a little history lesson about (kind of) the place i come from
you know the rhyme 'the grand old duke of york'? you know, the one who had ten thousand men? the one who marched them up to the top of the hill and marched them down again? that one?
that hill was sandal castle and the battle was the battle of wakefield. i have run up and down sandal castle many a time as a child. well, walked up it and run/stumbled/rolled down it many a time.
also, walton hall, in walton, where i live - i live in walton not walton hall. that would just be silly. anyway, walton hall, home of charles waterton, was the worlds first nature reserve. ever. he wanted to keep lots of species of birds so people could see them.
and then when he died and his son inherited the hall, him and his toff friends went and shot them all for a jolly good laugh.
then at around the turn of the last century - 19th-20th, not 20th -21st - the hall was a maternity hospital. the old way in to walton hall was a bridge over a canal. the bridge is still there and the canal kind of is, just not much of it left. my nana would always tell me about a horse in the old days (i presume her days) that got spooked and jumped off that bridge along with rider, killing them both. but back to the maternity hospital stage - when the new mothers were ready to go home, it used to be that they would just wave them off at the door and let them go. over the bridge and down the lane. and some of them did that. and the rest did too, but not before throwing their new little bundles of terror over the bridge. so many women did this that they ended up escorting them over the bridge, only giving the mothers their babies once they were well clear of it.
and now its a poncy golf course and an expensive place to get married.
you know the rhyme 'the grand old duke of york'? you know, the one who had ten thousand men? the one who marched them up to the top of the hill and marched them down again? that one?
that hill was sandal castle and the battle was the battle of wakefield. i have run up and down sandal castle many a time as a child. well, walked up it and run/stumbled/rolled down it many a time.
also, walton hall, in walton, where i live - i live in walton not walton hall. that would just be silly. anyway, walton hall, home of charles waterton, was the worlds first nature reserve. ever. he wanted to keep lots of species of birds so people could see them.
and then when he died and his son inherited the hall, him and his toff friends went and shot them all for a jolly good laugh.
then at around the turn of the last century - 19th-20th, not 20th -21st - the hall was a maternity hospital. the old way in to walton hall was a bridge over a canal. the bridge is still there and the canal kind of is, just not much of it left. my nana would always tell me about a horse in the old days (i presume her days) that got spooked and jumped off that bridge along with rider, killing them both. but back to the maternity hospital stage - when the new mothers were ready to go home, it used to be that they would just wave them off at the door and let them go. over the bridge and down the lane. and some of them did that. and the rest did too, but not before throwing their new little bundles of terror over the bridge. so many women did this that they ended up escorting them over the bridge, only giving the mothers their babies once they were well clear of it.
and now its a poncy golf course and an expensive place to get married.