Category: World War One

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Nettle. Tea, Beer, Pudding & Flagellation March 10th

Nettle – photo by Paul Morley Unsplash

Nettle Tea

The store cupboards are getting denuded of the fruits, nuts, preserves, pickles, salted and dried foods saved from the summer and autumnal abundance. Of course, this is alleviated by the reduced consumption of the Lenten fast.  (I’m continuing my lenten practice of giving up, giving up things for Lent). But nettles are budding. I take a regular cup of nettle tea. Normally, provided by the excellent Cowan’s tea emporium in the Covered Market in Oxford. But I’m running out and not due to visit Oxford for a month or so. So Charles Kightley in his Perpetual Almanac tells me that young stinging nettles are appearing. So, I will watch this YouTube video and collect my own young, juicy nettles.

YouTube Video on making Nettle Tea

Nettle Beer

Or better still, change up the tea for a nettle beer:

Take a gallon measure of freshly gathered young nettles washed well dried and well packed down. Boil them in a gallon of water for at least a quarter of an hour. Then strain them, press them and put the juice in an earthenware pot with a pound of brown sugar and the juice and grated skin of a lemon. Stir well, and before it grows cool put in an ounce of yeast dissolved in some of the liquid. Cover with a cloth and leave in a warm place for four or five days and strain again and bottle it, stopping the bottles well.  It’ll be ready after a week, but better if left longer.

Nettle: Detecting Virgins and Flagellation

A more sinister use is provided by William Coles who gives a method of detecting virginity.

‘Nettle tops are usually boiled in pottage in the Springtime, to consume the Phlegmatic superfluities in the body of man, that the coldness and moistness of the winter have left behind. And it is said that if the juice of the roots of nettles be mixed with ale and beer, and given to one that suspected to have lost her maidenhood, if it remain with her, she is a maid, But if she’s spews forth, she is not.‘

William Cole’s Adam in Eden 1657.

William Camden reported that Roman soldiers used nettles to heat up their legs in the cold of a British winter. (from Mrs Greaves’ ‘A Modern Herbal). Perhaps, I should have sent that idea to PM Keir Starmer? He might have suggested the method to Senior Citizens to alleviate the loss of their Winter Fuel Allowance?

In the early modern period nettles were added to horse feed to make their coats shine. It was used as a hair tonic for humans.  Nettle Beer was brewed for old people against ‘gouty and rheumatic pains’. Flogging with nettles was a cure for rheumatism and the loss of muscle power!

Nettle Fabrics

The 18th century poet Thomas Campbell is quoted on the virtues of nettles:

“I have slept in nettle sheets, and I have dined off a nettle tablecloth. The young and tender nettle is an excellent potherb. The stalks of the old nettle are as good as flax for making cloth. I have heard my mother say that she thought nettle cloth more durable than any other linen.”

In 2012, a Danish Bronze Age Burial was found to be dressed in a shroud made of Nettle. Strangely, the nettle was not local, perhaps being made in Austria where other objects in the rich burial came from. However, the person was thought to be Scandinavian. For more have a look at this article on www.nbcnews.com.

Greaves tells us that the German and Austrians had a shortage of cotton during the blockade of World War 1. They turned to nettles to replace cotton production believing it to be the only effective substitute.  It was also substituted for sugar, starch, protein, paper and ethyl alcohol. 

YouTube Video on making fabric from nettles

Nettle Pudding

Pepys ate Nettle Pudding in February 1661 and pronounced it ‘very good’.  Here is more on Nettles in history AND a recipe for Nettle Pudding! I can see I’m going to have to get out there and carefully pick myself some nettles! ( For Folklore of Nettles look here).

Nettles Photo by Les Argonautes on Unsplash

Remember, none of the above is good advice as far as medicine is concerned.

For smoking herbs see my post coltsfoot-smoking-cholera

On March 9th 2022 I took my 20 month year old Grandson to the British Museum and the British Library and this is the post of our adventures.

March Weather

In the early modern almanacs there is much weather and horticultural advice to be had (Weather Lore. Richard Inwards).

