Here's a little treat for you.
We're back at that Victorian model farm where the thousand-year-old oak lives.
Here, with roofing repairs almost complete, is a super-cute little building. The right hand side of it contained the milkmaid's lodging (the large building on the right is the dairy and milking parlour) and the left hand side contained the game hanging room.
Now that the roof is almost watertight conservation can begin on the interior and on the lovely arcade that shades the game hanging room.
The Victorian "mock Tudor" chimney stack for the milkmaid's quarters was restored as part of the roofing works.
And finally a sneak peek inside the game hanging room prior to the next phase of the conservation work. Check out those gorgeous tiles and the stained glass.
Imagine the day after a shoot; all those racks festooned with dead game birds, rabbits, deer and the occasional peasant who got in the way.
Ah, the good old days when your meat was left hanging until it was just rotten enough for the pot.
It's still like that only they hide it away these days, stuff the baby animals full of antibiotics and growth hormones, slaughter them before they've had the chance to grow any decent meat on their frail bones, then slather what's left with chemicals, pump the carcasses full of water to add fake weight and encase the pitiful remains in phthalate-ridden plastic guaranteed to make your descendants infertile.
Ah, phthalates … To paraphrase the wonderful Dr. Shanna Swan in her recent study "Count Down", since the near universal introduction of phthalates (plasticiser - it makes your plastic packaging soft enough to mould) and other endocrine disrupting chemicals in the late fifties, average penis size and sperm viability has reduced at a constant rate of 1% per year and is still going.
Between 1960 and 2021 that's a 61% reduction.
It makes us old guys grin at young and fit millennials.
In addition the wonderfully named AGD (ano-genital distance) has been reducing at the same rate. The age of gender fluidity is not just a fashion, it's a scientific fact.
Women rejoice! Your grand-daughters will inherit a male-less planet. All thanks to the wonder of phthalates.
By the bye, the US is now constructing the world's largest phthalate producing factory complex.
Gosh, that skewed a bit off topic.
7 comments:
a bit off topic
Sweet Mary Sunshine, Darlin, that was a whole different post!
(but true)
Speaking of Victorian farms, we watched 3 of your folks do a whole series on various back-in-the-day farms and the Victorian buildings were lovely. Well, the places the posh people lived in or used. xoxo
Yup; I got kinda side-tracked. I've been reading a lot of happy, apocalyptic books just lately and when that one came out I just had to read it.
Victorian "model farms" were indeed built by the rich; the workers' quarters were pretty grim. The landowner set the workers' wages to the barest level for survival, fed them manky potatoes and adulterated bread (half flour, half lime and sawdust). The only meat they got was a cold game pie if a shoot was successful.
Small family farms were mostly driven out of business but at least they got to eat what they grew.
You did what the landlord said or it was vagrancy or the workhouse for you. Happy days xoxo
I'm a vegetarian, thank goodness.
Wise move, Petrea.
I managed fifteen years of vegetarianism but I love seafood too much and it all came crashing down in a sushi restaurant when I looked at the veggie options …
What a lovely building! Definitely not what I'd expect to see on a farm, but I'm not used to the types of buildings found on a Victorian farms. Granted having a game hanging room is a bit macabre, but the tiles and stained glass windows are fabulous. I'd love to see what the milkmaid's lodging looks like inside!
Next time I'm out there I'll take some more pics, Katie.
There is a "posh" Victorian house in southern Indiana that has a tiled room on the 1st (2nd floor in U.S.)floor. Located in the NW corner of the home, the floor is tiled, as are the walls, with a drain in the middle. It was the game cleaning room. I couldn't then, and still don't understand why they dragged everything from venison to rabbits and pheasant up the back stairs to be skinned, gutted, and cleaned; why not make a room closer to the kitchen that was a separate building? The kitchen building was large enough that it was recently restored and is now used as an event center.
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