[Charles:] or whatever we don't really have the time, people just say, oh it's charts. Erm and I'm responsible really for the historical side of the business, not only the all for all the furnishings and erm that kind of thing and refurbishing the house, but also for its future as we hope a living history event in the fullness of time. We've at least two or three years to go before that happens. Also for the audio tour and generally for making sure that everything is kept on an even keel historically and that people keep on the right lines. There is also a staff of er other people, the ones that you you already know Michael who is is really responsible for the as it were welfare of volunteers and there's another er what four people aren't there. Er er also who do [LAUGHTER] I'm sure. No they er [] they do things like fund raising and and er er the office and there's obviously somebody who the posters and design work and Guy Fawkes and that sort of thing. Now what I'd like to do today is to erm take you round the house in a moment or two, see what you think of it and really to treat this as something whereby you see if you want to come and help us. And we see whether we think we can [LAUGHTER] tolerate you []. Erm that's putting it bluntly because erm obviously being a volunteer is a sort of two way thing, we couldn't run without volunteers, we're very grateful for the ones we've got but So it's clearly a matter of whether you decide and whether you like the way we like to run things or or not. And we've had people quite often in these sessions eventually have said, well no I don't I don't think I will. Because er there's too much, because they didn't like the way things were run, something like that and on occasions we have had to say to people, we're sorry, we just don't think you're the right kind of person for us. So it it is a sort of selection process a sort of mutual selection process. And the first thing I have to say a about the way the the place runs, is that it doesn't run like an ordinary museum, nor does it run like and ordinary house. Like for instance Fairfax House or anything like that. They're guides and stewards are really partly kind of guards. Now that doesn't really work here because we have a policy that we don't have notices, you may have noticed already, we don't have notices saying don't and we don't object to people sitting on the furniture, handling this and that, doing what they like. In fact we actually encourage them to do so. We don't say you can't take photographs because we actually like them to take photographs, we do reckon it's a little bit of publicity for us. And we have never apart from I think we've lost one spoon which was the since we started so er we don't leave valuable things around but it's an important consideration to think that our most valuable things are things it would take four large strong men to move
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] I mean like like the heavy furniture. So so so I say that first because we have in the past had people who felt worried by this attitude, they felt you know that they really they were people who perhaps had a background in the National Trust and who really felt that it was their job to say, oh no don't touch that. Now in fact that's not what we like our stewards to do, what we like our stewards to do is actually to help people to enjoy themselves, to help people to erm to enjoy the house and to sit on things and and and actually say, no please sit down on that if you like to, it's perfectly alright, that's what it's for. Erm also I mean and to help them with the audio tour, because the audio tour despite all our efforts to be clear about how it works, continually confuses people and they sort of, oh where am I, I thought I was in here. So you will eventually get the opportunity to take as Mike has maybe already told you, get eventually get the opportunity to take the audio tour yourself, so you can see where things are. Erm the audio tour er and just to say something about it, is in the process of being revised. There are two audio tours, there's the short one which simply says, this is here and that's there, that's that. And it's just two voices, quite sort of, one man's voice and one woman's voice. Then there's what we call the long tour, which has got seven characters from the house's history on it. Robert Hardy, the actor, plays William alderman er and it's the tour is just about to be re-cut er so that Judi Dench can be introduced into it as Lady. At the moment we have a tour which has somebody else playing Lady but we've got Judi Dench now so that's that's that. And both these tours enable people to go round the house on their own. Right that's something about the way things work, and as we go round I'll tell you you know, what the precise duties cos they are various of the er of the er the stewards are. And what are the rewards, well what we find and and I must say, I was really touched by it, particularly with some of our our stewards, they say that they really like they love the house and they feel it's their own. I mean we've always encouraged people to feel it was their own. Erm we do try and be nice to them [LAUGHTER] we do try and give them presents occasionally like little, you may have seen some of them wearing little lions head badges which er are part of the arms of William that we had made. We actually at long last, now the Winter's nearly over, are having made for them some big heavy red cloaks for those who are standing on duty in the courtyard. Er not to costume them you understand but simply because a cloak is something that can be worn by a man or a woman and can be worn over whatever you have on. And er it took us a long time to get the special material because as you will gather, we tend to do everything properly, so we had to have the a cloth specially woven er handwoven of course and especially dyed and for once we had it especially fooled in other words the nap was raised. But water powered er water powered erm wooden hammers in the museum textile industry so it's ever so accurate.
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] Erm been there before. I think it's probably sensible in a moment if we actually take the a walk round the house
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] er in the way that we would if we were visitors. But first of all erm I'll just say something, I'll say it inside cos it's a bit cold out, about the history, the background of the house. We're actually in a part of Barley Hall now accidentally except that this part has been so Georgianized that we haven't incorporated into the medieval house it's used as an office. But the whole house was acquired by the York Archaeological Trust in nineteen eighty seven. At that time it was a kind of derelict brick structure, part of which er over there, the bit that's at right angles to where we are now, was in a was a plumber's showroom or had been and this part was actually derelict and had a demolition order on it. Er it had been bought previous to that in nineteen eighty five by a local businessman who wanted to turn it into offices, but when he got his architect in, Russell Wright who's his architect. When he got his architect, the architect said, look what you have underneath all this brickwork is a complete shell of a medieval building. And when the businessman er realized... he very generously sold it to the Trust er I believe the same I don't know, I believe it was the same. And we began the long process of actually sort of causing it to be reborn. I think what we'll do is we'll go down to the courtyard and I can show you more erm how that was done. What we'll be doing at first then is just to take an overview of the house, you wouldn't necessarily get that on an ordinary tour. So shall we do that now? the courtyard and er. Unless there are any questions you want to ask before we even start. Ah no. No the questions probably come later don't they..... If you come and stand over here.... So when the Trust acquired this house it looked nothing like this at all, er it was all there was hardly any timber showing, the only timber showing was what you can actually see now is obviously old timber. All the walls were covered in brick here, this piece of the building was actually only at that time only two storeys high. Again all covered in brick. This yard was just a kind of higgledy-piggledy yard with a with a a wall along there where you're standing and a few lean-tos. So no-one could have guessed really what was on underneath here. Er it was known by archaeologists and the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments had done a survey, but it had only done a very brief survey, and they said this is part of something left of a medieval building here. They weren't really aware.
[Clare:] Mhm.
[Charles:] So once the Trust acquired the house it began to do a number of it began to do three things. It began gradually to peel off the brick skin and to find out what was underneath. Often the timbers were no more than columns of sort of dampish dust because they hadn't been able to breathe in this kind of brick envelope. Often they were missing altogether and there was just a kind of gap where the timbers were, a sort of hole in the brick. A kind of er reverse erm like a mould really. But as that was done, all the timbers were either photographs or their apertures were drawn or they were er sometimes they were even rubbed like a brass rubbing to see where they joins were. And also if they had a timber like that one there where they had obviously a joint in it, the position of the joint was marked. So that was done, the plans established, and then being an archaeological trust the excavation began to see what was under the Hall. And that was done piece by piece as it was possible to do it. This alleyway was shut for a few months and we Hello.
[speaker003:] Hello.
