just a museum. It is part of our heritage, nurturing not only manual skills but also the desire to work which is essential for the growth and future development of the city.”

Among those attending the opening ceremony was Cutlers’ Company Freeman Philip Wright, grandson of the founder of Ernest Wright and Son, the last surviving scissor maker in Sheffield.

Mr Wright recalled working in the factory in the 1960s, when the weight of the machinery in the grinding workshops, on the upper levels, was so great that arched ceilings of fireproof brick up to one metre thick were needed to prevent the building from collapsing.

Joseph Bramah was born at Wentworth in 1748 and was credited with patents for a number of inventions, including the flushing toilet, beer pump, the unpickable Bramah lock, rotary engines, fire engines, machine tools and a press for printing and numbering bank notes.

He also developed a hydraulic printing press, which was used for making Ordnance Survey maps and was first installed in the Tower of London in 1806.

The press was moved from London to the Kelham Island Industrial Museum in Sheffield and restored several years ago with help from the Bramah family.

 

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/business/master_cutler_gets_to_see_a_real_bramah_1_3819401

News - Wentworth Castle in National Lottery Awards vote appeal

A stately home and gardens in South Yorkshire is hoping to be voted into the finals of a national award.

Wentworth Castle and Stainborough Park has been short-listed in the semi-finals of The National Lottery Awards in the Best Heritage Project category.

The awards, which are voted for by the public, have been set up to recognise various projects across the country.

The 18th century estate was opened to the public when a trust was created in 2002 to rescue the crumbling building.

The Wentworth Castle Trust - which has over 200 volunteers - has seen various phases of restoration, including the Rotunda which is an outdoor imitation of an ancient temple and built in the mid-1700s.

Wentworth Castle and Stainborough Park, which has 26 listed buildings, gardens and 600 acres of parkland within the estate has so far received £10,595,144 of lottery funding from Heritage Lottery Fund.

'Support us'

Vicky Martin, Director of Wentworth Castle and Stainborough Park, said: "We're delighted to have reached the semi-finals of The National Lottery Awards for Phase One of our programme restoration.

"Lottery money has really helped us to provide public access to this 18th-century estate for the first time.

"It's easy to vote, so we're hoping people support us, as it would be a fantastic reward for everyone involved in the project to receive national recognition for their hard work."

There are seven categories in the awards, each reflecting the main areas of lottery funding: Arts, sport, heritage, health, environment, education and voluntary/charity.

The winning project from each of the categories will receive national recognition at an event later this year, broadcast on BBC One, as well as £2,000 to spend on their project.

The three projects with the most votes in each category will go through to the final round of public voting.

The public can vote on the The National Lottery Awards website. Voting ends at noon on 20 June.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-13613820

TV - Wentworth Estate on country show (BBC1 Sunday 30 January 19.00)

A GARDEN estate in South Yorkshire is set to feature on the BBC One television series Countryfile this Sunday.

The show team spent a day at Wentworth Castle Gardens near Barnsley earlier this month, and was given a tour by estate manager Michael Klemperer.

The feature will be screened at 7pm and looks at the development of Stainborough Castle, the parkland and the restoration of the estate’s 19th century conservatory. 

Heritage director Vicky Martin said she was “thrilled” the programme chose to film at Wentworth.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/local/estate_on_country_show_1_2977868

I'm surprised the buildings not "too old" to appear :P 

A Family War of the Follies Leaves a Little Reminder of Rivals

DON'T you just love a story of family rivalry – that is, so long as it doesn't concern your own kith and kin? 

 

Strolling through the hundreds of graceful acres of some of Britain's large country estates, the visitor will appreciate the planning and hard work that went into creating the sumptuous gardens and views of mansion and monuments, but we don't necessarily understand how these vast properties came about.

Take Wentworth Castle. Five minutes from junction 37 of the M1, this is the only grade one listed landscape in South Yorkshire, and it encompasses a fascinating collection of 26 listed buildings and monuments. Among them are the Rotunda, Queen Anne's Obelisk, the Duke of Argyll's Column and the majestic Stainborough Castle, a large romantic folly built by Sir Thomas Wentworth the Earl of Strafford in 1730.

Designed as an "eyecatcher", this mock castle, believed to be the second oldest Gothic garden folly in the country, is a wonderful architectural flourish with four towers named Harriet, Anne, Lucy and William after the Earl's children. The interior of each was painted a different colour.

Patrick Eyres, a landscape historian and one of the trustees of Wentworth Castle Heritage Trust, clearly enjoys telling the story of the castle and the property on which it stands.

"In 1695, when Sir Thomas's father died, he expected to inherit the estate at Wentworth Woodhouse which had been in the family for generations, six miles as the crow flies from where Wentworth Castle now stands.

"But for some reason the inheritance was passed down the female line to a cousin called Thomas Watson, who added Wentworth to his name. He was a member of the gentry, whereas Sir Thomas was an aristocrat, a renowned and respected diplomat. Finding himself disinherited, Sir Thomas bought the 500-acre Stainborough Hall Estate nearby and set about building a castle and a series of follies around his land, including the mock castle. It had a bailey wall and four turrets, a gatehouse keep with four towers and a first floor banqueting room. It was properly plastered inside, and was used regularly to entertain. The name of the estate was changed to Wentworth Castle, probably to annoy the cousin down the road.

"A lovely letter exists, written by Sir Thomas, detailing how he entertained in the folly, and even enjoyed a 'breakfast' there with Thomas Watson Wentworth, although the two men were poles apart in many ways including politically."

The disinherited Sir Thomas went about adding to his acreage by secretly buying up land from local farmers and referring to his rival in documents by the codename "the vermin". The Earl of Strafford's son continued the rivalry, and the owners vied with each other to create eye-catching follies on their land.

The pinnacle of this "folly war" really was Stainborough Castle, says Patrick Eyres. "I think we can safely say that Sir Thomas Wentworth and his family's efforts outranked, outswanked and outshone those of the cousin at Wentworth Woodhouse – although over time the family at Wentworth Woodhouse rose to become more senior within the aristocracy. The castle folly at Wentworth Castle was placed deliberately so as to be seen from the highest point of the Wentworth Woodhouse Estate. Unlike most follies, though, it was useful for entertaining and for the children to play in."

Today, Wentworth Woodhouse is still in private ownership, whereas Wentworth Castle is now the Northern College, an adult education centre. The gardens and parkland are open to the public and are looked after by the trust. In the 1960s two of the castle folly's towers collapsed after the structure was destabilised by the opening up of new coal seams beneath it. The castle fell into disrepair and became overgrown, although some thought this added to its romance.

In recent years, Stainborough Castle has been expensively restored after a campaign to raise £20m to refurbish the mansion, gardens, parkland and follies, and it can be used for picnics or to hold events, seating hundreds of visitors for theatrical and musical performances.

The folly was featured in the BBC's Restoration series and will be seen again next year in another BBC series about Britain's "hidden" houses, which will examine the famous Wentworth family rivalry.


Wentworth Castle Gardens, Low Lane, Stainborough, South Yorkshire S75 3EN. 01226 776040 or www.wentworthcastle.org

From: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/features/A-family-war-of-the.6674450.jp