Reading Abbey is a set of ruins in the center of Reading in Berkshire founded by Henry I in 1121. It was destroyed in the 1500s when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, but a few buildings remained, including the gatehouse.
The gatehouse is noteworthy in “our” era, because Jane Austen, around ten years old at the time, and her sister Cassandra briefly attended boarding school within its walls. The girls were instructed for only an hour a day in dancing, drawing, French and needlework. In contrast, boys would spend hours studying the classics. Jane’s father took them out of the school after 18 months and Jane never returned to formal schooling again.
Here is a print of the gatehouse around Jane Austen’s time:
This is a photo I took on the trip:
On the facade of the gatehouse were stone faces. Certainly these must have dated back to the early days of the Abbey. Here are a few of them:
Other walls of the ruins of the Abbey were visible, but we could not walk to them. Across the street from the gatehouse was the lovely Forbury Gardens, but that is a topic for another day.
(I certainly hope you are not sick of my Duke of Wellington tour blogs!)
Frederick playing viola da gamba by Philippe Mercier
We often see young ladies at the pianoforte in our books, but musical men appear so infrequently as to make one think that music was strictly for the ladies. Today, let’s take a look at men making music.
To begin, there were musical male members of the Royal Family, and they had a tradition of performing in private: George III’s father, Frederick, Prince of Wales was a noted viola da gamba player. On the left is a painting of him playing the instrument with his sisters at Kew Palace.
George III was a noted flutist, having received instruction from Carl Friedrich Weidemann, and was also an harpsichord player. The image to the right is a picture of his transverse flute , now in the Royal Collection.
William Wollaston and his flute
If you look at Gainsborough portraits, (a little early for our period proper, but still relevant) you will find many men of the gentry class of England in the 18th century, pictured with their musical instruments: for example the portrait of William Woolaston shows him pictured with his flute;he was a landowner in Suffolk (he owned Finborough Hall and also became a local Member of Parliament).
Glee clubs were also very popular during the 18th century and early 19th century, with both the aristocracy and the gentry, not to mention the lower orders. George IV was a member of the Noblemen and Gentleman’s catch club, which was originally formed in 1761 at the Thatched House Tavern in St James’s Street ,London. These glee and catch clubs tended to be men only institutions, and were very social occasions with simple food /porter etc. served to the participants.
Rev. John Chafy Playing the Violoncello in a Landscape circa 1750-2 by Thomas Gainsborough 1727-1788
In 1811, Jane Austen writes to her sister: Eliza is walking out by herself. She has plenty of business on her hands just now, for the day of the party is settled, and drawing near. Above 80 people are invited for next Tuesday evening, and there is to be some very good music — five professionals, three of them glee singers, besides amateurs. Fanny will listen to this. One of the hirelings is a Capital on the harp, from which I expect great pleasure. The foundation of the party was a dinner to Henry Egerton and Henry Walter, but the latter leaves town the day before. I am sorry, as I wished her prejudice to be done away, but should have been more sorry if there had been no invitation.
Henry Austen’s apothecary, Charles Haden, was also an accomplished amateur musician. But he did not appear to wish to “perform to strangers” according to this letter from Jane Austen in 1815: But you seem to be under a mistake as to Mr. H. You call him an apothecary. He is no apothecary; he has never been an apothecary; there is not an apothecary in this neighbourhood — the only inconvenience of the situation perhaps — but so it is; we have not a medical man within reach. He is a Haden, nothing but a Haden, a sort of wonderful nondescript creature on two legs, something between a man and an angel, but without the least spice of an apothecary. He is, perhaps, the only person not an apothecary hereabouts. He has never sung to us. He will not sing without a pianoforte accompaniment.
Just a few examples of Georgian and Regency musical men. It would be fun to find more of them in what we read. I’d love to hear more examples.
When I need a lift, I’m drawn to sparkly, shiny things. I like making them (here are some beaded snowflakes I made for a church fundraiser). As an author, I also like surfing around and looking at sparkly things, calling it research.
Here are a few items I love. This pair of amber earrings from Ruby Lane is just lovely. At $3500 they are a bit out of my budget, of course. So now I’m fighting the temptation to go browse Fire Mountain Gems (my go-to jewelry makers’ porn) to see if I can get findings to create my own version. If I do that, I’ll report back on how it went.
One thing that has always fascinated me is Georgian era paste–you know, the stuff that the aristocrats in our stories use to create replicas of the heirloom jewelry they sell to pay gaming debts. To me, it always sounded like something inferior, but having seen some examples, I think it’s lovely. I’ve been infatuated with this paste parure from Georgian Jewelry for a number of years now, sadly sold but I can still admire it from afar.
The happy news is that there are jewelry makers out there creating lovely and affordable designs that can mimic favorite Georgian and Regency styles. One can find a number of them on Etsy.