[Charles:] We took it back down to its medieval level. So in fact we dropped the alleyway in nineteen ninety one, that was the line of the alleyway, the horizontal line along along there. So in order to get back to the medieval level, we took it back down to there and we caused the to slope. Those of you who know York will perhaps remember that you used to have to duck if you were any height at all to get underneath there, well you don't now. It's not because you've got any shorter, but we've dropped the
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] whole level. So excavation was done I I'll keep this short because it's cold out here, you see why we need the cloaks.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] [cough]. Excavation was done and then also the documentary we have was continued. In other words, who owned it, why, when was it built and so on. Oh and the fourth thing that happened is the timbers, core samples were taken out of the timbers and they were sent for erm dendrochronology. Tree ring dating.. Well that came back, everyone's hearts in their mouths,. Erm that said that this part of all ten samples came out the same, ten tree ring dating samples and said the timbers er of which that had been built, had been felled in the spring of thirteen sixty. And they said May which we thought was it a bit really but they said it had the the Spring wood but not the Summer wood on it. So in the Spring of thirteen sixty, and they said that this was much more complicated, most of the timbers dated from about fourteen fifty although there was one that dated from twelve eighty nine and clearly was renewed and one of the roof timbers was about fifteen twenty, perhaps a repair. But by and large, fourteen fifty. So thirteen sixty, fourteen fifty. By that time I had already established because I did the documentary stuff, I'd already established the ownership of the house and the house began life as the town house of a monastery called Priory. Er belonging to the Augustinian black canons near Wakefield. And they began it in thirteen sixty, the time when York was just beginning to become er the most of importance as the second city of medieval England. They built it as their headquarters of York. Not as a church, people have got the wrong idea, we sometimes get these tour guides going round saying, oh was there a monastery here? No there was never anything like that. It was simply their headquarters where they came to trade, where they came to er perhaps attend law courts but particularly where the prior of came when he came to do services at the Minster because he was a canon of York as well as being canon or the parish of Bramham which gave him a seat in the Cathedral. And so he got space to build a house and they began it began this part in thirteen sixty although it's clear that there was an earlier house here, perhaps built at the time when they first got the back in the eleven seventies. But nothing of that survives at all. So thirteen sixty they began that. And and nearly a hundred years later, ninety years later, this was begun here. There was certainly a third wing which is marked by that there
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] Which is er actually exactly the same height of gable as the gable on this side. And we think probably it was a parallel wing, probably also of thirteen sixty.. Here briefly, because we'll see them on the inside, you've got the main bed-chambers above. Here you've got the hall, you've got the pantry. In that wing, possibly more lodgings, possibly some stabling, possibly a little oratory or chapel since they were canons. L long after they built this however, they let the whole house out. They leased the whole house out to a man called William. Partly because they themselves were running running short of money er they they had a er lost a lot of lawsuits and they'd spent a lot of money rebuilding their abbey church their priory church over at. And partly because York was going down the plughole a bit in the fourteen fifties as well. And so they decided they didn't want their house any more and they would lease it to citizen. They leased it to a man called William who was a goldsmith. This man, chamberlain, sheriff, Lord Mayor of York, member of parliament for the city, er master of the king's mint, an important man, a local man, come up in the world quite a lot cos his grandfather had just been an apothecary living on the corner of er Grape Lane going up and up and up. His own son, William's son, who was called erm moved out into the country, married an heiress and became a gentleman with a coat of arms. rise and you got richer and richer and richer, then you became a gentleman. And that er that's what happened to the 's and they're still about actually. We still hear from some of them. they've gone down in the world again a bit.
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] still around. Erm so that is and what we're doing is to try and recreate the appearance of the house as it was not in the time when the canons had it, but when William had it because we know a lot about him and his family and also we know more about the furnishings of that period. And what we shall eventually do is to turn it back, when we've finished furnishing it, we'll put the people back in again. Have it as a working medieval household. But that's a long way off.
[Clare:] Mhm.
[Charles:] But at least two years because it would take us that time to furnish the house. Let's not get any colder, we'll go and go in. As you'll see one of the jobs that the volunteers do is to stand here.
[speaker004:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] It is un unusually quiet even even for us. by the shop I think.
[Mike:] Aren't you cold?
[Clare:] Not really. [LAUGHTER] My feet are cold....
[Charles:] We've got six meetings and today so
[Clare:] Oh heavens. Yeah....
[Charles:] new volunteers. This is the shop as is self evident and one of the I said there were some benefits erm the stewards do get a discount in the shop.
[Linda:] Yes they do yeah.
[Charles:] The point about the shop is that erm it sells things on a medieval theme and more specifically it has we have this undertaking that if you see it in the house, you can buy it in the shop. Er a lot of the things are made specially for us, for instance these spoons. Which are based on an example one of the only two example of York made medieval pewter in Yorkshire museums. So we shall use this at our great banquet which I'll tell you about in a moment when we go round, which is our next event. So goods with a medieval theme, some of them very special like this Czech Bohemian glass which is we're the only stockists in the country, it is very expensive but it is very lovely and each piece is handmade. Erm so you do get a discount on that. But if you were a visitor, you would start your tour here. Cos you would come and you would buy the ticket from Linda who would give who would give you a Or from if he was here.
[Linda:] [LAUGHTER]
[Mike:] .
[speaker004:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] And you would you would take your ticket then and that would be your entrance ticket. So this is where you would start off. Do come back anyway here and have a look round at some of the other things, but that's the point of the shop, to sell things with a medieval theme. Mostly things connected with the house although we do Again another thing, we've taken to selling these Eastern European. direct they come directly from. And also because we're very keen on textiles, these special scarves volunteer's wearing which are these herringbone vegetable dyed scarves. Erm anyway, that's where you start your tour, and you get your ticket and you sort of wave it round here.
[Linda:] See you later. Thanks.
[Charles:] See you later. you wave it round here... It's a good day isn't it apart from being cold.
[Clare:] It is.
[Charles:] .
[Clare:] ....
[Charles:] Now this is where you come in erm and this is where we've we've done something which er we think is quite clever, this here is the back facade of Barley Hall and when we got it it was not medieval at all, there was no timber framing left, it was just this this er brick here, so we didn't want to fake it up to look medieval on the outside. We thought that would be not at all the thing to do, a bit too Disneyland. On the other hand we did want to keep it medieval looking on the inside, so what we did was we installed these Yorkshire sliding casement but on the inside as you can see at the top window, we put panel window. So once you're inside you're in a medieval environment. All your outside is not too intrusive. Er eventually we hope to have a little Victorian style garden here cos this is a bit bare and uninviting. But at the moment we haven't got any money so we can't do that. So you brandish your tickets and you come in to here. Hello, these are the new
[Elsie:] Morning.
[Charles:] new...
[Elsie:] The new intake?
[Charles:] New intake. Are they new erm ear earphones?
[Elsie:] They are Charles.
[Charles:] Do they go with the new we're they gonna go with the new sound system.
[Elsie:] Yeah.
[Charles:] Oh good good.
[Elsie:] .
[Charles:] is Elsie one of our most valued volunteers and part time cleaner. [LAUGHTER] Erm so you'd come in here and you would be asked Well you would be asked what would they be asked whether they
[Elsie:] Well first they want to know you know, which wh we've got a new system haven't we
[Charles:] Mhm.
[Elsie:] put down for the you know for fire precautions and things.
[Charles:] Mhm.
[Elsie:] So do they go down as a new intake.
[Charles:] Search me I don't know.
[speaker004:] [LAUGHTER]
[Elsie:] Oh five, six, seven, eight.
[Charles:] Yeah.
[Elsie:] So erm Well first you you welcome them and then say, erm you know, how much time have they got because we offer two tours. One takes twenty minutes which is Dr is taking them round and telling them about the Hall. And the other one takes seventy minutes or longer if they wish to examine things. And then when they've decided which you'll have erm the slip from the shop
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] And you put long or short tour and then the numbers
[Clare:] Right.
[Charles:] on the cassettes down. And erm... usually if there's space you ask them to sit just to listen to the introduction and then move on. And they go around er and you warn them about the erm the steep steps into the rooms because the oak is quite deep. And if if they have children, to take them up on the wall side of the stairs because you know. And just wish them good. And give them a guide book as well. Well I think
[Elsie:] Yes you yes that's right. Because in here y they have
[Charles:] you'd better have one of these actually you'd better
[Elsie:] Yes.
[Charles:] each have one of these.
[Clare:] Thank you.
[Charles:] erm just so that you can er take it away and have a look at it later on.
