Aidan 23, Mary Arden's farm

Today we went to Mary Arden’s farm which is where Shakespeare’s mother lived and worked.

One of the things we did was watch the Tudor’s eat dinner. the first thing they did was take off their hats but the head of the household did not.  It was considered polite to take off your hat and rude not to.  In Tudor times it was very important to be polite.

But he did when they said grace because they were talking to someone more important – God,  then he would put his hat back on.  When you say grace you put your hands together with your fingers pointing up because you want your prayer to go up to God.

They flicked their napkins over their left shoulder to get rid of the devil that might be sitting there.

Whenever they eat they use the spoon they got when they were Christened.  Everybody got given a spoon by their Godparents when they were Christened.  They kept that spoon forever.  The poor got wooden spoons, the people that had more money had pewter spoons and the people with much more money had silver spoons. They could not start eating till the master had a spoon full.

They sat at a board, not a table.  This was a flat board sitting on trestles, so you were not allowed to put your elbows on the board, otherwise the board would tip.  The master sat on a chair at the head of the table.  Other people sat on stools or benches.  This meant that the master was the Chairman of the board.

The servants sat at the board for dinner too.  This was how the master found out about what was happening on the farm, so it was a board meeting.  The servants often didn’t have much food at home, so they were given a hearty meal at the farm as part of their pay.  If there wasn’t much food, the Mistress had to make sure the workers still had a hearty meal so the family would get less to eat.

The women always had to have their hair covered and also their ears.  Children had to serve the food.  They were not given a seat at the table until they had learnt manners. 

Other things at the farm were falconry displays, donkeys,

blacksmithing and geese herding.  This is where they would have herded the geese to market.  Sometimes they might have taken 500 geese.  I got to have a try at herding and blocking.  Herding was easy because they follow each other and you walk behind them with a pole to push them along.  If you don’t want them to go somewhere, you stand in front of them with a pole and they will go a different way.

There was the house that Mary Arden lived. It had very small doors.  The beds the kids slept on had logs for pillows but with a blanket over it.

We saw a man milk a cow and a man that was making things out of leather.  He told us about swords and scabbards and he was making a water bottle.

One of the falconry displays was a barn owl named Millie. I got to have a turn at flying Millie, because the man wanted to show how people would have learned the skill of falconry.  I got to wear the glove and he let the bird fly to me. then the man said your fired but I did not do anything the bird just flew off my arm.  The bird was very light, I could hardly feel her on my hand.  She was missing one of her talons.  I liked it because it is something I would like to do when I am older. 

Holly 23 - Mary Arden's Farm

Our outing today was Mary Arden's Tudor Farm. Mary was Shakespeare's mother and Shakespeare was a play writer. He wrote Romeo and Juliet.

 Mary's farm was a lovely place to be. There are lots of cool things to do and look at like the bird display. The bird display was a bit different to the usual sort of falconry shows because the man told us all about how the birds were used in the Tudor times for hunting and how different types of people were allowed to have different types of birds.  If you had the wrong sort of bird you might have your hand cut off.

They did three shows that we saw and one that we didn't see. The ones we watched had an eagle owl called Tahlia.

The other one was a barn owl called Millie.  

There was also a Tudor dinner where the Tudor's talked to everyone about the manners they had and how they lived.  It was very interesting. They sat at a board instead of a table and the Master was the head of the house and everyone had to wait for him to start before they could eat.  Everyone had their own spoon.

There was also the cow milking and a man milked a beautiful cow. Another animal that I liked were the sheep

but I have to say my very favourite animals were the goats and the horse. The horse was very shy and the goats tried to eat my shoes.  

My favourite thing at the farm was the leather worker because he made a really cool leather bottle. I

had a go at geese herding which is a very important job because they had to take the geese to market to make money.  To herd the geese you need a stick. There would be a men or even children herding them and another person is called the blocker and they stop the geese going the wrong way.  They would take about 200 geese at a time and they needed a lot of men. Aidan also had a go at geese herding.

The blacksmith was Dad's favourite. He made some pretty cool things like arrow heads. It was very noisy and he was making a knife and it was a little bit curved as well.  

I had a lovely time at the farm.

How to Operate a Canal Lock, by Aidan & Holly

How to operate a lock on a canal

A lock is a place on a canal that is like a step so the boats can move onto a different level on the canal because canals can’t go downhill like a river, they have to stay level.

A lock has 2 gates, one at each end.  The gates keep the water in and let the water out.

