| The Norris Museum is set in a beautiful riverside garden.
Come along and see it as part of your visit - but don't tell anyone
about it! This little green area of tranquillity is one of the best
kept secrets in St Ives. |
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| If you're only going to visit the Norris once,
make sure it's in May! That's when you will see our Wisteria
in bloom and the blossoms fill the whole courtyard with their
fragrance. |
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| But even during the rest of the year this magnificent
plant is always worth a look. The gnarled and twisted branches
in winter, and the fans of leaves in the summer time (with a
second flush of smaller blossoms in July) stretch 80 feet across
the Museum buildings. |
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| Despite its size and antique appearance, our Wistaria
is less than 30 years old. It was planted in the early 1980s. |
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The variegated box has more history to it. It was grown from
a cutting from the tree in the churchyard of the St Ives parish
church of All Saints. |
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There are several ancient objects on display in the garden.
This is the "Hurstingstone", which used to stand on
a hillside above St Ives where Royal Air Force Wyton is now
(it was moved to the Museum garden when Wyton's runway was extended
in the 1950s so that V-bombers could land and take off). |
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| The stone is often called "The Abbot's Chair"
because of its shape. But that's misleading, because you see
it now standing on its side. It was originally the square socket
for the base of a wayside cross. |
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| During the religious turmoil of the Reformation the cross
was pulled down, wrenching the socket onto its side. The cross
itself was taken away but the upturned socket was left where
it was, looking like a stone chair. |
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| These stone coffins were found alongside the A1. They
were discovered when the road was being made into a dual carriageway
in the 1930s, close to the Huntingdonshire village of Water Newton,
near Peterborough. Water Newton was a town in Roman times. |
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A new feature is our garden of herbs from the Middle Ages. Planted
in pots down by the river you can see some of the plants that a
herbalist of the Middle Ages would have grown for use in cooking,
but also in medicine and magic - there wasn't much difference between
the two in those days!
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| Some of the plants have fragrant leaves
that you can enjoy by gently rubbing them. And the labels will tell
you which of the plants were believed to act as a medicine against
the Plague (it didn't work!) and which one protected children from
being stolen away by fairies. |
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| Mulberry trees have a special place in the history
of St Ives. There are several very old Mulberry trees in the town,
planted in places with links to the 18th century. There is one in
the garden of Mulberry Cottage in Chapel Lane, for example, and another
at the lock-keeper's house at St Ives Staunch - the first lock was
built there in 1723. |
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| So when an Apple tree in the Museum garden died in
1998 we replaced it with a Mulberry. It's a Black Mulberry and it's
descended from a cutting taken from a tree planted in Chelsea Physic
Garden by King James II - the original tree was destroyed in the Blitz. |
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As this is a Museum garden, we like to grow plants that have historical
associations, or just ones that are old-fashioned cottage varieties.
These handsome plants are Acanthus. 2000 years ago the curling leaves
were the inspiration for the carved stonework of the Ancient Greek
"Corinthian" style of architecture.
As well as the leaves, Acanthus have spectacular flower spikes
and seed heads. They can be dried and used in flower arranging,
but watch out for the sharp spikes!
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Hollyhocks are a much-loved and traditional flower. Ours grow very
tall in this sheltered corner of the garden, often as much as nine
or ten feet. As well as the shelter and the fact that the garden
faces south-west, they are helped by the rich soil. The Broadway,
the street outside the Museum, was used as a cattle market for many
centuries - there must be plenty of historic manure mixed in with
our soil. And at the other end of the garden is the River Ouse,
which sometimes floods the garden and covers it with river mud,
another treat for our plants.
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| The Magnolia and the Flowering Currant
add to the magic of the Museum garden in the early spring |
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The latest attraction in our garden is
the 250-year-old Earith Fire Pump. This has recently been put on display
in a specially designed outbuilding provided by the Friends of the
Museum at a cost of more than £30,000. Built from traditional
materials, with a solid oak framework and a lead roof, the new building
gives you a clear view of this fascinating piece of machinery.
The fire engine was bought by the villagers of Earith, a few miles
east of St Ives, in about 1750. It was built by Richard Newsham of
London, who patented the design in the 1720s. |
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The pump was worked by the handles along
the side, but there are also treadles that more men could work with
their feet, while holding the fixed handles at the top. All this pumping
could squirt a powerful stream of water – yet the machine is
small enough to fit into narrow alleyways.
The tank at the bottom of the engine could be filled from buckets,
or a leather hose could be attached to it and the pump used to suck
water up from a pond or stream. Village accounts in Earith show money
being spent on oil for the leather buckets and hoses – and on
beer for the men who worked the pump! Six shillings was “Paid
for ale” when the fire engine was used on 6th May 1785 for example,
which would buy a lot of beer in those days. |