[speaker008:] Do the tours cost the same for each
[Charles:] Yes they do.
[Elsie:] Yes yes entrance and er no it's up to them whether they're just visiting
[Charles:] Mm.
[Elsie:] or whether they're really are interested.
[Charles:] Occasionally you'll get people who don't want to take at all.
[Elsie:] That's true
[Charles:] You don't have to. But they don't really get much out of it I suspect if they don't.
[Elsie:] Erm it's usually sort of teachers and people who just like to see erm ahead for the school class to bring them later. But in that case you just take a piece of new paper and put the down and put it on the clip. So when when they bring the cassettes back I find it easier because you can get in quite a rush at times and you can't keep up with. If you put the cassettes on there although we should be having a new system but still they seen checking up don't they Dr.
[Charles:] Yeah. Well
[Elsie:] So then yeah yeah mm.
[Charles:] it it it's not that complicated.
[Elsie:] No it's it's just getting the rhythm of doing it really.
[Charles:] But sometimes it gets quite busy and it's Saturday but that was a result of that radio programme, we had eighty seven people time of year Did they? Oh good.
[Elsie:] Yes yes. And they'd all took the long tours you know they really were interested
[Charles:] We've a new sound system coming and that's going to be mounted behind the there's a there's a great hole behind there you know which is actually the size of the range of one of the medieval kitchens. I say one of the medieval kitchens cos the kitchen seems to move about a bit er at different times. But this is the room eventually we're going to use I mean not for a long time yet, as a working medieval kitchen. Working when we've got the household working. But at the moment we need it desperately for what it is which is a kind of entrance and p place where people can sit and and begin their tour. The idea of the tour which you can take yourselves. The idea of the tour is so that they can actually er listen to it, but they can turn it off whenever they want and they can use their guide book to... see what is in each room and if you look at the guidebook as we go round, you will find that that the things are illustrated, you know the pot. And this is erm this is a pot that we had made after much
[speaker009:] iron?
[Charles:] No it's bronze which is even more difficult. Er it is rather heavy but you're welcome to carry it.
[speaker004:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] It's a it's a bronze pot, a bronze cooking pot. Er a cast copy of one in the Yorkshire Museum again. Erm they're awfully difficult to cast because the art of bronze founding on that level is at least as far as I can see, almost died out, I'm having terrible I've terrible trouble with getting bronze cast. That's just an example of one of the things we've had made and that particular was sponsored as many of our pieces are. That was sponsored by British Sugar. That cost nine hundred pounds to make but that's because it was the original. If we can ever persuade them to make any more there should they they should be cheaper. But so
[speaker010:] newly made?
[Charles:] Oh well yes because that's
[speaker010:] original.
[Charles:] No no and we even if we were offered them we wouldn't take them because the logic of the thing is that what we're trying to show is a medieval house as it looked when it was nearly new.
[speaker010:] Mhm.
[Charles:] So even if somebody were to offer us a piece which they wouldn't I'm sure, a piece of old medieval furniture, we wouldn't take it. That being the first reason, the second reason is because it would put an intolerable burden of security on us.
[speaker010:] Mm.
[Charles:] Now if somebody steals that it's an awful nuisance but that's all it is. Erm and in fact more that and all our more valuable pieces are marked because they are so close to the original that er you have to mark them
[speaker010:] Mm.
[Charles:] for the sake of the museums otherwise they would be t probably passed off as the real thing. You could pass that off as the real thing. Cos it's so like the original and oh you can't really test er metal for date, well not without a lot of problems anyway. Now we don't have any new things, I should have Thank you for asking the question because we're trying to give the impression of a medieval house the what's special about this is that it's a medieval house as it looked when it was new. Since we had to renew so much of the timber, we thought we would turn that to good account, rather than trying to We don't want it to look as if it's five hundred years old. So one of the things that suppliers are told is they must on no account stress or age or mess about with any furnishings. It's gets distressed quick enough doesn't it on its own.
[speaker010:] Yeah.
[Charles:] Erm so I mean this is this is never distressed but it's beginning to look a bit ancient now. So as they go round they get they look at their guidebooks, they're told all the are. Erm
[speaker010:] .
[Charles:] And er if they're on the short tour there's just a straight you know, says this is the kitchen and this would be this that and the other. If they're on the long tour at this point, the commentator is pushed aside by the man playing the part of the cook.. So they go from here into the two little rooms where food is prepared. This is generally the food preparation area of the house, this is a bit further on, this is the buttery. Come in if you want to. This is the the buttery where which is nothing to do with butter but it's where erm the drink for the house was kept in barrels or butts like these. Now the smell you can smell is new oak actually. These are new oak barrels made for us by Theakstons er the These two are full of water because otherwise they'll dry out and that will happen to them. In other words the rings will come off.
[Clare:] Oh yes. Mm.
[Charles:] That one is deliberately being allowed to dry out because it's got to be re-coopered cos it never worked properly. Er this is a long sort of type of er barrel used for probably importing wine. These are more likely barrels for either water or perhaps wine or or or or ale although ale is different from beer cos it doesn't have any hops in. Ale was not often kept in barrels cos it didn't keep long enough to want to to have enough of it.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] So these have been made for us by Theakstons, they're made of new oak with er instead of metal metal was used.
[Clare:] They're bound in wood aren't they?
[Charles:] Mm. Metals was used for barrels but only for ones that were being taken a long way away like wine barrels that were being taken to or from Gascony. They were much more expensive they were called barrels ferris or barrels with iron on.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] These are made of er hazel, stripped, bound with willow. we have actually had a sort of barrel expert er who told us about this. And then the bucket too which has been kept full of water to keep it from expanding and leaking which otherwise it would do. Er is is done in the same way. So we haven't yet put the tiles on the floor because again we can't afford to. Erm er this area was tiled like the great hall in a rather plain way and we shall tile that again. The kind of these are the kind of things that we're using for drink. These are salt glazed stoneware. Erm of a type replicas of a type made in Germany and i imported here in very large numbers. Salt glazed stoneware. That is erm you chuck in rock salt when the k kiln is very very hot and then run like blazes cos it sends up hydrochloric acid. Erm so that's salt glazed stoneware. Erm these are quite posh drinking cups called, funnel necked jugs. And they were the originals of these were made in a place called in Germany. And these'll be for the banquet and I'll explain the banquet later on as we go on. But this is the nothing like finished but quite soon, in the next couple of weeks, we shall be putting some windows in here with shutters. And the windows we shall put in here are the type of windows called a fenestral which are made of linen and I'll show you one of those later on rather than explain it now. So we're putting a pair of fenestrals in here. This is the buttery and the next room to it is the pantry. Which is pretty bare. So the pantry is er... As its name suggests, the pantry is actually breadroom the place where the pain is kept, the the the dry goods more than the wet goods. So if you can imagine the food being cooked in there and if you like, plated up in here and while the butler, the man who works in the butlery or the buttery does the drink, the pantler, the man who looks after the bread is plating the food out there. Now originally he would have given it to the servers who would have taken it out here....
[speaker004:] follow you?
[Charles:] Yes you can follow me. He would have taken it out here through the
[speaker004:] Oh I see.
[Charles:] screen door.
[speaker004:] Straight into there.
