Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

20 minutes ago, drmditch said:

 

It does seem to have been a particularly pointless war,

 

Curbing Russian territorial ambitions never was, and, sadly, I fear, never will be, a pointless activity. 

 

For a view that the "Crimean" War didn't really concern the Crimea in the main see: The Other Crimean War

 

The question that faces the paterfamilias of Castle Aching's pseudo-historical population is, do I send the Second Battalion 54th Foot into the assault on the Redan?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by Edwardian
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[Compound2632]

Fisher's first active service, I read, was in the Crimean War - in the Baltic. He was transferred to Constantinople just as the war finished, then to China (aged 15), where he had his first command - a paddle-sloop. Now I remember reading in my early teens a children's novel whose hero was a midshipman serving in the blockade of the Gulf of Finland - I suppose, now, the author must have taken Fisher as his inspiration. The only thing I really remember, though, is the total inadequacy of the paddle-sloop as a warship - quite apart from the loss of gun-deck space (for all that dummy gunports were painted on the paddle-box), the paddle wheels were shot to pieces within the first minute of action, rendering the sloop unmanoeuvrable. 

[runs as required]

16 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

the paddle wheels were shot to pieces within the first minute of action, rendering the sloop unmanoeuvrable. 

Is this as vulnerable as an armoured train?

I ask because the WNR could contribute one, along with the aforementioned 54th Foot and ship the whole lot out from Kings Lynn.

A good chance that they might get as far as Malta before finding all the action was over up in the Black Sea. You'd be very popular with the men.

(without Googling isn't there a suffragen CofE Bishop at large in the Med with a Moorish style HQ cathedral in Gib?)

dh

[Hroth]

16 minutes ago, runs as required said:

Is this as vulnerable as an armoured train?

This is what puzzles me with people who travels everywhere on an armoured train.  After all, all you have to do is wait for it to pass onto a viaduct and blow the end spans, then have fun randomly destroying the intermediate spans.  Its no better than flying...

 

NOT that I'm advocating any such action!!!

[Edwardian]

20 minutes ago, runs as required said:

Is this as vulnerable as an armoured train?

I ask because the WNR could contribute one, along with the aforementioned 54th Foot and ship the whole lot out from Kings Lynn.

A good chance that they might get as far as Malta before finding all the action was over up in the Black Sea. You'd be very popular with the men.

(without Googling isn't there a suffragen CofE Bishop at large in the Med with a Moorish style HQ cathedral in Gib?)

dh

 

The First Battalion (the only one that existed outside the Achingverse) had an absolute Hell of a time in transit when sent as reinforcements to suppress the Indian Mutiny and its troop ship caught fire: SS Sarah Sands 

[runs as required]

21 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

The First Battalion (the only one that existed outside the Achingverse) had an absolute Hell of a time in transit when sent as reinforcements to suppress the Indian Mutiny and its troop ship caught fire: SS Sarah Sands 

Too Right!

I realise I had a vague recollection of reading of this before ... and I always found the Indian Ocean nothing but balmy aboard (POSH) British India liners.

 

Would the SS Sarah Sands be the reason why "Mr Sands is [in the kitchen/in the chip pan/outside in the bins ]" is still the stock fire alarm warning passed through a restaurant by the staff to prevent panic among the diners?

dh

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

to suppress the Indian Mutiny 

 

I'm not sure one's allowed to call it that nowadays - though it would be the current term in 1905. Although technically it began with a mutiny of sepoys, it became a war of independence. Unsuccessful, because a Campbell was in charge of "putting it down", if I recall my George MacDonald Fraser correctly. It led to the first instance of the nationalisation of a British industry, and by a Tory government to boot.

[Edwardian]

6 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'm not sure one's allowed to call it that nowadays - though it would be the current term in 1905. Although technically it began with a mutiny of sepoys, it became a war of independence. Unsuccessful, because a Campbell was in charge of "putting it down", if I recall my George MacDonald Fraser correctly. It led to the first instance of the nationalisation of a British industry, and by a Tory government to boot.

 

You see I disagree. It was in essence the mutiny of the the main part of the army of one of the three Presidencies.  I am aware of modern usage, but I use the term "Indian Mutiny" quite deliberately; that is what it was. 