‘March damp and warm
Will do farmer much  harm‘

or

‘In March much snow
to plants and trees much woe‘

Hesiod

I have removed the content on Hesiod and a Grecian Spring to March 13th. march-13th-hesiod-and-a-grecian-spring/

Written 2024, revised 2025

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British Recapture trenches near St Eloi February 15th 1915

The Ypres Salient. St Eloi is just behind the ‘line’ above HOLLEBEKE
. Downloaded from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15480 wikipedia

War in Winter

I wanted to find something about the winter as experienced in World War 1. Why? Because I watched a very moving film about World War 1 by Derek Jarman called ‘War Requiem’. It put images to the music by Benjamin Britten. I also listened to a radio piece on ‘Spring Offensives’ to give a long view on what was happening in Ukraine. And below I talk about the offensive near St Eloi.Trenches

I found this war poem which vividly sets a winter war scene:

Searchlight
F. S. Flint

There has been no sound of guns,
No roar of exploding bombs;
But the darkness has an edge
That grits the nerves of the sleeper.

He awakens;
Nothing disturbs the stillness,
Save perhaps the light, slow flap,
Once only, of the curtain
Dim in the darkness.

Yet there is something else
That drags him from his bed;
And he stands in the darkness
With his feet cold against the floor
And the cold air round his ankles.
He does not know why,
But he goes to the window and sees
A beam of light, miles high,
Dividing the night into two before him,
Still, stark and throbbing.

The houses and gardens beneath
Lie under the snow
Quiet and tinged with purple.

There has been no sound of guns,
No roar of exploding bombs;
Only that watchfulness hidden among the snow-covered houses,
And that great beam thrusting back into heaven
The light taken from it.

Trenches at St Eloi

My search also showed that, on this day in 1915, the British retook trenches at St Eloi. St Eloi was just behind the Southern edge of the Ypres Salient, a bulge of allied territory surrounded on three sides by German forces and the site of the five battles of Ypres. Fighting continued here from 1914 through into 1918 when the Germans were finally pushed out of the Salient.

World War I destruction in Ypres (wikipedia)

St Eloi struck a bell as St Eloy, is mentioned in the Canterbury Tales as he was a very popular saint in the medieval period. The Saint was also responsible for converting Flanders to Christianity in the 7th Century. Properly called St. Eligius he is the patron saint of horses and cattle, farriers, blacksmiths, metalworkers, goldsmiths. And also of mechanics in general (including the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, forerunners of whom fought at Ypres).

According to legend Eligius was having trouble shoeing a horse, which he thought was possessed. So he cut the horse’s leg off, re-shoed the amputated leg and then reattached the leg back on the horse. The horse trotted off none the worse for the experience. St Eloy was noted for refusing to swear an oath, and it is ironic that the Prioress swears, according to Chaucer, by St Eloy. His Saint’s Day is 1 December.

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Time to make sausages November 18th

A silhouette of a Zeppelin caught in searchlights over the City of London

Apologies for a barrage of slightly late posts! But this one is for today.

Following Martinmas, farmers used to slaughter a good many of their animals because of the difficulty of feeding them during the winter. So this was the time to make sausages from all that meat and guts. Tudor Sausage recipe.

Random Sausage Fact: Sausages were severely rationed in Germany in World War 1 because they used nearly 200,000 cattle guts to make gasbags for each of the Zeppelins that bombed London. This made them very difficult to shoot down as the gas was held in so many separate bags.

To read my Zeppelin post look here:

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Gordon Russell, the Mosquito and Broadway November 14th

De Havilland DH.98 Mosquito B Mk IV Series 2n (Wikipedia CCO)

On November 14th, 1940 on the night of the Coventry blitz, a bomb dropped on a barn in a beautiful village in the Cotswolds. Broadway is a tourist attraction and was known as one of the most beautiful villages in Britain when it was the playground for many artists, writers, actors, designers and other bohemians of the late 19th Century. The Coventry raid was the most concentrated bombing raid on a UK town in the War. Why the pilot chose to drop bombs on Broadway is not known, but probably to get rid of unused bombs, on his way home and not targeted specially on Broadway. However, the Barn contained stock from the Gordon Russell shop in Mayfair, London and Gordon Russell was playing his part in the war effort.