[Charles:] Yes straight into there.... Now that's what he originally would have done, you see he would have taken it out of here straight into the hall. Now he he can't do that now because there's a public alleyway through, and the public alleyway has been here at least since sixteen ninety one. If you just step outside for a minute. As we can see rather graphically here, the difference in if you stand back against that wall if you would very kindly, erm... you see here the difference in level between nineteen ninety
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] That's the level at which you would have been walking along this alleyway in nineteen ninety and about fourteen sixty. That's how much was actually excavated away. The so this alleyway has been here since at least sixteen ninety, probably rather earlier when the house began to go down the drain as it were, down the plughole. And got split up into different little workshops and dwellings. We'll go back inside anyway when these gentlemen have gone past and. Thank you. So the public don't do that but I just thought I'd like to show you how how.... So we're working on the buttery and pantry, particularly the buttery. Every now and again, we run up against what you might call a medieval. Erm because of having to do everything as much as we can the medieval way, if we were ordinary people and we said we wanted to tile we'd say, oh well we'll go out and buy some tiles. But we can't do that because we have to make our tiles in the way that's most. The reason being that when tiles are made, they're made with clay in a big frame and then they're cut with a thing like piano wire. But they have to be dried in sunlight before they can be fired. If you don't, the damp comes through later on underneath the glaze, So we've got to wait till the Spring. So there's a medieval problem. Well and that's we were delayed a whole month in tidying the whole because it was such a rotten wet Summer, we couldn't get the tiles.
[speaker004:] Tell me.
[Charles:] No the kind of candles we have in here. tallow candles
[speaker004:] Yes.
[Charles:] which are much cheaper than the beeswax ones being used in the....
[speaker008:] cos you seem to get them from like all over.
[Charles:] well what was here basically. What what we know to have been here.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[Charles:] This is the... which is actually much further on in its decoration that most of the rooms, in fact all it really needs is some cushions and the window glass here. This is the, the room where we think probably the owners of the house sort of did their business and met their private customers. Erm... most of the furniture we choose either because we know it from inventories and lists to have been the kind of thing that was in middle class households in York, or in some cases like this, where we know the 's have actually owned something like this. William was left a red chest of Flanders by his grandmother who was called Alice in fourteen twenty nine.
[speaker004:] What's it made of?
[Charles:] Oak. Erm
[speaker004:] It's a very funny colour. [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] Well you see most medieval furniture of this type was painted.
[speaker004:] Was it?
[Charles:] It was usual to paint furniture.
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] And we know that he was left this red chest of Flanders so we sought for a Flanders chest, that's a chest probably actually made in North Germany but imported through Flanders and we found a Yorkshire example in a place called near Ripon. And we copied it
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] not only as to its erm very elaborate tracery patterns and and mythical beasts on it like that, around here, but also as to its colour cos although the original we found was actually blackened, when one took when I took a very powerful torch to it, you could actually see the colour in the crevices still, this red colour. And so we took a piece off and had it analysed, we have a little laboratory which we use to analyse things like that, and it turned out to be what we expected, the most common colour of medieval furniture was red. You did it by putting a a a erm a layer of animal skin glue which is made from boiling down old sheepskins and parchment, that's the size, that seals the wood. And then us the the pigment is basically a a red ochre.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] So erm there it is, the red chest as it's known. Erm everything is done in the most accurate way we can. So we don't use mild steel, we use wrought iron. All the wood is this nearly all the wood is oak cos most medieval furniture is oak. This however is not oak it's sit on it somebody. this is what's call was called in York a throwen chair and don't mistake that for thrown, er it's a throwen or c or or turned chair. Cos the local turners wood turners were known as throwers. Er cos they threw things rather like throwing a pot. And that's a throwen chair of around about fourteen fifty, designed with a short seat so that you lean forward and it's a writing chair basically. You see. It's it's not a it's not a comfortable chair, it's a writing chair. And that is copied from a picture of one that survives. Er a very accurate one which we took all the proportions from the picture. This
[speaker004:] It's very very wide isn't it.
[Charles:] Yes it is well we just copied it exactly. It's actually not uncomfortable to sit in when you get used to it.
[speaker004:] I mean were people sitting with robes on or something?
[Charles:] People were sitting the main point of the chair is is to enable you to to write and it's actually very satisfactory to write in, it's just the right height. Er if you're writing.
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] Erm this is taken again from medieval pictures and one of the materials we use in this house quite a lot which is is horn. So this is these ink horns actually are ink horns. Equally these are horn books, do pick them up and wander about with them. They were the earliest type of school text book erm which came in in about fourteen fifty, er to teach your A B C which you just copied and copied and copied until you got it right.
[speaker004:] make your own ink?
[Charles:] Er we do make our own ink, we haven't got any at the moment. Erm and this is the your prayers your your Latin pater noster. Erm this table is actually a folding table of a type which very often appears in Flemish and German pictures. We don't know if any in England that survive although they are described as a folding table of Flanders or a tab tabula plicata which means a a table that folds. And it folds by means of taking out these two little little pegs there you see. I'm not going to do it cos it's full of of jugs and then it tips back on itself on to the on to the flat side. Erm it's only decorated on the front cos it when it folds it folds flat along the back edge.
[Clare:] mhm.
[Charles:] And it's got these animal feet. If you you when you if you're interested, go and have a look at your pictures by Hieronymus Bosch, interiors by people like Hieronymus Bosch and er Roger van der and people like that and you'll find this table keeps well a table like this keeps appearing. Sometimes sixteen sides at the top.
[speaker004:] Why did they have a folding table for travelling or
[Charles:] Do to make more room I mean the furniture was much less monumental than ours is if you see what I mean. It was this room may think is sparse but is almost over furnished by medieval standards. They didn't tend to have a lot of furniture. And these because you always wanted to be able to adapt rooms for different purposes and this folded back against the wall. That's the it needs cushions. The cushions are being made.
[speaker004:] It's very comfortable.
[Charles:] Well it won't be if you sat there for too long.
[speaker004:] No but it
[Charles:] That if that's an old fashioned design, I mean we designed that as being something that his granny might have had. So sort of late fourteenth century. That's actually the very latest thing in in in primitive carving on here. Which is in fact the new newest thing in fourteen eighty. They they just as as a storage space. But er there's a footboard there.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] Looking up at the roof, the roof of the whole of this hall range and indeed of the other part is is done in the same way. It's the tiles are copies of ones found in the foundations and they're hung on hand split oak lathes. These things are lathes. They're split erm along the line of the grain because otherwise being erm they they incline to warp a bit. If if you use if you split wood along a natural grain, it moves it warps far less.
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] And I'll talk about that a bit more. And then they're hung on by pegs and then touched underneath with mortar to stop them lifting off, that grey sort of er it's to stop them lifting off. And it's been a jolly good roof I will say, it's not let there's never been no problems with it in even in this bad weather we've had these last few years. It's a very good roof.
[Clare:] Are the pegs attached to the tiles so they hang on the the lathes?
[Charles:] Yes the pegs the pegs go through the tiles so the tiles are are made with little square hole. Tiles were the ro making the tiles was a major operation because erm when they first tried to make the tiles they tried they dug a hole big hole at Rawcliffe and they they tried to make forty thousand tiles, line them all up in the pit and they brought something like forty tonnes of dry wood chippings from the erm saw mills in er forest but they couldn't quite get it hot enough so the whole lot had to be thrown away do again.
[speaker004:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] So erm anyway they they they did do it in the end.