 

Not all fashion is worth adopting.

[Compound2632]

Once Lakshmibai joined in, it ceased to be purely a sepoy mutiny.

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, drmditch said:

 

Except that Anna Karenina was not written until 1878, and in 1854 Russia was an active enemy. It does seem to have been a particularly pointless war, even if it did provide a number of later Victorian street names.

Does Castle Aching have an Alma Avenue, or a Balaclava Broadway?

 

I was merely reflecting on the size of the tome.  A non-anachronistic novel of superior physical weight, which the Young Fisher could readily lay hands on (if he so wished) might be David Copperfield, published as a book in 1850. Definitely as thick as a brick!

 

CA could have a row of Almshouses that might be named Balaclava Terrace, for those of the Regiment who made it back home, though greviously injured.  They might even have a Trollopian Warden...

Edited May 5, 2019 by Hroth

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

CA could have a row of Almshouses that might be named Balaclava Terrace, for those of the Regiment who made it back home, though greviously injured.  They might even have a Trollopian Warden...

 

Not if they were only built in the late 1850s. Warden Harding's establishment seems to be late medieval, surviving the Reformation by dint of being non-monastic.

[Edwardian]

54 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Once Lakshmibai joined in, it ceased to be purely a sepoy mutiny.

 

I don't think the Rani of Jhansi's participation made it any the less a mutiny or any the more a proto-independence movement.

 

The thing you have to remember about historians, and I say this advisedly as history was my subject, is that they do talk a lot of tosh sometimes.  

[Hroth]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Not if they were only built in the late 1850s. Warden Harding's establishment seems to be late medieval, surviving the Reformation by dint of being non-monastic.

 

I really do need to put my thinking head on, even though its a Bank Holiday weekend! 

 

According to Wikipedia, Norfolk still has Almshouses in Norwich, Thetford and Castle Rising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_almshouses_in_the_United_Kingdom#Norfolk

 

 

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

 

I really do need to put my thinking head on, even though its a Bank Holiday weekend! 

 

According to Wikipedia, Norfolk still has Almshouses in Norwich, Thetford and Castle Rising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_almshouses_in_the_United_Kingdom#Norfolk

 

 

 

Yes, I'm building a rip-off of the Castle Rising almshouses

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Fisher's first active service, I read, was in the Crimean War - in the Baltic. He was transferred to Constantinople just as the war finished, then to China (aged 15), where he had his first command - a paddle-sloop. Now I remember reading in my early teens a children's novel whose hero was a midshipman serving in the blockade of the Gulf of Finland - I suppose, now, the author must have taken Fisher as his inspiration. The only thing I really remember, though, is the total inadequacy of the paddle-sloop as a warship - quite apart from the loss of gun-deck space (for all that dummy gunports were painted on the paddle-box), the paddle wheels were shot to pieces within the first minute of action, rendering the sloop unmanoeuvrable. 

 

My earliest exposure to 19th century British history was in the form of the novels of G. A. Henty. This came about because as a child over 6 decades ago I seem to have a surfeit of elderly relatives willing to unload their childhood books on me. Needless to say the Hentian world view has long gone the way of the dinosaur however I maintain a very secret soft spot for these Victorian propaganda novels featuring young white chaps with a surfeit of pluck and derring do. In the Henty canon the title might have been With Fisher to Helsinki; a tale of the perils of paddle steamers.

 

This early infatuation fuelled my love of history and my future interest and career, however it did mean that as I matured my world view needed a salutary overhaul. 

 

There is a pub in a suburb of Melbourne named the Sarah Sands which was built around the time of that event.

[ianathompson]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

According to Wikipedia, Norfolk still has Almshouses in Norwich, Thetford and Castle Rising.

 

Wikipedia obviously has a less than complete list.

There are alms houses in Lynn and even here in Downham Market.

I am sure that there are plenty of other examples throughout the county.

Ian T

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, runs as required said:

Would the SS Sarah Sands be the reason why "Mr Sands is [in the kitchen/in the chip pan/outside in the bins ]" is still the stock fire alarm warning passed through a restaurant by the staff to prevent panic among the diners?

And in theatres as I understand it, although I've been lucky enough never to have heard the call.

[rockershovel]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... e.g. Anna Karenina?