Gordon Russell was a famous furniture designer, and during the War he turned over his carpentry workshops to the war effort. They made the wings of the famous World War Two Mosquito fighter bombers in Russell’s modernist furniture factory in the Back Lane of Broadway next to the barn. The Mosquito was fast enough to be a fighter and could carry a decent payload of bombs. Because of their flexibility and speed, they had many roles in the war, including being the pathfinder for many of the nighttime raids on Germany.

Gordon Russell Ltd also made ammunition boxes, and high-precision aircraft models for wind tunnel testing and other purposes. Gordon himself designed a utility range of furniture to minimise the amount of wood needed for new furniture during the war.

Images taken by Kevin Flude of the displays at the Gordon Russell Museum, Broadway. Showing a description of the Utility range designed by Gordon Russell during World War 2
Gordon Russell’s Utility Range WW2
The Barn destroyed by bombing by Frank Whitton
Model Spitfire for wind tunnel testing
Gordon and Don Russell 1917

Images above taken by Kevin Flude of the displays at the Gordon Russell Museum, Broadway. The Museum is well worth a visit, and Broadway itself remains a delight.

A little further research reveals that the Broadway fire brigade history pages suggests the raid was on Dec 11, and I have found another site claiming the barn was destroyed in October.

‘There were several large fires in Broadway during the war. On the night of December 11th 1940 a German bomber dropped a quantity of incendiary bombs on the village. A number of them fell on Gordon Russell’s furniture factory setting light to a large wooden, thatched barn. The building containing fine furniture and textiles, brought from London for safe keeping, was quickly destroyed. Ironically, the barn also contained a large order of furniture for Sir John Anderson – the Minister for Air Raid Precautions!‘


‘Another incendiary landed on the machine shop roof burning a hole, before being extinguished, it is believed, by a factory worker who lived nearby. The temporary plywood patch which was nailed on the underside of the hole was still in place when the factory was demolished in 2004. When a cottage adjacent to the factory was recently re-thatched, an unexploded incendiary bomb was discovered lodged in the old thatch. According to an Evesham Journal report, published at the end of the war, bombs fell in the Broadway area on seven separate occasions.‘

The two paragraphs above are taken directly from http://www.broadwayfire.co.uk/second_world_war.htm

My father, I discovered a couple of nights ago, worked on Mosquitoes in his time in the RAF. His job at the time was to salvage instruments from crashed aeroplanes, and Mosquitoes were, along with Spitfires, and Hurricanes, amongst the ones he worked on.

For more from the Almanac about Broadway, see:

The Great Broadway Paint off June 18th
and:
Henry Ford’s Love of the Cotswolds

Another source for this post was: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/nEzPogPpsy7QD4US/

First published on 14th November 2024

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Zeppelin Night September 8th 1915

A silhouette of a Zeppelin caught in searchlights over the City of London

On the night of September 8th, Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Mathy piloted Zeppelin L 13 across Central London, dropping bombs as they went. The trail of destruction led from University College London, via Russell Sq. to Gray’s Inn Farringdon, Smithfield and out past Liverpool Street to the East End. 

Before World War One London was the centre of the largest Empire the world had ever known. It was the first great era of globalisation; international trade and Finance was booming. London was full of the mega-rich, but poverty and substandard housing was extensive. Inner London was still the home of Industry, and home to large immigrant communities. Political dissent was widespread, with the Labour Party beginning to erode the Liberal Party’s power base, and the issue of Female Suffragette was rocking society. Then, catastrophe as ‘the lights went out all over Europe’.

On October 1 1916, Mathy’s L31 Zeppelin burst into flames after attack by the Royal Flying Corp, and near Cuffley, Potters Bar he decided to jump out. He was found by farmers still alive and lying face up but died soon after.

Here, is a podcast originally written for a Zeppelin Walk for London Walks. It includes an eyewitness account by Hugh Turpin of the shooting down of the Zeppelin. Please ignore the dates of walks, as this was a couple of years ago. But I am planning to repeat the virtual tour during the winter of 2024. I hope to revise this post for the October 1st anniversary.