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] Erm this is another piece of erm import. Because there was a tremendous trade between York and the low countries and between York and low and and North Germany. And this what came in in large quantities to fashionable houses like this were erm what was called. Flemish brassware. And this is actually from Bruges, I actually went to Bruges to get it er and this is a copy of something which er a direct cast of something which is still in Bruges. In er oh where is it, in a place called er, the pottery in the church museum. And er
[speaker004:] It's really elaborate compared with the simplicity of the furniture isn't it.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] Well yes I mean it we d d d it's slightly different, they have a slightly different view of things and on what they use a lot more than we do is wall textiles.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] I'm particularly the textiles I suppose I'm I'm quite keen on keenest on because I think we're far ahead of everybody else with textiles. Other medieval houses that are replicated medieval houses just haven't got on to the textiles in the way that we have. These textiles to be brief are the type called in the inventories, say. S A Y. The type of cloth is say. It's a light but closely woven cloth and the weave is based No medieval cloth hangings survive. Tapestries do, cloth hangings don't. Erm the ta the the weave is based on the discovery of a seal, an seal, were the royal officials who were responsible for the quality of exported cloth. And some of these were found in Bristol harbour er and the pattern of the cloths was pressed in to the lead so we were able to put a microscope to that and see how it should be woven. They're woven as you see on thirty six inch wide hand-looms. Just with a without a flying shuttle, passing the shuttle back and forth. They're dyed also naturally in the medieval way with red for the madder and then welled to give the yellow as the basis of digris and then a woad an indigo from woad erm slightly cheating there because we couldn't have enough woad, we have to use import the actual substance. So you dye it yellow and then you dye it blue and it goes that green. We are planting four acres of woad in order to have a blue bed for next year cos there isn't enough woad is is is in rather short supply so we have to grow our own. So these are hangings erm hung on tenterhooks directly hammered straight into the wall. No rails or anything like that. The tenterhooks that are hooks used for stretching or tentering the cloth in the process of making it. And you just hammer them the poor old cloth workers they've got used to me now, they had an awful fit at the time, you can't do that. I said yes I can, stick it straight on. The idea being that if you wanted to move the cloth which we will be doing for the banquet, you just lift it straight off there, hammer some more tenterhooks in somewhere else and put it on there as well. Erm even tapestries like the Devonshire hunting tapestry which you may have seen at the V and A. Er the tops look as if they're been eaten by mice because they're been so often snagged onto tenterhooks and moved and moved round and onto other tenterhooks, they just don't seem to have had the same view of this kind of thing as we do. That's what they were for, you moved them around. If you wanted to move them, you moved them.... I'm going to I'm going to accelerate now cos I see I'm going on too long. [break in recording] This is the great hall and I could spend easily as long as I've already spent on on this hall but I won't.
[Clare:] It's wonderful.
[Charles:] This is the great hall which is which is although it looks finished is actually by no means finished, I was just explaining to Mike we still need a go there, we still need a table there, we need all the windows to be done and we need three thousand pounds for that window. Not so high because of the glass but because it's got to have double folding shutters. And because there isn't enough room for a half shutter you see, it's only that wide, it wouldn't cover the window. So we're having to have shutters with a central hinge and we're fortunate again in York we've got a wonderful erm prototype, only a few hundred yards away in the Minster. Er I don't know whether any of you have ever been into the little private chapel, St William's Chapel which is reserved for private prayer and early morning service. However if you go in there and there's no one to disturb, I always look and make sure there isn't anyone first, and look at all the wall cupboards, the wall cupboards the wood has been cleaned, actually are about the largest collection of late medieval ironwork in England. Because all their hinges and c all their hinges and straps are all original and they all date from about fourteen ten. So we have a if we ever want any ironwork we just have to go and say, oh well we'll have one of those please. To the blacksmith. Erm... as I told you before, the original er conformation of the house was that that the cooked food was brought through that door... through the screened door and into here as you see. But this passageway was cut through in the seventeenth century if not earlier. So we... wondered whether there was a wall here at all of any kind. The showed there was absolutely nothing here. There was just an open space. All there was probably was a hanging and you see there are the actual stubs of the tenterhooks are still visible. And we haven't tenterhooked this wall because we wanted to be able to open and shut this curtain so we've adopted another medieval style taken from erm er medieval manuscripts. The rail is made of wrought iron and the rings are made of cast bronze. We're fortunate in having an excellent blacksmith called John who's also the Minster's blacksmith, who manages all our ironwork very cheaply we have to d he's so busy we have to just get it when we can. Roof you see, if you look right up there above this this central beam, you can see the smoke hole.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] Now this entire wall is exactly as it was in about fourteen fifty when it was built. The reason why that's been preserved is that that part of the wall was never bricked in. So that it was always able to breathe. The side walls were bricked in in a brick skin, they couldn't breathe and we've had to replace as you saw outside, virtually all the timber. The er original timber here which is the dias beam and it points up something very o odd happened in this building. If they had been working logically, they would have built the new on to the old stopping here. But for some reason they didn't, for some reason I don't know, for some reason they sort of burrowed into the of the earlier range, causing a couple of hundred years later in the early seventeenth century, absolute disaster because the whole of that range began to settle down. And they took a whole level off, they've dropped it by a storey. We've put it back up to the storey but we've. So why they did it Well why they did it is clear er to make slightly bigger hall, but why they took the risk they did is not so clear. I mean you can imagine somebody saying, well it'll last me out, I'm not bothered.. This is where the posh chaps sat. by the big window, and with especially grand table which we shall paint incidentally paint the paint the er the carving there. Settling down because wood keeps moving for some time. Even when as we've done here we've got which is timber which is cut like the slices of a cake from the outer rim to the centre. Instead of being sawn off in strips like they do, actually carved it from the outside to the centre. Quarter which is very distinctive when you get to recognize it because it just looks different actually moves much less. What moves much less still is riven timber. And these legs on these side tables is riven. in other words instead of being sawn, what you do is you take the log and you s look at it very hard to see where the natural erm faults along the wood are, going out from the centre. And then you put an axe in there to make a space you put a
[Clare:] .
[Charles:] and then thump it with a huge mallet and it splits along the natural lines of the grain. And that's called riving or cleaving. And that's the strongest way of all of making timbers and looking at medieval pictures and the few medieval survivors, that's the way it was done. Because these they didn't want your table legs to go wandering about. Because it would make the table bend. And these are done very well. These are made by a gentleman called Adrian er erm who worked on the house as a as a labourer er but was so taken with it all he took to becoming a medieval furniture maker, has been ever since. He's coming tonight to stay, to bring the benches which are gonna go on the outside here. Er the gentleman coming from Scotland on Saturday is bringing me all the table linen and we're table linen for. Including these tremendously long towels which are er one and a half times the length of the table because they have to go over everybody's lap as a napkin kind of communal napkin.
[Clare:] Mhm.
[Charles:] . So people would be sitting round four corners of this, they had to have a napkin over all their laps which they did. And all this is being done because on the twelfth of February, we're having here a sort of super duper accurate medieval banquet. Er accurate in the sense that there'll be no wenches and no rugby songs and no no leg of chicken.
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] What there will be and nor will on on the other hand, nor will there be any forks. Everyone is going to be given er or lent er one of these er eating knives which we had specially made. And we'll give them a fork and knife and I won't go into it in great detail but everything is going to be the six courses will be entirely accurately served on bread plates over on pewter trenchers. But I mustn't go into that now. But er that's our next excitement after the recent television and radio thing. Finally... these are hangings, read and green perhaps the most popular colours in York. In seventy percent of cases where colour is mentioned, it's red and green. Red and green say on the bench and bench covers called bankers have been made for these as well they would be covered as well. Er that's red say there and these are painted cloths which were very popular in York for those who couldn't afford tapestries which were then as now, very expensive. They're linen painted with proper er ground pigments. The pattern is er not the white rose of York but the rose of the incarnation or the rose of the Virgin Mary, Rosa Mundi. You see the Iesus Hominis I H S. And then round that maria so Christ in the virgin womb and then Iesus round the outside.
[Clare:] Mm.
[Charles:] And this is taken from belonging to the John and you can see it originally in the York Minster Library. John was a friend of William so we thought that would be quite appropriate. Whenever we can we try and do stuff that is as close as possible to this house. We've amused ourselves a little bit by putting William 's initials on there and the arms of his wife who was called Joan. She was a bit grander than him, she had a family coat of arms with three. She came from.
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] as er a little little erm er complement to the people who paid for all this, the London Glassworkers' Company, we put their arms on there. We thought it more appropriate than saying, sponsored by so we put their arms. So these are the side tables for high table, the hearth, central hearth, central fire place, waiting to get the fire dogs for it. Smoke went out there. The original beam, black and that beam across there is the original beam which is blackened by all the smoke. Right, the arch braces of course had to be put in because they were if you look at it you'll see that they were actually sawn off. The arch braces were sawn off. Because when we took over this room it had actually two extra floors in, one where you see the joists and one higher up. So. And we took those floors out cos they were recent and and we put these... arch braces back in again using the pattern that. But this hall is not finished yet, the hearth itself is a real medieval hearth recycled from. We er
[speaker004:] Was was was there an upper floor.
