Continuing with the theme of connections with Loughborough, last weekend I was in Cambridgeshire, where I planned to visit a few things I missed the last time I was there.
In Cambridge, one of the main things I wanted to do was finish off a visit to Kettle's Yard, an art gallery with a house attached that used to belong to Jim Ede, a former curator of The Tate Gallery. The house has been left exactly as it was when Jim and his wife Helen left it in 1973 for retirement in Edinburgh, and was crammed full of interesting exhibits, like sculptures by Barbara Hepworth and paintings by Alfred Wallis, amongst others. The house was like a tardis, for from the outside it didn't look particularly big, and indeed the entrance rooms were relatively small, but the extension was soooo spacious and painted in white to show off the artworks to best effect. Somehow, and I'm not quite sure why, this place reminded me of Stoneywell Cottage. Admittedly, the two buildings do not look anything like each other from the outside, and Stoneywell is a good deal smaller than the Kettle's Yard house, but there was something similar about the quirky inside.
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| Kettle's Yard and House, Cambridge |
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| Stoneywell Cottage |
Next door to Kettle's Yard, was the Cambridge Folk Museum. I might have thought this was going to be all about rural and folky things, but actually it turned out to be a lovely museum of local history, and had many things within that chimed with Loughborough.
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| Cambridge Folk Museum |
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| Seems every town with a university has a "town and gown" relationship! |
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| Women's suffrage display |
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| Women's suffrage display |
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| From a display in Loughborough |
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| Wooden moulds are used to fashion metal rainhoppers and downpipes |
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| An example from Beaumanor Hall |
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| Every town had its brickmakers! |
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| An example of hand pillow lacemaking |
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| Another example of pillow lace |
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| A small brick used by the technical colleges to train apprentices: compare this to the life-sized egg |
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| An anonymous bell |
If you follow my blog, you'll know that I have tried to visit the Stained Glass Museum in Ely Cathedral on a previous occasion but it was unexpectedly closed, so this time I was hopeful, but not overly so!! To my great excitement, the cathedral AND the museum were open! What I was hoping to see in here were a couple of stained glass windows that had been found at Ulverscroft Manor - and there they were!!!!!!
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| The Principalities from Ulverscroft |
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| The Virtues from Ulverscroft |
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| Other, similar stained glass |
What I missed though was the stained glass by William Warrington, a stained glass artist who had worked with William Railton and Augustus Pugin, but when I got home and read the book of the museum, it did say this particular item wasn't on display, so, phew, I didn't actually miss it!
While in the cathedral, I took the opportunity to have a good look around, and later, in the town, I found a wonderful bookshop called Toppings, which reminded me of Loughborough's public library, where Frank Topping was once the librarian: I wonder if they're related?
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| Victorian radiators very similar to those at Lichfield |
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| Alabaster memorials |
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| A temporary art exhibit |
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| Topping, booksellers |
Well, this weekend is rapidly coming to an end, and this blogpost is due to be published, so I'd better stop now!
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Lynne
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