These “emeralds” from Sacred Cake look as lovely as those in the parure. Maybe I need a new Regency gown to go with them.
On this, my alleged writing day, I have important business.
Yesterday morning, the teapot broke.
Fortunately I have some emergency teabags to hold me through until I have bought a new one, but this is a big issue. Particularly after my husband served me a cup of tea made from Earl Gray teabags that are at least ten years old, although I should be grateful he didn’t use the teabags that are so awful I reserve them for cleaning purposes (mainly the kitchen floor).
The shopping process has begun. Its appearance, really, is not important. I mean we’re not talking about a romance hero here. Size, however, is (so I guess we are talking about a romance hero after all). I need a large teapot. To me a cup of tea means not one, but several. It must be resilient. My departed teapot, made of metal and glass (with some very dodgy looking solder that I suspect may have been lead-based, acquired at the Indian grocery store that keeps me in Brooke Bond export tea and mangoes) lasted me a couple of years. So it has to be cheap.
And it has to pour well. I have a vintage Royal Doulton teapot I bought at a yard sale that I called into use yesterday and it was awful–an English made teapot that didn’t pour!! I’ll give up the gilding any time (besides, if you do want to throw it into the dishwasher, the decision will be made for you). Sadly, when you buy a teapot you can’t always guess how well it’s going to pour.
So here are my top choices so far:
The UK Tea & Infusions Association (check out that site, there’s a great section on the history of tea, and a counter for how many cups of tea have been drunk so far today in England, currently at well over 128 million. How do they know??) commissioned Bodum to make teapots. The advantages are that they make a 34 oz size and they seem fairly tough. Bodum introduced the coffee press concept to tea making. Advantages: tough. Disadvantages: Expensive and do I trust the press method??
A fairly cheap ceramic pot with infuser. Advantages: looks pretty, looks as though it will pour ok. Cheap. Large. Disadvantages: I know that if the infuser is not stainless steel as soon as I receive it I will drop it and break it. It happens every time.
And here are a couple of purely silly items. A shark infuser and (oh I want it so much, but I’ll never use it and I know this shape is pretty much unusable), a Tardis teapot!!!
Are you a tea drinker and how do you like your tea? Teabags or are you a loose woman? (For which terrible pun I thank Bingley’s Teas).
I had hoped to do a re-release party today for The Lily Brand, but alas, I’m still proofreading the dratted book. (Grrrrr!) So let me tell you about the gardens instead.
When I was writing The Lily Brand, I was apparently utterly fascinated with the history of garden planning and garden architecture — or perhaps I was simply inspired by a book on the history of European gardens, which I had received as a Christmas present from one of my great-aunts back in 1997. Leafing through this book now, I certainly recognize several of the photographs as part of the setting of The Lily Brand.
Take the gorgeous statue of Pan on the front cover, for example: in my novel he resides in the overgrown, neglected garden that belongs to the French château of my heroine’s evil (uber-evil!) stepmother. We encounter Pan in the second chapter, when Lillian is wandering around the garden, dragging the bound and gagged hero behind her (poor man — I was in a bit of a bad mood when I wrote that novel…)
Lillian did not hesitate to pick her way through the overgrown garden. She walked carefully, of course, mindful of the thorny branches which lay waiting to trap the folds of her coat and dress.
At this time of the year, the leaves had already started to fall and reveal the branches gray and bare. In many ways, the garden was as ghostly as the mansion itself. But, oh, how many times she had wished that the plants would reach out and envelop the house, bury it under a green blanket!
La belle au bois dormant.
Lillian’s lips turned up in a humorless smile. There would be no prince coming to release her from the evil spell.
In her dreams, the plants would grow and cover the walls of the mansion, would press against the glass of the windows, would seek out the tiniest cracks in the walls. And, once inside, they would grow and grow and twine themselves around Camille. Around and around until there would be no trace left—
Lillian gave herself a mental shake and looked over her shoulder at the man trudging behind her. His chest rose and fell with laborious breaths. What could she say to ease his troubles? For him, there would be no deliverance. And so, she remained silent.
To their left, a lichen-covered Pan peeked out of the bushes, lounging on a bit of rock, flute raised to his lips as if he were about to compete with the absent birds. Just visible under the dark green tendrils was one of the broad, powerful shoulders, a hint of muscles bouncing in his arm. His very presence seemed to mock the man in shackles, for the faun had achieved what the prisoner had not: escape from Camille’s web.
In other news, The Bride Prize, the first novella in my Victorian series is now free on Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon (at least it’s free for Amazon customers from the US). So if you’d like to join the reporters of Allan’s Miscellany on their first adventure and accompany them to Scotland to watch a tournament, grab a copy (and bring an umbrella!!!). 🙂
Or if you’d just like to watch me squee (and make other funny noises) over books, you can do that, too. For this is what happened earlier this evening:
items I love. This pair of 