[Charles:] No.
[speaker004:] You say there are holes in the timbers
[Charles:] No no no I was saying that there was but that had been put in quite recently.
[speaker004:] Oh yes. I see.
[Charles:] Mm. Erm the hearth, the hall with the original floor is still preserved about nine inches down underneath a layer of three inches of sand to preserve it. What we found here was the floor with the grout marks of where the tiles had been. So that we knew what pattern the tiles had been in. And in the corner there, where there in fact had been something very heavy, the tiles had not been removed but left. So that we had a few tiles that we knew what their pattern and date was. And John our potter was able to. So we've reproduced the pattern that we think was here. The hearth was still here. The hearth had been very badly damaged in Georgian times and somebody had just dug a pit straight through the middle of it, perhaps for drainage. Erm well I mean they didn't know it was there you see.
[Clare:] Mm yeah.
[Charles:] So what we've done we thought we're gonna have to replicate that hearth. And then the erm the excavating department discovered a h a hearth of the right date at Rawcliffe on the er northern edge of er the city by the ring road. And so since that was going to be demolished and built over by a a housing estate anyway, we ripped it out and put it back down here. Well we ripped up bits of it and re refurbished it. So it's a sort of interesting rather surreal object sort of recycled medieval hearth on the site of the other one. This as far as we know which is reproduced from the original, was for some sort of a fender. We don't know why it was this little sort of dip, that reproduces you know, the configuration of it but why it was there, we don't know, we thought we better put it back since it was there.
[Clare:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] Would they sleep round?
[Charles:] No no not in a house like this. No this is too grand for that sort of thing. Erm I I think the only time that people might have slept in here is if you had a visitor who had a lot of servants and there was simply nowhere else to put them. But no, the hall by this time was really more a. And and not really even a living room for the owners cos they were in the bed chamber.
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] I I'm I say you must excuse me going on at such a pace but I've got A I've got another meeting quite shortly and B you've got some little mo I think M Michael's looking to take over. just go on through here.... These are the store rooms underneath the bed chambers. The rooms, erm we've tried to this has been a bit tied up since the broadcast, we've tried to have it fairly cluttery so that kids for instance if they're not used to sheep, can come and come and have a sniff of of of er you know. [LAUGHTER] They can d they can do that used to sheep. They can they can if they want to take some wool away they can.
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] Erm this is like a new sweater. And they can look at the horn and they can look at these things and they can look this is weld which is the herb that's used to produce the green the yellow of the green. It produces a a a chemical called. And this is grown grows round York very very commonly on building sites and things like that. This comes from Copmanthorpe.. This is you know, what we're gonna be concentrating on next. This awful and we'd actually got the first window here which is which is.... Now then, this is a fenestral. And it in the Summer which I know it isn't the Summer, in the Summer we just take these well we will cos we haven't had any for the Summer we just takes these panes out and just open them like that in the Summer. Or we can if we like we can close the shutter at night at Summer nights, But in the Winter if we want to have some light, we open the shutter... and put the fenestral back again, either way round it doesn't really matter. these pegs in.
[speaker004:] Is it is it waxed.
[Charles:] Well it's not I'll tell you in a moment. It's linen... I think we'll have it the other way round actually.... It's linen and what you do is first of all you dip it in a solution of alum. I'm not quite sure why. Er and then you... wash it over with a hot solution of... three parts clarified sheep's tallow four parts clarified sheep's tallow, five parts rosin. And this is all we've done is to take a medieval recipe. How to make a fenestral and we've just done that and it works. It keeps the rain out, it lets a certain amount of light in and it's [LAUGHTER] dirt cheap []. Erm obviously not used to any ground rooms at all. I think the alum actually was so because this recipe enabled you to paint them with flowers if you wanted to.
[Clare:] Right.
[Charles:] We might even try and do that. So eventually all the windows will be done like this with with shutters and we can get rid of that wretched plastic but it's all quite expensive. These kind of windows are very cheap, in fact this one I think cost about two hundred and fifty pounds altogether, but when you're doing big er double folding shutters and glass windows and things like that, then you're into the thousands. I mean we're doing it because they're cheap. So that's the first one. And no one else I think has got any fenestrals. Er but they do seem to have been quite common in York in in in less grand rooms. They were follow the tour round.. This is the sort of the bedrooms, the chambers. This call the lesser chamber because to distinguish it from the greater chamber. And er there's another little room above there where if you move those boards there, that is a kind of trap-door. Perhaps for a servant. Accessible only by a ladder. This is a minor bedroom, erm but it's got quite a lot of nice original timbering in it. to say that I wouldn't care if there wasn't any original timbering in the place, it's not really what I'm interested in. And trying to recreate what it would have looked like. However there's nice light this morning to see the marks of the pitsaw across that beam, the big two man pitsaw. You know what a pitsaw is, you dig a hole and one man gets down the bottom, the other one comes up. And also the marks of the little side axe used for trimming off the sides. And you see all the beams are chamfered, not so much for decoration but because they seem to have done that according to latest research, done that to take the bark off because it was the bark where the parasites tended to get in. And the poor things, English Heritage have done erm they've they're recreated a room at Priory and they've got woodworm in it and all their furniture's falling to pieces it's terrible. Erm it really is they should have should have t been more careful in a way but And this you see is a fairly goodirly goody good ey seem to
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] Now if it had been the north side it would have been a straight line.
[speaker004:] Yeah
[Clare:] Wow.
[Charles:] So there's quite a few of these. Erm around and about the place. Erm and also there are in the top I haven't got a ladder, I can't show you now, some of the numbering cos they numbered the bays in in roman letters, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Originally seven bays. And we were in some of them when we started off in that sort of office room. So a bedroom here, another bedroom here and then the great chamber, the most important bedroom.... I wonder if you could erm I wonder if you could ask Michael to look into that. Because it obviously's been.
[Clare:] Right okay.
[Charles:] Could you or ask
[Clare:] Yes.
[Charles:] someone on the team,
[Clare:] Yeah.
[Charles:] thank you. The great chamber, we don't have great chambers now, but sort of the master bedroom, private sitting room, erm would have had a big bed in it. Bed of what was called the hung bed. It didn't hadn't got they didn't have four posts at this time, they hung the top part of the bed, literally hung it from cords wrapped round rafters.. The canopy was hang directly on cords rather than on side posts there were no corner posts. So bed in one corner, the great bed. Also looking at pictures locking chest with your money, your armour your most precious things in your great chamber. And if you were an important enough visitor, you were allowed to come up the privy stair and straight into the great chamber. You see, if you were not important you went to the hall and waited er for the master to see you. If you were important enough you came up to see him. And e if you look up there that extremely overbuilt area there is called the crown post truss. Crown post because the braces come out like the points of a of a sort of pantomime crown. Er and there were four crown post trusses or well no five crown port trusses, you see half of on there, half of one there and a whole one there. Partly original, partly refurbished. Because what they did when they dropp I told you they dropped a whole storey. What they did fortunately for us, is to keep the roof structure, saw out the pieces, prop up on on on posts and then drop the whole roof by a whole storey so it we've still got the roof. Otherwise we wouldn't have known what it looked like. Now we do. And this is the great chamber, and this is where their tour ends I think if we just go back if we go straight back into the place we started, and so just finish it off, then I must I must finish off as well. Erm... there's our er our blacksmith's mark there, the little hill you see, upside down it's a little hill cos he's called John so that's his mark.. And are you from the University too?
[speaker004:] Yes.
