Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

It is indeed hard to devise scandals sufficient to cause the fall of a member of the establishment in 1905, but perhaps the young upstart isn’t quite fully “in”.

 

Wikipedia helps, though, with this one from the 1890s:

 

“Liberator Building Society scandal,[1] in which the Liberal Party MP Jabez Balfour was exposed as running several fraudulent companies to conceal financial losses. Balfour fled to Argentina, but was eventually arrested and imprisoned.”

 

I just like the idea of overweening ambition thwarted by personal greed and folly, so wish to include it.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Nearholmer

[TheQ]

The Brass band There has to have been a band...

 

Castle rising was a rotten Borough until 1832  electing 2 mps the last being Lord William Cholmondeley and Fulk Greville Howard.

 

 It became part of North West Norfollk (as did castle Acre) so it's current MP in 1904 is Sir George White, its MP in the future in 2018 will be Sir Henry Bellingham...

 

Sir George White

Edited September 19, 2018 by TheQ

[Edwardian]

The Brass band There has to have been a band...

 

Castle rising was a rotten Borough until 1832  electing 2 mps the last being Lord William Cholmondeley and Fulk Greville Howard.

 

 It became part of North West Norfollk so it's current MP in 1904 is Sir George White, its MP in the future in 2018 will be Sir Henry Bellingham...

 

Yes, there could be a band.  Hitherto we had thought of military bands, but that is not the only possibility.

 

But the only Sir George White I've come across is he of the Bristol Boxkite, of which they built a replica for the Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines film, and which I've seen in flight at Old Warden. Nearholmer will know him as he was also something to do with trams.

 

Sir Henry Bellingham - yes, things you just couldn't make up.

[TheQ]

just  had a thought, in the Rural District there should also be the ruinous village of Castle Falling...

[Hair_Dave]

<snip>

 

Then there is Achingham, reached by a branch line by the mid 1860s, which was a place of greater consequence than CA. It would have a livestock market, maltings and, by 1905, gasworks. It's a fantasy Fakenham, obviously, and in layout terms is much more like Buckingham Great Central, in its earlier forms, than the bucolic CA would be.

 

<snip>

 

 

My limited contact with Fakenham has been to do with horse racing, which turns my mind to the potential for racing at Achingham and of course the associated railway traffic in horseboxes and "special workings"

[Edwardian]

It is indeed hard to devise scandals sufficient to cause the fall of a member of the establishment in 1905, but perhaps the young upstart isn’t quite fully “in”.

 

Wikipedia helps, though, with this one from the 1890s:

 

“Liberator Building Society scandal,[1] in which the Liberal Party MP Jabez Balfour was exposed as running several fraudulent companies to conceal financial losses. Balfour fled to Argentina, but was eventually arrested and imprisoned.”

 

I just like the idea of overweening ambition thwarted by personal greed and folly, so wish to include it.

 

Well, we do have the "Norfolk Oilfields" affair.  We decided to back-date the Setch Oilfields story, as you will recall.  I am not sure whether English Oilfields started out in the honest belief that the scheme was viable, but if so, it certainly seems to have been kept going as a fraudulent scheme.

 

 

My limited contact with Fakenham has been to do with horse racing, which turns my mind to the potential for racing at Achingham and of course the associated railway traffic in horseboxes and "special workings"

 

What an excellent idea.  You would have to go back a month or two from the layout's intended Maytime setting for an annual Easter meet, but it makes sense:

 

Racing first took place at Fakenham on Easter Monday after the West Norfolk Hunt took a committee decision to transfer their race meeting from East Winch, near King’s Lynn. The West Norfolk Hunt had run meeting since 1884 at East Winch but because of concerns over continual heavy going at the course, a more suitable, lighter soil site was identified at Fakenham.

 

This first meeting in 1905 attracted 37 runners and considering the travelling difficulties in those days, confirmed the excellent local support for the transfer to Fakenham. Just the one meeting per year was held on Easter Monday with racing continuing every year except for enforced breaks during war years.

 

https://www.fakenhamracecourse.co.uk/contact/about-fakenham-racecourse/

 

EDIT: See also: http://www.eastwinchandwestbilney.co.uk/history/east-winch-races and http://www.greyhoundderby.com/East%20Winch%20Racecourse.html

Edited September 19, 2018 by Edwardian

[Anotheran]

I think it is now time to break out those brass bands and marching troupes as this significant tome on the culture, history and general miscellany of the Parish of Castle Aching has reached the heady heights of five hundred pages. Few locations have as much detailed discussion of so many items of local interest. It's made this Parish the first and last thread that I visit in each RMWeb session... first and last as it normally sees the addition of a post or two while I'm browsing the rest!