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ZEPPELIN NIGHTS – VIRTUAL WALKS ON REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

A silhouette of a Zeppelin caught in searchlights over the City of London

ZEPPELIN NIGHTS – VIRTUAL WALK FOR REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
Sunday 14 November 2021 6.30pm

We follow the route of a Zeppelin Raid through London. On the way we discover London in World War 1

On the night of September 8th Kapitanleutnant Henreich Mathy pilotted Zeppelin L 13 across Central London dropping bombs as they went. The trail of destruction lead from University College London, via Russell Sq….. to Gray’s Inn, Farringdon St, Smithfield and out past Liverpool Street to the East End.  The walk follows the route taken by the Zeppelin and looks at Central London during World War 1.

Before World War One London was the centre of the largest Empire the world had ever known. It was the first great era of globalisation; international trade and finance was booming. London was full of the mega-rich but poverty and sub-standard housing was extensive. Inner London was still the home of Industry, and home to large immigrant communities. Political dissent was widespread with the Labour Party beginning to erode the Liberal Party’s power base, and the issue of suffrage was rocking society. Then, catastrophe as ‘the lights went out all over Europe’.

How would the War affect London? How would Londoners cope with this terrifying new form of warfare – death from above?

We begin our virtual tour at Russell Square Tube and follow the path of the bombing raid to Liverpool Street, looking at London, before, during and after World War One.

To Book:

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ARCHIVE OF RECENT WALKS (2019 – 21)

I do various walks from time to time, nearly all for London Walks. (A list of all the walks. lectures, study tours I have given can be found here): 

JANE AUSTEN’S LONDON

!8th Century Bonnets cartoon

Jane Austen’s London takes place at 2.30 pm on Sunday, July 4th. The meeting point is just outside the Green Park exit (by the fountain) of Green Park Tube.

This is a London Walks Walk. To book click here:

The walk takes in the area of the London section of Sense and Sensibility. This is where Jane Austen frequented when visiting her banking brother, Henry. He  lived here during his ‘successful’ period, after resigning as a Captain in the Militia and setting up a bank to help soldiers pay for their commissions.  He then did what all good bankers do – went bankrupt and ruined himself, family and friends.   His uncle lost 10,000 pounds; his rich brother, Edward Knight lost £20,000. (that is 2/5ths of the fortune of Willoughby’s wife, and equal  to the income of Darcy,  100 times the annual income of Mrs Austen after her husband died)  i.e. a heck of a lot of money.   Jane lost £13.

But this area was also the centre of the Ton – the wealthy elite of Regency London. It was here that the French Royal family, in exile, hung out, and the haunt of Beau Brummel and Prinny, the Prince Regent, loungers in chief who were so well satirised in the figure of Sir Walter Elliot.   This is where the Dandies lounged, leered and shopped.  Here the rich could get their guns, swords, cigars, snuff, hats, shoes, tailored clothes, uniforms, wine, prostitutes, lovers.   They came to visit art galleries, see panoramas of European Cities, to ‘see’ the invisible women living in her glass jar, to choose their Wedgwood pottery.

And what is astonishing is that this is still where the megarich do exactly the same things: hang out and shop.  All the top brands are here, and instead of people like John Willoughy are to be found Russian Oligarchs, and the rich of the Emirates, and every other country in the world.  And most marvellously many of the shops survive into the present day. The same shops and shop fronts still in use.  They catered to the stupidly wealthy of the 18th Century are now catering for the stupidly wealthy of the 21st Century.  This is where you can buy luxury yachts.

So we follow Jane and Henry, and see the ghost traces left by immoral Willoughby,  sensible Elinor,  overwrought Marianne,  dull but nice Edward Ferrars,  dull and horrible Robert Ferrars, stolid Colonel Brandon, vulgar but kind  Mrs Jennings and her unforgivably vulgar daughter Mrs Palmer with her despairing husband; the Middletons, the Steeles gals ruthlessly working their assets.   Plus we have a little look at the relationship between Prinny and Beau Brummel, and the terrible childbed of Princess Ch

THE REBIRTH OF SAXON LONDON ARCHAEOLOGY VIRTUAL WALK

Sunday 4th July 2021 6.30pm

An exploration of what happened following the Roman Period. How did a Celtic speaking Latin educated Roman City become, first deserted, then recovered to become the leading City in a germanic speaking Kingdom?