[Charles:] Yes. Probably with braziers we think as far as we know, although there is also a chimney breast there which is a later date. Although it may well cover something of an earlier date. it's something we've just had to leave cos it's.
[Clare:] How many bedrooms would there have been originally?
[Charles:] It's very difficult to say because we've lost this end of the house and we've lost the other wing.
[Clare:] Yeah.
[Charles:] Probably about six.
[Clare:] About six.
[Charles:] I wonder if could do something about the window in the great chamber wind's blowing through. oh we get some coffee?
[Mike:] Yes.
[Charles:] Oh let's have some coffee yes. Right I'll have some coffee. Then I'll leave to you.... So I I hope I've told you something about the history of the house. You're not required to know all that remember or indeed any of it because they have everything they need to know, particularly if they do the long tour, they have everything they need to know on the tour and everything they need to know about the furniture well pieces of furnitures. On the other hand you'd be very odd people if you didn't take an interest in something in particular, some people take an interest in the w wooden frames, some take an interest in the textiles or some piece of furniture. Some people I mean, Elsie loves cleaning things so she's spends all her time waxing things cos has to be cleaned very carefully. You mustn't use modern things on them or it'll really wrock them irreparably and you've done four thousand pounds worth of damage before you know it. And or course you never use water on an oak floor cos it stains. So [LAUGHTER] and again I emphasize you've not responsible for cleaning either, but Elsie just likes we can't stop her cleaning.. Erm so you're not required to know all that, or any of it or much of it. Probably if you if you were to absorb the information in that guide book, that would be enough.. don't this is one of those places where you have to
[speaker004:] Is there any way you can see these things being made such as the horn somebody working in horn for instance?
[Charles:] Only by going to their workshop and every now and then we have somebody who well every now and then somebody is fitting something. But we don't we don't
[speaker004:] And then can you come and see it then, can you come and see it being done.
[Charles:] Yes if you wanted to, yes. The other thing we do sort of every now and then, and next time will be Easter, we actually have some people in costume who actually reoccupy the house over Waster weekend in this case as as the household of William and they've been coming for a long time now and they've got set into the set into their roles quite well. So Lady, we've never found any gentlemen old enough to play old William because he was in his seventies at this time, we never found an old gentleman play William, Robert Hardy's not quite old enough. He said he's like to try just not er old en Robert Hardy's our special patron really here, he's very interested in coming to the banquet, he was up the other week wasn't he, last Friday whenever it was. And but we have a Lady, who is I suppose she about sixty five and she's got really into the part of playing Lady. And we have and Elizabeth and various people. Eventually of course we shall employ people full time to do these things. But er not not for a long time. Cos we're nowhere near ready for people to move in.
[Mike:] And as well.
[Charles:] Mm oh there's a whole lot of things. The craftsmen's evening once a month on average, one of the craftsman comes to tell us about, the next one is on February the twelfth
[speaker003:] .
[Charles:] Mm?
[speaker003:] On the twelfth.
[Charles:] Yeah that's John, if you can get a ticket for that, John is by far the best lecturer among our craftsmen, I mean he's just an absolutely amazing character.
[Mike:] .
[Charles:] . Erm it'll be it'll be erm twelfth, thirteenth it'll be the Tuesday, no I think it's the fourteenth or the fifteenth.
[Mike:] Yes it is on the Tuesday.
[Charles:] Yeah well anyway. That's the next craftsman's evening, that's John the potter and tiler and he'll be very very good. We only have forty seats so if you are interested I'm. These craftsman's evenings tend to get booked out don't they.
[Mike:] Yeah.
[Charles:] So John where do they get tickets for that?
[Mike:] Erm the shop I think.
[Charles:] Yeah. Do we think that? Yes? Erm and then the next one after that is is I know is March the fifteenth which is Adrian who's the er woodworker. And he'll be do a very good show rather a shy man but he will And that will be that will be rather technical if I know Adrian, but if you if you like he's that's the time to come. We've we've already had I'm afraid we've already had the and er.. I mean er some people we we had a lecture on the archaeology. That was specially for volunteers. We try to have events specially for volunteers as well. We have parties and
[Mike:] Yeah. Christmas
[Clare:] Mhm.
[Mike:] party.
[Charles:] And twelfth night which was.
[Mike:] We've got another party coming up as well.
[Charles:] Have we? Nobody tells me anything. When?
[Mike:] March
[Charles:] Oh.
[Mike:] erm
[Charles:] Anyway there are there are various. Mm?
[Mike:] The third of March.
[Charles:] . Erm.... Good. So.. Have you got any questions you'd like to ask me about the history. Rather than about the working of the place cos.
[speaker004:] Can I just ask about the the fact that everything's made of greenwood?
[Charles:] Yes?
[speaker004:] Erm when it sort of begins to sort of season
[Charles:] Mm.
[speaker004:] will will will the plaster work crack?
[Charles:] No because everything was originally made of greenwood I mean
[speaker004:] Yeah but roofs used to get twisted didn't they?
[Charles:] Yes they do, it probably will twist a bit. I would imagine the plaster wall have to be replaced cos there's a lot of work that needs to be done on t we've already had to deal with the plastering once, in fact we wouldn't have noticed cos we hadn't seen it before but what happened is that the the frame of the hall particularly shrank so that we had gaps in between where the plastering was and where the wood was and we had to have a couple of men that we used for this, erm come in with lime plaster and fill in all the cracks for a week or two. And we may well have to do it again. Now when that settles down a little bit more, maybe in a year or two, we shall lime-wash the whole frame over so you won't see the timbers for a bit, and just lime-wash right over the whole timbers. And if I can possibly we might do it in a kind of pinky colour which is what seems to have been at least on part of the house. Raddle you know that you use for marking sheep.
[speaker004:] Mm. The red raddle? The red raddle yeah?
[Charles:] Red raddle yeah. Well they us I mean usually it's red, you can have blue raddle, but it's raddle is usually red.
[speaker004:] Mm I'm just trying to think what they use red raddle for
[Charles:] Marking and and sheep just to ma so you know which ones he's served. You put a a plate on his chest with raddle on so he marks them as he comes round.
[speaker010:] funding from to
[Charles:] Well the funding is either the initial funding was a fairly brave thing by the Archaeological Trust from its own funds. There's been no government erm We're now what happens is every now and then like now we just simply run out of money I mean we've simply run out of money. That's why I'm fiddling around doing the odd window here and there because that's all that we've got for. Er we've got a little few earmarked funds left over like for instance, Theakston's Brewery gave us the barrels and they gave us two and a half thousand pounds. We were able to do the hall or we'd still be nowhere with it, only because of a donation of thirty thousand pounds quite out of the blue, from the London Glassworkers' Company which meant we didn't expect it. So we were able to complete the Hall or complete the Hall as far as it's got. We know that we have a little more money coming in the ne in the new financial year from an American foundation but not much. Enough I hope to enable me to complete the windows. Which is really the urgentest most urgent thing. Which I hope we may be able to in April because really they are a disgrace at the moment. But erm we can't spend money we haven't go, we can't spend money and erm I mean er if we spent if we went on spending money, then what would happen is that the Trust would simply well it would go it wouldn't exactly go broke but jobs would have to be cut and that sort of thing, people would be very badly affected by it so you just have to wait. We're not the kind of thing that attracts government funding cos we're not sort of we don't go along with the architectural you know, the architectural establishment really insists that everything should be exactly just so.
[speaker004:] Have you any idea when it's likely to be complete then?
[Charles:] No because I me because I don't know
[speaker004:] Cos cos it depends on the money. Yes.
[Charles:] . No probably not in a sense but then when complete enough to actually use is another matter.
[speaker009:] I just seems like something you could just keep building and building forever.
