Five on Friday

I'm joining Amy's Five on Friday link up again.  It's good to be back! I shall enjoy seeing what everyone else has shared this week too.

This week I'm sharing five beautiful pieces of Moorcroft pottery that were on display in Cannon Hall Museum, Barnsley, Yorkshire.

Moorcroft pottery has often been featured on television programmes such as the Antiques Roadshow and the style of design where colours are applied by hand inside a raised outline to give a three dimensional look is very distinctive. A transparent glaze is applied and the pot is fired twice resulting in a high gloss and bright colours that has become Moorcroft's trademark.  At Cannon Hall there was a room dedicated to design that's probably used by local schoolchildren for sessions to learn through looking, drawing and creating their own designs.  A display explains how the glazes were applied at each stage of production and many beautiful examples can be seen in the cabinets. Below are five of those pieces that show the development of Moorcroft design from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day.  I wonder which is your favourite?  The work that has gone into designing, making and decorating these pots is impressive.  It's difficult to choose one over another, I think.

Early Moorcroft

Vase c. 1914

'Hazeldene'  V & A Grant purchase

'Hazeldene' was one of the early landscape designs by Moorcroft

Vase c. 1915

'Spanish'

'Spanish' was one of the designs showing

a change in direction from William Moorcroft

in style, colour and decoration.

Contemporary Moorcroft

Jug  2005
'Apollo'   Sian Leeper

Vase 2008
'Kulin'  Philip Gibson

Vase  2011
'London 2012'      Paul Hilditch

The images on the vase evoke memories of the Olympics and
Paralympic Games that were held in London 2012.
Featured are iconic buildings such as St. Paul's Cathedral
and 30, St. Mary Axe (commonly known as The Gherkin)

Cannon Hall, nr Barnsley (1)

When our daughter comes to stay during the school holiday we like to visit at least one country house and garden.  First on the list of places planned for this Summer was Chatsworth Estate over in Derbyshire, but a return visit there hasn't happened.  It needs a full day to take advantage of all there is to see in the gardens and grounds of Chatsworth House and at the moment I couldn't manage that. We needed somewhere not too far away and didn't involve too much walking. Our other daughter suggested Cannon Hall near Barnsley and it certainly proved to be a good choice.

Once a private house, Barnsley Corporation bought the house and 70 acres of parkland in 1951 and it's a popular place providing a green space for leisure activities for people in the region. The house is a museum and used by local schoolchildren as an educational facility where they can learn about life in times past. The rooms have been furnished with a few personal items that belonged to the family who lived there as well as other period pieces.  There are collections of Moorcroft and De Morgan ceramics on display. Other exhibitions and events take place from time-to time. Volunteers look after the walled garden next to the house, there are other interesting areas in the grounds and beautiful parkland that can be enjoyed all for the price of the parking fee in the car park. There are two cafés within the grounds and another eating facility across the lane from the main car park where a food festival was taking place on the day we visited. The nearby village of Cawthorne would be another interesting place to visit when in the area.  Members of the family who lived in Cannon Hall, the Spencer-Stanhopes, were closely associated with the parish church of All Saints.  The interior was refurbished in 1875, paid for by Sir Walter Spencer-Stanhope and his artistic younger brother, Roddam, who was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style of artistry.

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The Deer Shelter was built in the 19th century to provide the deer that roamed in the park some shelter in bad weather. The supports are yew tree trunks.  If you look closely you can see mask-like stone faces on the exterior walls. 

I didn't take a photo of the full frontage of Cannon Hall as there was a commercial display of cars lined up and a bit of a slope away from the terrace as the house is situated on high ground. Below is a structure which was designed to look like a temple and called the Pinery and was once a greenhouse where pineapples and other exotic fruits were grown. Behind that is the Walled Garden and to the left of the photo is the house.

Plenty of benches meant it was a good place to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the view of the parkland.

More benches by the main house gave us a chance to take a rest before taking a look inside the house.

The daughter of a local maker of couture clothing, Amy Carr (1919-1993), has donated some of her late mother's vintage dresses and they form an interesting display in the different rooms that look out onto the parkland.