My first virtual walk took place every Sunday at 2pm in August 2020 and was:Myths, Legends and the Archaeological Origins of London  in August 2020
   and I have since done:  

 ​Sunday 25th October 2020 ​​The Archaeology and Culture of ​Roman London​  Virtual Walk. For more details click here. 

​ Sunday 1st November 2020 ​ ​​The Decline and Fall of ​Dark Age London​ Archaeology Virtual Walk. ​For more details click here. 

​ Sunday 8th November 2020 ​ ​ ​The Rebirth of Saxon London Archaeology Virtual Walk For more details click here. 

​ Sunday 22nd November 2020 ​ ​ ​​Flower of Cities All – ​Medieval London​ History & Archaeology Virtual Walk​ For more details click here. 

Sunday 29th November 2020. ​ ​ ​The London of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell  Virtual Walk For more details click here. 

​ Sunday 6th December 2020​​ The Financial City from Slavery t​o Hedge Fund  Virtual Walk For more details click here. 

Sunday 13 th December 2020 Myths, Legends and the  Origins of London Archaeology Virtual Walk . For more details of this walk click here. 

Walks given recently:

Feb 22 2.30 Bermondsey – Archaeology & History.   Bermondsey Tube

7.15  Southwark & Bankside Pub Tour.  London Bridge Tube, Tooley St

Feb 1 2.30 Tower Hill to Rotherhithe Riverside Walk.  Tower Hill Tube

Feb 2  10.45 Bishopsgate Ward Walk.   Liverpool St Tube

Jan 25th 2.30 Wolf Hall London.   Liverpool Street Tube

7.15 Blackfriars to Fleet St Pub Tour.  Blackfriars Tube

Jan 26 2.30 Romans in London.  Monument Tube

2019

Dec 21 10.30 London’s East End – The Peasants’ Revolt to Street Art.  Aldgate Tube High Street Exit

Click here for info.

2.30 Shakespeare’s London Locations – The places in the plays

Shoreditch High Street Overground Station

Click here for more info

Jan 5 10.45 Myths & Legends & the Origins of London. Tower Hill Tube

Click here for more info

Nov 23rd  2.30 The City and the Blitz.  Moorgate West Tube. For more information

7.15 Hampstead Pub Tour Hampstead Tube For more information

Nov 30th  2.30 In Search of Saxon London.  Moorgate Tube.  For more information

7.15 Smithfield Pub Tour.  Barbican Tube

Myths and Legends and the Origins of London on Saturday at Oct. 5 for details click here 

City Backstreets Pub Tour  at 7.15 Oct. 5 click here for details


The City and the Blitz on November 23

Decline and Fall of Roman London on Saturday at 2.30 Sept. 28 for details click here:

Chelsea Pub Tour Saturday at 7.15 Sept. 28 for details click here:

Jane Austen’s London 4 May 2019 7.15  Green Park Underground

For more details see blog post:

River Fleet Pub Crawl  May 18

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VIRTUAL GUIDED WALKS COMING UP

THE REBIRTH OF SAXON LONDON ARCHAEOLOGY VIRTUAL WALK

Reconstruction of Dark Age London Bridge
London in the 5th Century Reconstruction painting.

Sunday 4th July 2021 6.30pm

An exploration of what happened following the Roman Period. How did a Celtic speaking Latin educated Roman City become, first deserted, then recovered to become the leading City in a Germanic speaking Kingdom?

To book

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON ANNIVERSARY VIRTUAL WALK

Virtual Zoom Walk on Sunday Sept 5th 6.30pm

On the Anniversary of the Great Fire of London we retrace the route of the fire of 1666 from Pudding Lane to Smithfield.

To book

RING IN THE EQUINOX VIRTUAL WALK

Tuesday 21st September 2021 7.30pm

On this walk we look at London at the Equinox, its calendars, folklore and events associated with the beginning of Autumn

To book

MYTHS, LEGENDS, & HALLOWEEN VIRTUAL WALK

SUNDAY 31st October 2021 6.30pm

The walk tells the story of London’s myths and legends and the celtic origins of Halloween. .

To book

ZEPPELIN NIGHTS – A VIRTUAL WALK FOR REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

Sunday 14 November 2021 6.30pm

We follow the route of a Zeppelin Raid through London. On the way we discover London in World War 1

To book