Quiet Beverley - A walk with Val Wise. May and June 2018

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1 Quiet Beverley - A walk with Val Wise May and June 2018 This was one of two walks in May and June with half the group going on each and then swapping over to attend the other one. I joined Val in the Library Gardens on May 30 th and was sad to see that the gardens were looking more neglected than I remembered. The benches have all been removed, apparently because of vandalism. Val Wise told us that she had written a booklet about the various quiet garden spaces in Beverley which is now sadly out of print. The library garden was originally designed by local artist Fred Elwell and planted at a cost of 69 15s 9d in the 1930s. His plans for the garden are held in the archives and there are hopes to recreate the design, complete with sundials and rockeries if money becomes available. There is an Elwell connection with the library itself as Fred s father James Elwell had suggested to local philanthropist John Champney that such a donation would be a valuable asset for the community. The land was purchased by the Mayor William Spencer and the building was completed in stages between 1904 and The low wall fronting onto Champneys road shows the familiar marks where ornate cast iron railings were removed in the Second World War. We then walked round the corner and paused outside the East Riding Theatre where Val pointed out the small garden across the road which was on a piece of land left over when Lord Roberts road was built to widen access from Wednesday Market to the west as previously there was only the narrow Well Lane. In the 1950 s there was a movement connected with the Festival of Britain to beautify townscapes and this small area was planted up as part of Beverley s contribution. As we strolled down Highgate towards the Minster Val pointed out number 2 Highgate on the right hand side which local historian Barbara English has now found evidence was where Mary Wollstonecraft lived as a teenager in Beverley. We heard more about Mary s life when Val spoke to the U3A in the Memorial Hall in June. At the Minster end of Highgate we stopped to look at the building which stands at right angles to the road and facing into the Vicarage garden. This was the Bluecoat school which educated poor children; in boys and 4 girls were taught, clothed and maintained. The building is now the Parish centre for administration of the Minster and behind it is the Quiet Garden. This garden and the one at the Quaker Meeting House are members of the Quiet Garden Movement which is an international organisation whose website says they nurture access to outdoor space for prayer and reflection. There are 300 quiet gardens in the world and two of them are in Beverley. This one is sometimes called Scarborough as a previous Vicar would get his wife to tell callers he had gone to Scarborough when he had gone to seek peace and quiet in the garden.

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3 We continued down Highgate to admire the West front of the Minster itself, this is the view which resembles Westminster Abbey and has led to the Minster being used as a location for Victoria and other TV programmes. The churchyard was closed to the public for 150 years as there was fear that stones might fall from the towers. It is usually open now as a quiet place to sit and contemplate, but proved not to be so when we visited. The churchyard has not always been quiet as Beverley Grammar School occupied a building in the corner of the churchyard from the 17 th to the 19 th century before moving to Keldgate and then Queensgate. The boys were responsible for graffiti and broken windows in the Minster. The small garden close to the Minster Rooms on Minster Yard North is another planted for the Festival of Britain having previously been used as an overflow churchyard. There is a block of stone there now which is part of the Medieval Town trail and shows how masons worked to dress the stone when the Minster was built. Just beyond is the Old Vicarage and Val passed out copies of the silhouette picture of the Rev Joseph Coltman on his hobbyhorse. This 37 stone man was a vicar of the Minster in the 19 th century and used this early form of bicycle to get about even inside the Minster. The Vicarage doors were widened and floors strengthened before he moved in.

4 We walked up Eastgate and turned into Paradise Square, which is now a quiet space amongst some 20 th century houses and was a quiet place called Paradise after the Hebrew word for a garden when it was gardens and orchards belonging to the Friary. In the intervening centuries it has been far from quiet as it was an industrial site, finally as a factory for Armstrong s. We came out onto Station Square which is now a place to sit with benches and a clock.it would have been quiet in early Victorian times as it was the site of nursery gardens, but in 1846 the railway arrived to disturb the peace, with goods trains bringing new food to the town and passenger trains allowing travel for work, education and entertainment. The newest garden in Beverley is a small space on the roundabout on New Walkergate which has a diamond shaped bed planted in 2012 to celebrate the Queen s diamond jubilee. Val told us that six lime trees were also planted by the grandstand on the racecourse, in contrast to the 60 horse chestnuts planted for Queen Victoria s Jubilee. The War Memorial Garden behind St Mary s church on Hengate was built to commemorate the 500 Beverley men who died in the First World War. The land was a bequest from Major Clive Wilson, a member of the shipping line family whose house on the site had been destroyed by fire. The garden was renovated by the Civic society in 2013 and 30 names were added of soldiers not previously recorded.

5 Coronation Gardens on North Bar Within was our next stop and we learnt that the land had been given to St Mary s as a burial ground by the owner of St Mary s Manor across the road and then in 1955 the Church gave the land to the town as an open space to commemorate the Coronation of the Queen. From the gardens we could see the roofs of the former workshops of Gordon Armstrong who built cars there and a plane which he flew from the Westwood in His business prospered and later supplied shock absorbers for Austin and Morris employing 4000 people in the town at one time.

6 Val led us back down North Bar Within, up Wood lane to Quaker lane and the site of our last Quiet Garden. We were welcomed into the Meeting House by Friends Brian and Chris Fellowes with coffee, teas and biscuits which were much appreciated after our tour of the town. Brian told us that this was the third Meeting House in Beverley since George Fox visited in 1651 in the very early days of the Society of Friends. The first meeting house was on Keldgate in the 1660s and the second was built on the corner of Quaker Lane and Wood Lane at the start of the nineteenth century, it was demolished by 1895 but is recorded in pictures as Fred Elwell had a studio there. Beverley Quakers worshipped in Hull until 1961 when it was decided to build a new Meeting House in the town. A plot of land became available in Quaker Lane so it felt the right place to build. A rose garden was established in the 1960 s but gradually deteriorated and in 2013 Friends decided to create a Quiet Garden in the space. It was designed by Judith Wood from York, completed in 2014 and is maintained by the members themselves. In our busy town it was surprising to me that Val showed us so many places where it would be possible to find some peace and quiet. Some are small and close to traffic and others almost hidden from view but all have some greenery and most a place to sit so the town does nurture access to outdoor space as the Quiet Garden Movement recommends. AD