 

Congratulations on a thread that is at once informative, interesting, amusing... and huge! May it go on, and on, and on

 

Kind regards, Neil

[Hroth]

It is indeed hard to devise scandals sufficient to cause the fall of a member of the establishment in 1905, but perhaps the young upstart isn’t quite fully “in”.

 

Wikipedia helps, though, with this one from the 1890s:

 

“Liberator Building Society scandal,[1] in which the Liberal Party MP Jabez Balfour was exposed as running several fraudulent companies to conceal financial losses. Balfour fled to Argentina, but was eventually arrested and imprisoned.”

 

I just like the idea of overweening ambition thwarted by personal greed and folly, so wish to include it.

I'd completely forgotten the possibility of financial skulduggery and fraud.

 

Perhaps he could be a promoter of curiously unsuccessful minor light railways.  No George Hudson perhaps, but a nasty parter of their savings from Widows and Orphans!

[Northroader]

Wasn’t Birchoverham the venue for the celebrated Beach Races, a horse racing venue, (flat, obvs.) rumoured to have been related to one of our former monarchs crossing of the Wash?

[Nearholmer]

Some very senior bods survived a similar exercise at about our date, though, so I do think that ‘lack of aircover’ might have been Balfour’s real problem; he wasn’t pash enough.

 

His scam was very modern: a building society that lent its subscribers’ money against properties that he owned, using inflated valuations and, I think, artificially depressed interest rates.

 

Questionable oilfields, I like. You could mortgage poor-quality agricultural land at vast sums if it was assumed to be the next California.

[wagonman]

 

 

Deleted because no longer relevant. I really must keep up...

Edited September 19, 2018 by wagonman

[wagonman]

 

 

Sir Henry Bellingham - yes, things you just couldn't make up.

 

 

In North Norfolk we had to suffer Sir Ralph Howell for more years than I care to remember. A bigger waste of space it's hard to envisage.

[Edwardian]

Deleted because no longer relevant. I really must keep up...

 

 

In North Norfolk we had to suffer Sir Ralph Howell for more years than I care to remember. A bigger waste of space it's hard to envisage.

 

Actually, rather than irrelevant, Nearholmer having sketched out an Edwardian "deeply back-woodsman type .. knighted for services to longevity", your posts concerning contemporary incumbents seem to suggest that it's rather a case of plus ça change ....!

[Martin S-C]

 HGVs [...] blowing past her windscreen.

By golly, you have got it bad up there.

 

The Mechanical Engineer magazine was well established by 1905 so there certainly were well-informed gentleman abroad who had the bent of a mechanical and railway engineering persuasion. I feel sure a local body of them would meet to discuss matters of interest to them as well as covering the goings-on at the local railway company. The CAMES (Castle Aching Mechanical Engineering Society).

 

Might there be a walking or cycling club? I might suggest the Aching Feet or the Aching Legs but I think its probably best not to.

[Martin S-C]

I just like the idea of overweening ambition thwarted by personal greed and folly, so wish to include it.

I am more than a little alarmed to realise that this describes my layout building ambitions perfectly!

[Skinnylinny]

By golly, you have got it bad up there.

*puts on terrible Scottish accent* Aye, it's grim oop north! 

 

Seriously though, with all trains out of Edinburgh and Glasgow (Queen St & Central) cancelled now due to the wind blowing things onto the tracks/wires, various roads in Edinburgh closing due to falling masonry and trees, it's a wee bit blustery up here!

[Edwardian]

By golly, you have got it bad up there.

 

The Mechanical Engineer magazine was well established by 1905 so there certainly were well-informed gentleman abroad who had the bent of a mechanical and railway engineering persuasion. I feel sure a local body of them would meet to discuss matters of interest to them as well as covering the goings-on at the local railway company. The CAMES (Castle Aching Mechanical Engineering Society).

 

Might there be a walking or cycling club? I might suggest the Aching Feet or the Aching Legs but I think its probably best not to.

 

I don't think I mentioned this, but recently I decided where the WNR's Works should be.  At least, approximately.  I think they should be near the CA end of the line.  I think they will be located off the mainline, however, so probably west of the junction to the western branches.  This allowed me to settle on the name Aching Constable.  It's been in my mind recently to attempt to map at least The Achings. 

