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Erddig

POETRY

TERRITORY

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read1.5K views

We are sitting in a slate-roofed brick-built bower

in the ornamental gardens of our

favourite country house. A robin appears

on the flags at our feet. It cocks its head,

so as to better see us with its brown eye.

The three of us wait. Perhaps it has come

for crumbs. It hops under the bench – then flies off,

only to return almost immediately,

and resume its original position.

How fragile its legs seem, thinner than matchsticks,

snappable as twigs. It goes under the bench,

flies off again – and returns. This time

it hops up, and stands within a foot of my coat.

Its red breast close up and out of direct light

is a warm orange. It shats on the green bench.

Its excrement is whiter than snow on grass.

The three of us wait. It flies away,

and does not return. We have been warned.

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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BETWEEN RIVERS

BETWEEN RIVERS SUMMER 2022: ‘THE COOK’ & ‘THE LADY OF LLONG’ – ALAN HORNE

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment3 min read1.4K views

BETWEEN RIVERS is a quarterly series focused on the area bounded by the rivers Alyn, Dee and Gowy, on the border between England and Wales in Flintshire and Cheshire.

 

In this edition we feature a poem, Sarah Dolan’s ‘The Cook’ from 2015, and an archaeological piece from the Curious Clwyd website about the discovery of The Lady of Llong and her necklace.

 

‘THE COOK’

Sarah Dolan is an English poet and artist who lives now in Scotland,  but previously in Wales. She is a long-distance member of Crossborder Poets, who are based at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire. ‘The Cook’ was written as part of a Crossborder Poets project at Erddig, a National Trust estate near Wrexham. The subject is one of a group of estate staff pictured in an old photograph, and the vivid images of the poem reach back to this long-dead person. You can see more of Sarah Dolan’s work at lemoninkproductions.home.blog and at www.facebook.com/SarahLouiseDolan

 

‘THE COOK’

from a knuckle of bone

time fashions a fist

one for the right and one for the left

 

a knot of carrot roots vein the surface

pumped with sap as sweet as honey

 

wrapped in a tissue paper skin

worn taut as the pastry lid on a pie

 

through fire and ice

her hands scar over

fine filaments of asbestos crow footing the skin

 

puffed pink with scrubbing

peeling and pounding

 

prepared with carbolic soap

the blood stained fingers

dust the table with freckles of flour

 

©Sarah Dolan 2015

 

 

‘THE LADY OF LLONG’

The Curious Clwyd website lives up to its name, with a wide selection of history, myth and other material about north-east Wales. It includes this article on the ‘Lady of Llong’ the remains of a woman found in a Bronze Age tumulus in Llong near Mold, together with a remarkable necklace which has now been re-strung. You can read the introduction below, with a link to the full article and photographs. Prehistoric remains are widespread in the Between Rivers areas, often in homely or industrialised settings. The spectacular grave goods are of course an important aspect of this account, but there is also a fine sense of the archaeological process, the area, and the life of its ancient inhabitants.

They were hoping for something astonishing and the omens were good. The accidental discovery of the Mold Gold Cape at Bryn yr Ellyllon in 1833, and the Caergwrle Bowl in 1823 suggested that the curious, somewhat unusual river valley tumuli along the Alyn were special, that within were treasures that would bring the peoples of the Early Bronze Age further into the light, that would confirm the power, prestige and wealth of this area of north-east Wales. Ellis Davies, writing some twenty years before the excavations noted the name of the field as, Dol yr Orsedd – Meadow of the Throne. Perhaps more interestingly, the tithe map of the area, notes the field as Dol roredd – possibly rendering into English as, Meadow of Abundance. Hopes were then high with the excavation of the burial mound at Llong, two miles to the south-west of Mold – and while no gold cape was found beneath the turves there, something rather impressive was unearthed, nevertheless.

The article includes a photograph of the grassy mound which is all that remains of the tumulus – and   a link to a Google map which takes you straight to the field where the remains are. You can see where the River Alyn runs through the field, which is bordered in part by a section of Alyn Lane. You can read the full, illustrated article here.

[Note: I became aware of ‘The Lady of Llong’ through Sam Hutchinson, who posted a response to the Spring 2022 edition of BETWEEN RIVERS].

 

©Alan Horne 2022

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

APPLES AT ERDDIG: A GLIMPSE OF AVALON

David Selzer By David Selzer3 Comments2 min read1.7K views

Beneath the rows of limes edging to yellow,

the air, tangible with precipitation,

appears almost emerald, a sea green.

 

In the border beside the high wall, which marks

the tended gardens from the unkempt woods,

there are blooms still. A bee gathers nectar –

and the black, turned earth ripples slowly

as a mole forages in the underworld.

 

***

 

Beyond ruined Troy, and north of Paradise

abandoned, from where our words began,

far over the plains and ranges of Europe,

on steep mountain slopes in haphazard orchards

are wild fruit the colour of blood and grass,

which travellers on the Silk Road – merchants,

conquerors, slaves – might once have eaten.