 The actual lock bit is the water in the middle between the gates. This is called the chamber.  The water in the lock is level with the canal water on only one side at a time.  This is why it makes a step.

This is a closed gate - the water is high on the left of the gate and low on the right

When your boat approaches a lock you have to check inside the lock to see if the water is on the same level as your boat.  If it isn’t, you have to let the paddles up on one gate so that the lock can fill or empty to the same level as the bit of canal that you are on. If the water is already at the same level as your boat, you can open the gate and enter the lock straight away.

This is how you operate the lock if you are going up.

The boat has to let you off and you make sure there is no boat coming in the other direction that is closer. If there is, you have to help them work the lock.

This boat has let someone off at the side of the canal so they can operate the lock. 

When you get off your boat you have to take your windlass with you. The windlass has 2 different sized holes in it to operate the turning gear on the gate. There are 2 holes because some locks have different sized spindles.

This is a windlass

Sometimes the mechanism for the paddles is on the gate and sometimes it is on the side of the canal. 

This picture shows the paddle gears on the lock gate. 

This paddle gear is on the side of the lock.

If the lock is full you will need to empty it before you can open the gate.  To do this you have to put to put your windlass on the spindle and turn it until the paddle has risen to its limit.  You will see the paddle gear coming up.  This will let the water out of the lock and into the lower part of the canal.

this is the windlass operating the paddle

These are the gears when the paddles are all the way up.

Once the water is level inside and outside the lock you can push the gate open. You push on the beam with your back and your feet can grip onto the bricks that stick out of the platform.  There are lots of different designs of grips but they all work the same way. The lock gates are very heavy. They weigh over 2 tonnes.

This is the gate open so the boat can enter the bottom of the lock

When the gate is opened, then the skipper of the boat can bring the boat into the lock.

The locks on our canal which is the Stratford canal, are single gated locks which means there can only be one boat in the lock at once.  Some locks are double gated so these locks can fit 2 narrowboats at the same time.

When the boat is all the way in, you close the gate behind it.  Before you close it you let the paddles back down using your windlass.  It is important not to drop the paddles, you have to wind them back down. 

Now the boat is inside the lock, we can close the gate behind it. 

The boat is now inside the lock but low down. To get the boat out the other side, you have to raise the boat to the upper level of the canal.  To do this, you have to let the water in again.
              

You walk to the upper gate and use your windlass to turn the spindle until the paddles under the water have risen and the water starts filling into the lock.  (if you were going downhill, the paddles would be letting the water out of lock instead.)

You have to be careful that the water doesn't rush in too fast or it can flood the boat.

It can be very hard work to open and close the paddles

When the boat first enters the lock it is very low down. The top of the boat is level with the top of the lock.  Now you will see the boat start to rise up as the water comes in.  This is a single lock so the water rises quite quickly. In a big lock it can take 3 or 4 minutes to fill the lock.

In the pictures below you can see the boat getting higher and higher as the water level rises.

  

       

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

You know when the gate is ready to open, because the water level is the same on both sides of the gate.  If you try to open the gate too early, it won't budge because the water pressure is so strong.

Once the lock is full, you can push the gate open like this, which will let the boat out of the lock.

this is Holly pushing the gate open with her back.  You can see the little steps on the platform that help stop you from slipping. If it is raining, the platform can be VERY slippery. 

The gate is open and the boat is on the way out.

Now the boat can leave the lock and you lower the paddles and close the gate again.  

You always leave the lock gates shut, unless there is another boat ready to enter the lock. 

Once it is out of the lock, the boat will wait for you to close the gate and then you can hop back on and continue up the canal.  If there are a few locks close together sometimes people just walk to the next lock.  Narrowboats are not allowed to go faster than 4km per hour, so you can usually walk faster than the boat.  

while the boat is leaving, Holly is lowering the paddles again with her windlass

                                                                

To cross over the lock, sometimes there is a bridge but you can also walk across the the beam of the lock gate  You have to be very careful because the lock is very, very deep and dangerous.  When the lock is full, it can be over 12 feet deep.

Pushing together to close the gate after the boat has left.

Sometimes people drop their windlasses into the canal, especially at locks.  Some people get a very strong magnet on the end of a rope and they drop it into the canal and go fishing for windlasses.  One man we met had collected about 400 windlasses!

Sometimes when the canal has to go up steeply, there can be lots of locks close together.  This is called a flight of locks and depending on how many there are, it can take hours to get through them all.

We hope have enjoyed reading about how to work a lock.  It is hard work but good fun and you get to meet lots of lovely people on the canal.