In June 1897, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee beacons blazed across the nation. Many were of tremendous size. A record of them seems very elusive in north Staffordshire, though one certainly happened atop the Broom Hills near Rudyard. Relics like that shown on the above postcard suggest many more also happened here, and into Cheshire and the Peak, to the same extent as in the south of Staffordshire.

Here’s a June 1897 letter from the poet A. E. Housman, on observing the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee bonfires and beacons to the south-west of the Black Country (South Staffordshire):

“Five minutes or so after the hour [of 10pm, their official starting time] I easily counted 67 [from his vantage point on Walton Hill, Clent]. Some of these were small affairs in the near neighbourhood, which soon died down; but at half-past there were fifty-two burning merrily on the south and west, from the Lickey on the left to the Wrekin on the right. Northward I did not attempt to count, as it was hard to tell the beacons from the ordinary illuminations of the Black Country. Of the distant fires Malvern was much the largest: the pile was sixty feet high and could be seen with the naked eye by daylight: through a telescope it looked like the Eiffel tower, as it was much higher than its width and held together with iron. But it had been so saturated with paraffin that it burnt out in an hour. The Clent fire was on the further hill, and not on the top The Clent fire was on the further hill, and not on the top but on the south-western face. By midnight, the number of fires had very much decreased, and only four, besides the Clent one, were visible at two o’clock: two distant ones somewhere by the Brown Clee, and two nearer, — one Droitwich way, and one on Kinver Edge which burnt till daylight brilliantly. It was a fine night, and at midnight the sky in the north had enough light for me to see the time by my watch. At two I heard a cuckoo, and immediately afterwards the larks began to go up and make a deafening noise, and some person at Kingswinford, possibly wishing to stop the row, sent up a sky-rocket. (There had been a number of rockets at Birmingham before 10.) About this time the first tinge that you could call blue came in the sky, which had turned buff and green soon after one: at 5 the clouds were red. I stayed to see the sun get above the mists and clouds, which was just 4 o’clock, and then I went back to bed at 5.15. There was a fair crowd round the Clent fire, but a policeman, who told me at 3 that he had been on duty ever since 6 a.m. the day before, said that it was not near so large as in 1887.”

This England magazine is proposing a “A New Festival of Britain” to mark our glorious Brexit, and would appreciate feedback on the idea via their survey.

A 190-page book on the history of trees in British art, Silent Witnesses: Trees in British Art 1760-1870. Just published. Apparently it’s shaky on the history of garden trees, but sound on everything else — according to the Country Life review.

Saint Tolkien? Blimey.

Oxford historical pageant, 1907. Indicative of the sensibilities of the world Tolkien was to enter four years later…

His college, Exeter College…

Robert Plot’s The natural history of Stafford-shire is now publicly available online, albeit in OCR and seemingly without pictures.

A fascinating account of the survival of an archaic Staffordshire and Cheshire word, tallet, meaning the hay-loft above a stable. The passage on tallet occurs on page 105-6 of Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore (Oxford University Press, 1913¹) by Mary Elizabeth Wright. Wright was the learned wife of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s key tutors at Exeter College Oxford, Joseph Wright.

1. Likely to be November 1913. In October 1913 The Dial stated that the book was forthcoming and to be issued in the Autumn of 1913. In the 1st December 1913 issue of the The Dial, the book is listed as having been “received since the last issue”. Given the delay in transatlantic shipping to the USA, this would place the publication date at perhaps early to mid November 1913. Given the date and the author, and the subject matter (inc. “Supernatural Beings”, plant names etc) it seems a likely early influence on Tolkien. The possible influence has been explored by J. S. Ryan in his essay “An Important Influence: His Professor’s Wife” (in Tolkien’s View: Windows into his World, 2009).

A couple tour a few of the many pottery factory outlets in Stoke-on-Trent, and are generally disappointed by all but Dudson in Burslem…

“Julia thought she’d like to look round a shop full of odds and ends of hotel ware [at Dudson]. So, U-turn [the car] and waste time as traffic builds up. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s actually got loads of great (brightly coloured) stuff and it’s cheap. It also had plenty of room for fat people and a cheery woman on the till. I bought more there than we bought anywhere else … We will be going back to Dudson, and will doubtless fit in a visit to Moorcroft [which is nearby]”

I’m generally rather sceptical of ‘place-name evidence’. But it seems that ‘generic’ stream names are, in aggregate, clear evidence of ancient territorial boundaries. Which is a very interesting finding…

One can glimpse here the boundaries of ancient Mercia, the incursion of the Danelaw, and even spot the English speakers who settled into a little nook of Wales. Tolkien was fascinated by that nook, as a linguistic reliquary, and is known to have visited it. In one of his texts he named himself ‘Prof. Rashbold of Pembroke’.

I just abandoned making a new Wikipedia page, halfway through. It’s such a hassle now, with so many hoops to jump through. Forget it… they won’t be getting any more new pages from me.