 

 

I looked that up. The father of the Dreadnought first went to sea aboard a two-decker of essentially 18th century design (though built as late as 1831). 

 

HMS Calcutta, as referred to in Al Stewart’s song “Old Admirals” which sort-of describes Fisher’s career

 

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

9 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

I really do need to put my thinking head on, even though its a Bank Holiday weekend! 

 

According to Wikipedia, Norfolk still has Almshouses in Norwich, Thetford and Castle Rising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_almshouses_in_the_United_Kingdom#Norfolk

 

7 hours ago, ianathompson said:

 

Wikipedia obviously has a less than complete list.

There are alms houses in Lynn and even here in Downham Market.

I am sure that there are plenty of other examples throughout the county.

Ian T

I drive past the ones on Thetford on my way to the cinema each week.

Also plan to have some in Kelsby. 

[runs as required]

Alms houses (like Aged Miners Homes familiar everywhere  in former NW Co. Durham) have a very distinctive visual appearance.

They were I believe usually administered by a Trust (like in Newcastle 'The Mary Magdalen Trust' with dwellings on the Town Moor). In many cases the dwellings, e.g. Aged Miners Homes, and I remember a row of former alms house in the Kent village my parents lived in, have since regressed into just anothe part of the general UK Property Market.

 

I'd assume 1903 CA would have a proper St T's Trust dishing out Alms Houses.

dh

[rockershovel]

Not quite Norfolk, but not far away, the village of Thorney has a very distinctive row of former Estate Houses along its Main Street. These were built to provide healthy accommodation for estate workers, following the draining of the surrounding Fens. 

[wagonman]

13 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

The First Battalion (the only one that existed outside the Achingverse) had an absolute Hell of a time in transit when sent as reinforcements to suppress the Indian Mutiny and its troop ship caught fire: SS Sarah Sands 

 

Is this a covert analogy of the tribulations currently being suffered by BBC R4 Today programme (Editor Ms Sarah Sands)?  :-)

[Titanius Anglesmith]

13 hours ago, runs as required said:

 

Would the SS Sarah Sands be the reason why "Mr Sands is [in the kitchen/in the chip pan/outside in the bins ]" is still the stock fire alarm warning passed through a restaurant by the staff to prevent panic among the diners?

dh

 

8 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

And in theatres as I understand it, although I've been lucky enough never to have heard the call.

 

I can't speak for theatres or restaurants, but it's definitely still the standard warning on London Underground (albeit, Mr Sands has been promoted to an Inspector) 

[Hroth]

Nantwich, in Cheshire, has several sets of Almeshouses which are still administered by the Trustees as sheltered housing for the elderly.  I'm most familiar with the Tollemache Almshouses of 1870 which are on Welsh Row, the road between the town and the Shropshire Union Canal, a long walk back, with shopping...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollemache_Almshouses

 

 

 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

Not quite Norfolk, but not far away, the village of Thorney has a very distinctive row of former Estate Houses along its Main Street. These were built to provide healthy accommodation for estate workers, following the draining of the surrounding Fens. 

 

Funny you should mention Thorney, in the Soke of Peterborough.

 

Well-known and wealthy Evangelical and Contrarian, the Countess of Thorney (1798-1894), is part of the back-story to the Isle of Eldernell & Mereport Railway. In that context she is best known for setting up her School for the Daughters of the Culpably Indigent at Mereport, in 1818.

 

 

She comes into our story because, in the 1840s, she lent her support to the Memonites, and it was really only due her patronage that the sect had a brief moment of popularity.  The Countess supported a variety of religious causes; essentially anything to annoy the Church of England.

 

 

Later in life, in the 1870s, she became an 'early adopter' of the Basset Hound breed, tending to name her dogs in stirring Old Testament style. In 1891 she entered her prize Basset Hound, Smiter, or, to give him his full Kennel Club registered name  Trixibell-Smite-all-thy-borders-with-frogs-The-Third, in the first ever Crufts show in 1891. Beaten to the best in breed by Thirty-Nine Articles, a bitch exhibited by an Anglican clergyman, it is said she never recovered.  To this day, the surviving Memonite congregation in Castle Aching keep a suitably named Basset Hound in her memory.