Lynne About Loughborough: Hathern Band

Showing posts with label Hathern Band. Show all posts

Sunday, 1 October 2023

Loughborough Bell Festival 2023

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might remember that during my 10th birthday month, August 2023, I hosted a number of guest posts from a variety of people who were kind enough to write for me? Well, this month – oh, hang on, it’s the 1st of October today, so I mean last month – I enlisted the help of a young photojournalist to take some photos of an event taking place in Loughborough which I was unable to attend myself, due to a previous appointment.

On Sunday 10th September, Loughborough held its first-ever bell festival publicised by Charnwood Arts! And what a festival it was!! I’m sure many of you were there to witness the willow bell, made by local artist Nita Rao, who was also responsible for many of the sculptures on the Beacon Hill, and Outwoods trails, whilst it was in the grounds of the parish church (All Saints with Holy Trinity). From here, it made its way through town to Queen’s Park, where there were celebrations all round!

This willow bell was made to represent the Big Paul Bell, which was made by the local bellfoundry, Taylors, for St Paul’s Cathedral in London. While this bell may have been made of willow, the original bell was made of bell metal (a combination of copper and tin) and weighed in at in excess of an impressive 20 imperial tons according to the St Paul’s Cathedral website. It’s apparently the second largest bell to have been cast in the UK – or maybe the biggest in England, depending on what sources you read - and is still the biggest bell cast by our local foundry.

While the journey from the parish church to the park might have only been a short distance, taking only about 30 minutes, Loughborough to St Paul’s in London was a voyage of about 100 miles, and took 11 days! The mode of transport for the two journeys was practically the same though! In both cases, the bell was loaded onto a trailer, and the whole pulled by a steam traction engine!

At the Loughborough Bell Festival – an event that is likely to be repeated in some form a couple more times – the procession from the church to the park, was accompanied by groups like Morris dancers (I spotted Bare Bones and Way of the Wyrd, with loads of members of the public lining the route and even joining in with the procession. Once in the park, there was more entertainment put on, including a concert in the bandstand from the Hathern Band (the subject of many of my previous blogposts, like this one!), and a marquee in which people could have a go at things like handbell ringing!

Here's some photos that give a flavour of the event:

A man in Victorian gentleman's dress, with flag, in churchyard with a 7-foot willow bell sculpture

Mr John Taylor (aka Lez!) with the Great Paul Bell!

The steam engine

The trailer

3 Victorian men and wheels of a steam engine

The experts!

Crowds watching the willow bell being loaded onto the trailer

Loading the bell

The rector consulting the engine drivers

Preparing for the blessing

The Reverend Wendy Dalrymple giving the blessing

The bell on its journey through the streets

The journey begins!

The procession of people!

The procession arriving in the Market Place

Bandstand surrounded by flowers in the park

The bandstand in Queen's Park

Morris dancers performing around the bandstand

Morris in the park!

The have-a-go marquee

The Carillon after the event with the willow bell in front

The end of the day

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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Copyright:

Dyer, Lynne (2023). Loughborough Bell Festival 2023. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/10/loughborough-bell-festival-2023.html [Accessed 1 October 2023]

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Tuesday, 24 August 2021

Loughborough Mela and other local events

Last week I wrote about the misplaced milestone which lies outside the Organ Grinder pub on Wood Gate, and I had intended to follow-up with the story of another misplaced milestone (although that is not an accurate description), but lack of time meant this didn’t happen. I’ll follow this up in a future post, as I have a hankering to tell you about my exciting weekend, last weekend!

As it happened, last weekend turned out to be a busy one, and I spent a lot of time actually being lynneaboutloughborough – that is, out and about in Loughborough or the surrounding area – and loving every moment of it! now, had I been a bit more organised I could have been out and about at even more places and events, but as I really am not – organised, that is - I ended up in the same place two days in a row, and so missed out on a visit to St Paul’s church in Woodhouse Eaves, which was having an open day!! I have a liking for that particular village and church because OH has run the Woodhouse May Day Challenge a couple of times, the people in the village are lovely, my neighbour exhibits at the annual art exhibition, the churchyard contains some lovely Swithland slate gravestones, and a few years ago I helped out with some research into William Railton, the architect behind Nelson's column in London, and the architect of St Paul's church in Woodhouse, amongst many others.

Anyway, back to the places and events I did manage to visit! Usually I walk to Quorn, but as there was so much happening this weekend, I drove the short distance, so I could go to the community centre in the park and view the new community heritage boards. This turned out to be a lovely space, the walls bedecked with about a dozen information boards, covering the local aspect of general topics like transport, education, religion, and pubs, alongside boards relating to Quorn families, Quorn industry and the like. Just the right amount of information and pictures were offered so I could read and absorb, but not get bored. And, of course, I could relate much of this information to Loughborough’s own situation – I feel another blog post coming on … Well done, Quorn Local History Group for an excellent display!

Oh, and just in case you're not aware, there are campaigns out there to ensure that undesignated footpaths that are used regularly are reported as such, so that they can continue to be used, rather than closed off, and there are a couple between Quorn and Loughborough that are in danger of ceasing to be traversable.

I admit I’m not one for big, crowded events, so standing at the edge of a marquee on the parish green, between the parish church and Fearon Hall, in Loughborough, I was probably the only person who was relieved that the 5,000 people who normally turn out for the Loughborough Mela, didn’t manage to make it this year. Having been cancelled last year, the event did go ahead this year, although on a somewhat smaller scale. This didn’t, however, make it any lesser an event than it usually is, and it was so exciting to be out and about, bumping into friends I hadn’t seen face2face in quite some time, and being entertained with music and dancing. Had I not been rushing back for Sunday lunch, I’d have tucked into some of the delicious food that was on offer, too! Anyway, I look forward to going again next year, probably as soon as the event opens, before it gets too busy!

And so, back to Quorn!!! Again by car, mostly down to lack of time, but also because I didn’t want to carry fold-up chairs a couple of miles!! The excitement this time came from listening to a concert performed by the Hathern Band in the park – an event that I always go to. Again, this didn’t happen last year, and in fact, this was only the second concert the band had done since March 2020, the first being only the previous weekend when they played at Oakham Park. So, as well as great music, it was also fab to be able to chat with friends both in the band and in the audience, and eat cake – and even the heavy downpour of rain couldn’t dampen the spirits!

I wonder what next weekend has in store for me?! Anyway, do pop back to the blog as it is regularly updated, and I just might be able to deliver that post about misplaced milestones soon …

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 24 August 2021

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2021). Loughborough Mela 2021 and other local events. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/08/loughborough-mela-and-other-local-events.html [Accessed 24 August 2021]

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Lynne

Sunday, 8 November 2020

Remembering

It feels so strange not to be going to a Remembrance Service this year. I can't think when I first started attending, but it was probably about 25 years ago when the eldest son was in Beavers or Cubs. Over the years, we've been to services in a variety of venues, including in the Baxter Gate Baptist Chapel, the United Reformed Church on Frederick Street, in Queen's Park at the foot of the carillon, and in Hathern Church. There may well have been others!

Today, on Remembrance Sunday, I'm going to look back through my photographs of previous year's events, and maybe see if I can find some photos from some of those services 20-25 years ago.

And in an unexpected turn of events, I'm able to share with you some pictures from today's ceremony, in Queen's Park. Sadly, the quality is not brilliant, but at least you can see what happened. I should also say that the Carillon was played during the laying of the wreaths. The photos are shared here in the order in which they happened, and you will find them at the bottom of this post.

2019