[Charles:] You could do but I mean, I I the n the amount of money needed for completion sounds a lot but actually it's probably I think two and a half two hundred and fifty thousand to complete. I think. Costs tend to be be I mean it costs now costs are those of doing things by hand. The hangings for instance in the great hall not including those in the, cost nearly ten thousand pounds.
[speaker004:] Oh good grief.
[Charles:] Well you see hand woven, hand dyed er hangings at fifty five pounds a yard, seventy pounds a hard to make.
[speaker004:] Were they done in York?
[Charles:] No. No the only firm that does hand weaving and hand dyeing on on a big enough scale is in West Wales in the middle of a place called. And the only horn and we're often dealing with with only the only this, the only that. The only horner is in in in in Lancashire. Blacksmith comes from East Yorkshire, but I mean, he's just a very good blacksmith. But the furniture is made all over the place although 's our best maker and he's up in Scotland. Erm... now let's see, the linen is made in Scotland because it's the o he's the only linen maker I Ian is the only linen weaver. Incidentally erm next Friday no the Friday after, so Friday the eleventh anyway, we're gonna set the whole t erm Hall out for the banquet a day early so that people can come and see it. We're going to have guards there to make sure they don't nick the knives.
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] Cos the knives are very beautiful they've all been individually made. So er Thirty thirty's as many
[speaker004:] How many people will be coming to the banquet?
[Charles:] people we can get in. We've still got some tickets unsold but they are fifty pounds. They're fifty pounds because of economies of scale. Thirty people paying fifty pounds makes you fifteen hundred pounds. The food and service is costing eight hundred pounds alone. So in fact I mean we'll be lucky if we clear a profit on it. People say, oh that's very expensive but in fact if you think about it, it probably ought to cost a lot more. But there we are.
[speaker008:] are you serving medieval food?
[Charles:] Mm. Oh very much so, we're serving it all we're serving courses which actually contain the whole meal. So where you have your potage erm meat, vegetables such as they are, and sweet. And then you have the whole lot again, then you have the whole lot again. And you eat in what is called messes so that you eat in a mess of four and the server comes in and puts a plate of it might be venison and a plate of which is a kind of erm corn and er in front of you. And you have a plate per mess and you take as much as you want onto your trencher and your bowl. Like that. It should be quite fun cos they have to carve by messes got these knives.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[Charles:] Er the other thing to come to if you don't want to spend fifty pounds although we'll be very pleased to see you the banquet in the afternoon and there's a lecture in the afternoon at two o'clock? Anyway it's advertised, by Peter who is erm doing the food. And I shall just introduce him. Erm in the afternoon at St William's College and I think that's ab I don't know what it's about two pounds fifty or something. Anyway all these things are advertised.
[Mike:] .
[Charles:] Yes that's right. He's going to be going to talk about the. We'd much rather you came to the banquet.
[Clare:] .
[speaker010:] Will the guests be in.
[Charles:] No the guests will not be in costume, we thought it was unfair that they should make them in costume. The servers and table hosts will be in costume.
[speaker010:] Mm.
[Charles:] Erm so there are a few
[speaker004:] Are the are the caterers from out of town?
[Charles:] They have we're having to employ a specially approved you see we've got the Health and Safety.
[speaker004:] Oh yes.
[Charles:] We have to have an approved caterer which and what's gonna happen is that those two room that the room where the weld and the wool were, we're gonna virtually be sealed off
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] erm so that hygiene laws can be observed. And that's why that's another reason why it's all so expensive.
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[Charles:] But we have to do it, they'd be absolutely down on us like a ton of bricks if we didn't. I mean we could cook it much more cheaply but we we do that then they'd just they'll throw the book at us, we can't do it. Yes there are
[speaker004:] Are there specialist people who do this sort of thing?
[Charles:] Well there are specialist outside caterers, she's never done thins before.
[speaker004:] Mhm.
[Charles:] She's actually working under the direction of Peter who cooks you may If you're interested in cooking you've probably read books by Peter.
[speaker004:] Yes I have.
[Charles:] And he's a director of Leeds museum well he is at the moment anyway.
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] Erm... he runs Hampton Court.
[speaker004:] Mm.
[Charles:] The kitchens every now and he's a bachelor and he's passionate about cooking. And so every year between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, he takes over the kitchens at Hampton Court with his forty assistants and runs them. I mean they had twenty two thousand people round this year, it's takes him a week to recover, the poor man. Anyway, come to the lecture, erm he's a very engaging talker is Peter.
[speaker004:] [LAUGHTER]
[Charles:] Mm? I'm afraid not, you can imagine why not can't you.
[speaker004:] Yeah [LAUGHTER].
[Charles:] you'll have to excuse me now, erm I must go and you you'll take over.
[Mike:] I'll take over, yeah.
[Charles:] I forget what I'm doing next
[Mike:] I think you have a meeting with somebody else
[Charles:] So I have so I have Well er we're running something else as well at the same time so [LAUGHTER].
[Mike:] It's always this busy.
[Charles:] I'm always this busy.
[Clare:] [LAUGHTER].
[Charles:] Erm we hope to see you again, erm if you if you want to come. Erm erm anyway Mike will tell you all about the details so see you later everybody.
[Clare:] Thanks very much.
[Charles:] Bye.
[Clare:] Bye bye.
[Mike:] this opportunity to welcome you to Barley Hall again and er I hoped you all enjoyed Charles' bit. Erm we've got another session on Tuesday at ten o'clock so I haven't got a lot to say now. Erm but just a few words. The most important thing I think is erm what Charles has said about the house erm is quite important. li as he said it doesn't matter if you don't remember it but if people ask you questions and you don't know the answer, please send them down. Erm people don't generally mind that we can't have people making things up, guessing because then we'd the reputation of the Trust. Which erm is known worldwide. And the house is now just about becoming bodies all over the world and the press are beginning to take attention and the radio and the B B C last week. Erm and you never know who's coming in, it could be anybody and if we start saying things which aren't to, then we'll eventually damage the project a great deal. There are a lot of people out there who are historians who would like to it's very successful and sometimes people don't like success. So that's the most important thing. Erm I don't know whether Charles has said anything about who people are, Barley Hall, Charles is the historical consultant, he's done all the research. Erm my role is as volunteer coordinator so looking after you, that's my main job. Erm other people Marilyn you've probably met already, she's really like the project administrator, she's in charge. Peter erm you'll see around from time to time, he does all the design stuff erm and Christine erm looks after all the hangings and and stuff. And she's the office administrator. The main office is in Piccadilly we've got a a small office here as well. It's the green door. Erm Gaby you'll see around as well erm she's in charge of the educational side, she books in all the school parties and designs educational projects and so on. She also. And that's Charles, Marilyn, Peter, Gaby, Christine and myself really are the people who. Erm. Erm... it's quite important that we give out a very professional. which means that we've got to be polite to people and so on. We're not we we do need some kind of commitment from you, we we don't need a contract. And we do anything from one session a month to. And some people do up to two a week. But one a month is. Erm and all we ask is that if you if you've said you're coming to do a session, that you do actually turn up and if you can't then if you can telephone us as early as possible to let us know that you can't make it, that's not a problem. So long as you let us know, we can arrange for someone else to. We have had days when we've had three s stewards scheduled for the morning we've looked at the rota and thought and we've had no-one turn up panic. So but we're we're very easy with things, we don't erm we don't jump up and down and get cross erm so long as we can get some. And people swap their days
[speaker010:] How many people do you need at a time then?
[Mike:] Erm at the moment, we try and aim for three for each session.
[speaker004:] Twice a day?
[Mike:] Yeah. So that's usually six.
[speaker010:] Is that Winter and Summer?
[Mike:] Yeah.
[speaker010:] Mm.
[Mike:] And that will probably increase as we get into the Summer cos the visitor numbers will increase.
[Charles:] No. Erm... some of you haven't in yet do that now. Erm. Actually you probably know whether you've filled a form in or not don't you.
[speaker004:] [LAUGHTER]