Cannon Hall was almost empty when the Spencer-Stanhopes sold it to Barnsley Council.  Some items were acquired from the last member of the family who lived there, Elizabeth Fraser Spencer-Stanhope, known locally as Miss Betty, who had moved to Cawthorne Village.  Over the years the house has been furnished with collections of period pieces that reflect what might have been there in former times.

The Dining Room

The Drawing Room (below)

The Library

The Ballroom was built in 1891 and the oak panelling is in the style of a 17th century Jacobean Hall. The panels, floor boards and the wooden railings in the Minstrel's Gallery were made on the estate and the first time the room was used was a ball to celebrate the marriage of Sir Walter Spencer-Stanhope's son to Ida Mary Pilkington of Chevet Hall, Wakefield.  Sir Walter's daughter, Cecily, is thought to have designed the room. The fireplace mantelpiece was made in Florence and the plasterwork is also original.

The 17th century tapestry depicts a scene from Greek mythology and was presented to Cannon Hall by the National Art Collections Fund.

More beautiful wooden panelling, antique furniture and other period items can be seen

 throughout the house.  

(Below) A bust of the Emperor Domition (1st century A.D.)

which would have been brought back as a souvenir from one

of the earlier Spencer-Stanhope's Grand Tours

Next time there will be the servants' quarters, take a look at some of the ceramics on display and then take a walk in the Walled Garden and the former pleasure gardens called 'Fairyland'.

Gardening update, this and that

Over the last few months my husband has been getting on with his gardening and vegetable/fruit growing. The Summer flowering plants give a good display every year and fill our flower beds in our small plot of land around the house, front and back.  From experience new plants that we buy, apart from roses, are now grown in pots otherwise they seem to get eaten by pests. I've had to dig up many new plants in the past and transfer them to pots. Most of the Summer flowers have gone over now so the garden looks different from the first lot of photos below.  Some of the lavender has been cut, but there's still more flower heads to be harvested. My husband brought a bunch indoors and I had to think where to put them. Usually I cut the stems fairly short and put them in large paper bags to completely dry out until I can make some lavender bags. A large floor vase in our entrance hall was the most suitable place I could find until then. (It's cracked so I store large umbrellas in it. It's one I inherited and I don't really like it, but I thought I would research it and found out that it's retro Scheurich pottery). Now the lavender fills the entrance hall with a lovely fragrance.

  

One of the trips was to the local garden centre where I bought a rose for our daughter to take back to her home in Berkshire.  It's called 'Thinking of You'.  

We also went to Cannon Hall Estate and Museum in the Barnsley area - not too far up the M1 motorway from us - where we enjoyed being in the parkland and walled garden and where there were some interesting exhibitions of wonderful Moorcroft and De Morgan ceramics and a display of retro dresses made by a local seamstress and displayed in the beautifully furnished rooms full of period pieces and to Worsbrough Reservoir, also near Barnsley, where there's a restored working flour mill - more about these trips another time, but here are some photos in the meantime.

Morning Glory "Grandpa Ott"

The Walled Garden, Cannon Hall

Worsbrough Reservoir

The strawberries from the garden are now just a distant memory, but we've enjoyed the first of the two melons that were successfully grown in the covered yard and now we're gathering the figs. The different varieties of tomatoes have done fairly well over the last few months - not great quantities, but enough to eat fresh, make tomato sauce for pasta dishes and bottle some. My husband still thinks the San Marzano Romano plum tomatoes are the best variety for him to grow, but this year he also grew a bush variety- Heartbreaker - from the Sutton Seeds pack he was given last Christmas which produced lots of small tomatoes early on that were good for salads and also he's been pleased with the crop from the variety, Gardener's Delight. 

Heartbreaker - end of June

the early stage of the musk melon

Finally, this is the garden today - rather cloudy so the photos are not the best.  However, the sunflowers are a cheery sight, especially the one growing up into the fig tree.

Wishing you a good day and thanking you once more for the lovely comments left on my last blog post, so much appreciated.