 

The WNR would surely encourage an Institute for its staff, perhaps to encourage Improving leisure activities with which to fill their copious free time! There might be a Mechanics Institute and I wonder which is more likely, a railway sponsored institution, aimed at its staff, or a wider institution?  There are, of course, agricultural engineers and founders in the district, not to mention mining engineers (!), and oil prospectors (!!), and I wonder if a general Engineering Institute, supported fully, of course, by the WNR, but open to all, might not be the answer?

 

Anyway, I offer nearby Aching Constable as a suitable base for any such organisation.

 

From my perspective, this is all potential grist to my ultimate mill - Image search "Mechanics Institute", and a whole new tempting architectural genre opens up!

[Martin S-C]

 Image search "Mechanics Institute", and a whole new tempting architectural genre opens up!

Ah yes, I see what you mean!

 

 

 

 

I selected three of the smallest ones because you're probably going to get fed up with gluing rows of bricks onto things pretty soon.

[Edwardian]

As your post illustrates, some of the Aussie examples are well-worth considering, from the elaborate example you post to the more 'Tin (or, rather, wooden) Tabernacle' style.

[Northroader]

“Aching Constable” sounds a bit like Peter Barnfields “Burdle Burcombe” in Whimshire.

http://titfield.co.uk/Barnfield/Find_card.php?xfer_text=M6&xfer_type=M&xfer_page=1

Edited September 19, 2018 by Northroader

[Nearholmer]

Railwaymen were dead-keen on organising ‘mutual improvement classes’, so we need to book a room every Wednesday evening for those.

 

Railway enthusiasm wasn’t really organised at this date, the SLS, CURS, and The MRC all date from just a few years later, but have we mentioned vegetable and flower shows, vicarage fetes, and the ancient folk custom of ‘dressing the bush’, which has taken place in CA every vernal equinox since I just made it up?

[Edwardian]

Railwaymen were dead-keen on organising ‘mutual improvement classes’, so we need to book a room every Wednesday evening for those.

 

Railway enthusiasm wasn’t really organised at this date, the SLS, CURS, and The MRC all date from just a few years later, but have we mentioned vegetable and flower shows, vicarage fetes, and the ancient folk custom of ‘dressing the bush’, which has taken place in CA every vernal equinox since I just made it up?

 

Anything claimed to be "Folklorique" just has to be accepted. 

 

Not being a native of the county, I would be interested in, and grateful for,  any information on Norfolk traditions.

 

The good people of the Fens used to dress a bloke up as a 'Straw Bear', get very drunk, and then, so far as I can tell, try their best to beat him to death.  It was actually Edwardian do-gooders who put a stop to it.  The modern festival is a, well, modern revival: http://www.strawbear.org.uk/.  People now come from all over to clash clogs and wave hankies at each other. Since the last Polish farm worker was burnt at the stake, it's as cosmopolitan as Whittlesey ever gets.  

[lanchester]

I am not sure when the more Dionysiac, not to say positively Neolithic, aspects of the rites were suppressed, but surely the cultural life of the Achings retains some vestiges of the ancient traditions associated with Flint Knapping. I fully accept that in this brave new Century actual human sacrifice may be considered a tad de trop, but I suspect various deeply symbolic practices survive. Indeed do I not recall that upon the new line of railway being opened, the ribbon was severed by means of a polished axe-head of improbable antiquity?

[Compound2632]

It is surely high time we were introduced to the West Norfolk's long-suffering Locomotive Superintendent? I suspect his duties also encompass the Carriage & Wagon Dept. and maybe more? It wasn't unknown to combine the role with that of General Manager.

[corneliuslundie]

Compound could be talking about me (well, my nom-de-plume). Ahrons had a lovely turn of phrase about him.

I have been out all day so am a bit behind, but there was a reference a while back to Sir George White. That same Sir George was an active shareholder of the Taff Vale Railway and led a revolt which resulted in the resignation of most of the directors. He was also an active shareholder in the Rhymney Railway and appears at one stage to have been involved in trying to arrange its sale to the GWR, at one stage stating that the direvtors throughout the life of the railway had been trying to sell it to anyone who would buy it. He may have been involved in other Welsh railways but I have not investigated.

It sounds as though he might have been Chairman of the West Norfolk, or at least a director.

On a general note, I strongly believe that the kind of discussion we are having is useful for any model railway that purports to represent an imaginary but plausible part of the real world.

Jonathan