Village news from Helen Price – 7th March 2019

Village news from Helen Price – 7th March 2019

Published 4 March 2019

Kings Bromley Historians
Maggie Slingsby began her talk on the History of Staffordshire Pottery at our February meeting with a brief early history. The beaker folk have left us with evidence of their pottery skills which were kept alive by the monks and farmers who made and used the pots to store grain. Butter was also sold in pots and in 1670 a Bill was passed stating that the pot should weigh no more than 6lb of the 14lb tub of butter.
Charles II’s wife, Catherine of Braganza, popularised tea drinking and imported china teapots via the East India company and so introduced porcelain. Burslem was the birthplace of the Staffs Pottery industry as the clay there was excellent for pot making.
In 1760, at the Dwight factory, Bradwell (the owner) was so secretive of his methods that he only employed “deaf mutes” and “simpletons” to work his clay. One of these “simpletons” was Twyford whose skills we still appreciate today. Probably the most well-known of the potters was Josiah Wedgewood, who became a master potter at 12. He was an entrepreneur, being instrumental in the building of the Trent and Mersey canal and also having a showcase in London to display his wares. Staffordshire pottery was shipped and known all over the world by the hundreds of small and large producers.
Maggie was very relaxed and entertaining in her delivery. Our next meeting has been brought forward to 22nd March (before building work on the village hall begins). Our April meeting is a trip to Tissington Hall.
Gardening Guild
Helen Harrison gave up work as a Home Economist to follow her interest and love of flowers. She became Chairperson of the Stone Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society, for which she now raises funds by giving regular talks. For a few years dahlias were her favourite flower for showing, but then Helen turned her interest to snowdrops. The Gardening Guild enjoyed one of her talks on this subject at their February meeting.
Snowdrops are part of the Amaryllidaceae (Amaryllis) family and the bulbs have the same structure and basal cells as an onion. Helen drew our attention to the great variety of leaves, flowers, spathes and ovaries of a snowdrop. She demonstrated this by passing around several different shaped and textured leaves, plus around twenty different varieties of snowdrops. Apparently the holder of the National Collection has over one thousand pots of snowdrops and rare single snowdrops have been known to sell for over £1000! Snowdrops originated from Holland, Armenia and the Urals and may have come over to the UK with the Crimean war.
Janet Stubbings thanked Helen for a very interesting talk and reminded everyone that the next meeting of the Gardening Guild will be the AGM/Cheese and Wine evening on Monday 18th March at 7.45 pm in the Village Hall – all are welcome.
Live and Local Theatre Production
The Live and Local theatre group put on a ‘spellbinding’ performance of The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancashire in the Village Hall this week. They performed to a sell-out audience, combining theatricality, haunting capella singing and dark humour.