David Bennett

We took this photo a few years ago when we lived in the south of England.

And you will find it in the English Cottages section of Quillcards and you can use it in one of your ecards.

There’s a free trial that allows you to use any of the images in Quillcards, so you can definitely use the photo, just click here to get started.

Gold Hill

The photo shows a view of the steep cobbled street named Gold Hill in the town of Shaftesbury. If you look past the cottages you can see how the hill tumbles down to the plain below.

It’s quite a surprise to enter Shaftesbury from one direction and then suddenly find yourself at the top of Gold Hill looking down over the Blackmore Vale in the distance.

Gold Hill is famous as the setting for a television advertisement for Hovis bread that was shown in the UK in the 1970s. Made by the film director Ridley Scott, you can see it here in this YouTube clip.

You might catch a reference to ‘doorsteps’ in the narrator’s voiceover to the advertisement, which is a way of describing particularly thick slices of bread.

Shaftesbury In Context

The town of Shaftesbury is in the county of Dorset, which is in the south west of England.

You can see its location on this map:

Dorset has a rich history. You can get a flavour of that rural history from Thomas Hardy’s novels. And although his later novels took in other surrounding counties, Dorset was always at the heart of his work, fictionalised and based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex.

And it is on the Dorset coast, on the beach at Lyme Regis, that young Joseph Anning found a part of a fossil of an ichthyosaur in 1811 and where his sister Mary found the remainder of the skeleton in 1812.

The fossil was several feet long and the find was seen to some Victorians as a threat to the creationist vision of history and was highly controversial.

Because of the number of fossils found along the coast of Dorset, it is fondly known as the Jurassic coast and the home of the modern science of palaeontology.

This is a sign to tell visitors that they are entering Bedlam.

No, it is not Bedlam as in a scene of uproar and mass confusion or madness.

And it is not Bedlam as in the world’s oldest hospital (Bethlem Royal Hospital in London) that specialises in the treatment of the mentally ill… although it is from the name of that hospital that the word ‘bedlam’ is derived.

And indeed it is not the small hamlet of Bedlam in Shropshire in England.

It is in fact as the entrance to the small village of Bedlam in the county of North Yorkshire in England.

Take the road out of Harrogate and travel north, deep into the countryside and you will find it.

The name probably comes from Old English or Norse and means ‘at the buildings’.

So no bedlam in Bedlam, but the ‘Please drive carefully’ beneath the name on the road sign always makes us smile when we pass through the village.

Bedlam As An Ecard

Follow this link and you will find this sign as an image for an ecard in Quillcards.

The Wool House Exhibition At Somerset House

At the beginning of this year, Melissa Watts of Maud Designs approached us to ask whether she could use our image of a Herdwick ram as the model for a wool ‘art work’ that she wanted to make.

She explained that she had been approached by The Campaign for Wool. They invited her to make a piece to follow up on the ‘Elizabeth II’ piece she had made for the Wool House the year before.

Melissa said she hoped the art work would be chosen to be displayed at the Wool House exhibition to be held in Somerset House in London.

We said she could use our image upon which to base her hand-stiched design. And we sent her a large version of the Herdwick photo for her to use.

Melissa said thought that there would be approximately 250 hours work involved, and over one-third of a million hand stitches (!), and asked us to wish her luck.

Hard Work And Success

After she had made the art work, Melissa confided jokingly that it almost killed her. She said that we didn’t want to know how many hours a day she had to work on it!

The Wool House exhibition was held in March this year and the introduction to the exhibition states:

The Campaign for Wool is excited to announce WOOL HOUSE: the world’s biggest ever celebration of Wool, taking place from the 13th to the 24th of March in London’s historic Somerset House.

Prince Charles – Give Fleece A Chance

Prince Charles, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales is the patron of the Campaign for Wool, which is why he was there at Somerset House for the exhibition.

The Campaign for Wool is a global community of sheep farmers, retailers, designers, manufacturers and wool lovers. They are working to promote the benefits of wool to a modern audience who have lost touch with the benefits of this natural material.

HRH Prince Charles has made this catchy video supporting wool and the Campaign for Wool.

Center Stage At The Wool House

We are pleased that Melissa’s finished design of our image of a Herdwick sheep was center stage in the exhibition.

Here it is on the mantelpiece and here is Prince Charles signing the commemorative ledger bringing the exhibition to a close.

Melissa Gets Her Art Work Ready In Time

Melissa told us that she was lucky to finally finish in time for the event, and that she had to make an entrance late in the evening on opening night – that’s how close she was to not finishing on time.

She made the ram bigger than she first thought, and the final design is 160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 inches).

She added some extra background for bulk, named the ram Relentless, and asked whether we liked him.

Needless to say, we do like him and we think Melissa is very talented. She is also tremendously committed to have brought the project through to such a lovely conclusion.

So it was lovely to hear from her that everyone at the exhibition loved the ram!

Herdwick Sheep

You can read more about the Beatrix Potter’s role in saving the Herdwick breed of sheep in Beatrix Potter’s Affable Animals here on this blog.