 

***

 

In the wooden barn where the tools are cleaned,

sharpened, hung, this year’s apples are displayed

in small pyramids: Lord Lambourne Dessert,

Gloria Mundi, Keswick Codlin,

Grenadier, Crimson Queening, Wise…

 

When the heavy doors are rolled back each morning

the air is overwhelmed with that keen, sweet scent –

as if Ynys Afallach, Isle of Apples,

Avalon were just below the horizon,

and landfall imminent.

 

 

Acknowledgement: Erddig [https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/erddig] has inspired other poems published on the site, including THE OLD LIME TREES AT ERDDIG [https://davidselzer.com/2018/07/the-old-lime-trees-at-erddig/] and ERDDIG: REFLECTIONS ON PATRIMONY [https://davidselzer.com/2013/03/errdig-reflections-on-patrimony/]. The inspiration comes in part from the magnificent gardens, that have extended now to the car park where it is possible to leave your motor beside wild flowers. Glyn Smith, the Head Gardener, has kindly given me permission to publish the following:

 

PARADISE IN A PARKING LOT

 

A sea. Of cars.

Look discarded in a massive field of flowers, as a flow of drowned vehicles in a tsunami of rainbow colour.

A remembrance of our heritage; our little contribution. An added percent to a legacy of that once thought lost.

‘Ninety seven percent of our wild flower meadows have gone,’ before man’s hand.

But here waving. Definitely not drowning. Standing proud and defiant!

Adance with added insect life. Eyed and filed on the ‘cloud’ by dull, fleece clad pedestrians that can never shine as bright.

Just corn crop weeds, with a smile on their faces that are the true cups that cheer. Cheer for themselves. we cheer for and, take cheer from them.

The best car park in Britain?

 

Glyn Smith and garden team.

Head Gardener, Erddig Hall, Wrexham.

 

©Glyn Smith 2019

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

THE OLD LIME TREES AT ERDDIG

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment3 min read1.5K views

for Glyn Smith

 

When the meticulously landscaped gardens

were left to hazard, during the estate’s

long, reclusive neglect, some of the trees

in the two avenues either side

of the wide ornamental canal – whose

perspective frames the classical proportions

of the house – began to grow together

like errant, statuesque teeth. A couple

have been extracted to save the rest.

 

… Limes are almost indestructible – felled trunks

will sprout. Honey bees favour them. For aeons

they have been planted in rows for blessings,

and for battles – their bark used for basketry,

and rope. Their flowers mend the heart, and the soul…

 

Perched roisterously on topmost branches,

here, in autumn, are parliaments of rooks.

Against the sky, in winter, the trees

are wild filigree, black fretwork – in spring

flickering shade in the afternoon’s sun.

On summer evenings, after the park has closed,

dryads waltz amongst them.

 

 

The poem was inspired by the trees, their setting [https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/erddig] – and by an e conversation with Glyn Smith,  the current Head Gardener at Erddig. I sent Glyn the final draft of the poem for comment and asked if I might dedicate it to him.

He wrote:

I really appreciate your poem and thoughts to dedicate it to me. The only comment I might make is this one about time. I’m not the first head gardener, or gardener for all that, to work here and I’ll not be the last. Someone had the vision and had to plant the lime avenues, amongst other trees and flowers. Over the years there have been many others who contributed their sweat to the garden. On those lines I would like to modestly just be one of those dedicated artisan gardeners who made, developed and curate this garden. The limes stand as a testament to those generations of gardeners who over the years were watched over by them, by the limes themselves. In a way we were the children and the limes the parents and teachers in this school. What learning they must have witnessed and how proud they must be of our achievements.

I have been steadily looking at lime avenues on and off over the last few years and it would appear that our lime avenues are, historically, much more important than ever previously thought. Before c.1700 the only limes in this country were small leaved limes, Tilia cordata. A native species and less suited to the lime avenues we see. On the continent there were hybrid limes between T.cordate and T. platyphyllos and it was this hybrid lime that became so popular for avenues. Now called Tilia x europea it became particularly popular in northern Europe and there are now several slightly different forms of it that are broader, taller, or less or more covered in basal sucker shoots. Just walk in any estate where there are limes and you will quickly spot how densely some are shooted amongst their lower canopy branches.

As gardening spread, particularly the influence of French and Dutch gardening on British horticulture, so we saw introductions of this hybrid lime. It probably achieved its greatest influence around the end of the 17th Century and the great dutch influence of the Glorious Revolution and William 111. One of the more recent forms of lime to be introduced and possibly the most common, is Tilia x Europa ‘Pallida’ and our limes are of this. Perhaps it was best adapted to the wetter Dutch lands, and as such prospered best.

We usually see lime avenues planted across estates. It seems exceptionally rare that shorter avenues of trees were planted within walled gardens. That really makes our lime avenues virtually unique and they should be kept for as long as possible.

 

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