Products

For October, 2011.

A Buddhist Wedding at Ypres Tower


What is a Buddhist wedding like?

This is how it was done in Rye recently when a  very beautiful Sri Lankan Buddhist wedding or Poruwa Ceremony was
held in the Medieval Herb Garden at our Ypres Tower.

The dancers met  bride Minna  and groom Girhan  in the Churchyard and led them with amazing somersaults and acrobatics to the Garden at the Castle where musicians were playing.

The Kapuwa (Officiant) chanted in Pali, including the attributes and blessings of the Buddha, and asking the deities that govern the earth and
sky for blessings of health, success and long life for the couple.

The two then exchanged betel leaves to welcome each other with honour — repeating this seven times to represent blessings of seven generations of ancestors. Their fingers were then tied together with thread by the Groom’s uncle to symbolise their spiritual union. Water was poured over their linked hands onto the earth – water and earth being eternal verities – as everlasting witnesses to the marriage.

The Bridegroom then tied a necklace around the Bride’s neck to show his honour and presents were given by the parents of the couple.
The Bridegroom’s mother presented a plate of kiri (milk rice) to the Bride who then fed a piece to the Groom, who then fed some to the Bride. Family members then exchanged betel leaves.

The Kapuwa chanted again, this time in Sanskrit, before the final blessings. As the couple stepped down from the Poruwa, a coconut was cracked to ward off any evil and bless the couple with a happy marriage.

Finally the couple lit a brass oil lamp to signify their resolve to keep the home fires burning.

October News


Mid October update

‘Winter is icumen in’ . . .  

. . . and that means winter hours at the Museum will apply from November 1st to March 31st.  Thus East Street will be closed, but Ypres Tower will continue to be open 7 days a week (weather permitting),  though with an earlier closing time of 3:30 p.m., last admission 3:00 p.m. .    Admission to the Tower remains  unchanged: adults £3.00, concessions £2.50,  children under 16 free when accompanied by an adult

Be sure to click on Events (and Photos) at right for the newest posts.

 

PUT THESE DATES IN YOUR DIARY PLEASE!

Tuesday, 25th October,  2 – 4 pm,  East Street
Half-Term Children’s Activity Afternoon

Heather Stevenson has planned a fun-filled afternoon of  crafts and activities at the Museum for the younger set (ages 4-10) — and theirparents/grandparents/aunts or uncles/other minders.  Cost is £2.50 per accompanied child.

Your youngsters can  make peg dolls, plant bulbs,  make a decoupage plant pot cover . . . . while learning about the  history of some  favourite nursery rhymes – linked to medieval garden, Tudor and Victorian times.

What about decorating a costume for Mary Tudor with buttons and sequins to depict her as  ‘Mary Mary quite contrary’?  Or giving Wee Willie Winkie a nightshirt?  (Did you know he was the forerunner of the Town Crier?}
 Or would they rather plant spring bulbs in a container and make a plant  pot cover by recycling old magazine pictures and pots — using PVA glue?    Recommended: wearing old clothes or bringing an old shirt..

 

There will be items to take away – then maybe the peg dolls could be used for a puppet  show with friends or the    planted pot and cover given to Mummy or Grandma.


Museum volunteers will be on hand to guide on the craft work.


 

 

Friday, 28th October, 9 p.m.
BBC programme on Great British Ghosts

The team preparing this programme came to Rye recently and recorded Michaela Strachan talking to our Guide Extraordinaire, Ted Emson, about paranormal activity in the Tower.  (We have had several groups willing to pay a fee to investigate this: our money-raising spirits?)   The team also visited the Mermaid Inn.  As you probably know the Rye Heritage Centre  regularly runs Ghost Tours.  We have no idea how much of the programme will feature Rye but you might want to watch.

 

Wednesday, 2nd November  2:00 pm,  East Street
Show and Tell for Adults

Instead of the usual Coffee Morning in November there will be a mid-week afternoon session for seeing interesting items brought by some of those who come– and hearing the stories behind them.  There will be cake and tea too.  Bring an item to show!

 

Tuesday, 8th November 7:30 p.m. East Street
Romney Marsh Spires by Alan Dickinson

Alan knows the buildings of Rye and the surrounding area extremely well as his books on the area attest.  He is also one of the Rye Museum directors with particular  concern for our buildings.  Besides the excellent just-published book on Rye Through Time he has been conducting further research on the Romney Marsh churches and this is what he will be telling us about this evening.

Members £2.00   Non-Members £3.00.  There will be refreshments and a raffle.

 

Saturday, 26th November 10 am – 4 pm
Christmas Craft Fair

A great source of Christmas gifts and decorations.  Watch for details.

 

A REMINDER OF WHAT YOU’VE HEARD or SEEN/ A GLIMPSE OF WHAT YOU’VE MISSED

Click here for summaries of our most recent talks.  As for new exhibits:

One recent addition to the Ypres Tower displays is on Sir Reginald Blomfield’s Cross of Sacrifice.  Copies of  the cross may be seen in many British, Commonwealth and European cemeteries where there are WWI graves.  You can find out more about it — and other of his many works here  or under Notable People at right.

Currently there is also a display in recognition of the 40th Anniversary of the Ryesingers who have regularly supported the Museum.   They have recently given another lovely concert in aid of the Women’s Tower Project.   Our Museum chairman was one of the founder members.  You can find out more about the Ryesingers by clicking here,  Their next concert, this time for the Friends of St Mary’s, is “Come to the Fair” and will be held at Rye Church, on Saturday 29th October at 7.30 pm.

Rye’s Military heritage

And have you seen the smart uniforms on display on the first floor?   A new display case you can walk around means you can see what Rye Volunteers wore in the period 1794 – 1803 and later.  During the American and French Revolutions many volunteer corps were raised and put on Army pay, providing a useful source of trained officers and men to strengthen the military when England was under threat.  This was the Prime Minister William Pitt’s initiative and local men became Volunteers even though the Cinque Ports were  exempt.  It was James Lamb of the ruling Rye family who raised the lst Volunteer Infantry Company and one uniform on display, brass buttons and buckles and embroidered epaulettes and all,  belonged to his nephew, Thomas David Lamb who rose through the ranks of Fencibles to take command of the 3rd Battalion.  Another was worn by 2nd Lt John Amon.  There are decorated swords and sheaths as well.

At one of the cells you can also learn about the Lancers, founded in  during the  first Jacobite Rebellion and developing through the centuries to become the Light Dragoons,  the Queen’s Royal Lancers and then the 9/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales) in 1960.  The uniform here with pill box hat and gauntlers) belonged to Sergeant T W Wilkes, a swordsman and marksman with the Queen’s Royal Lancers who fought in the Boer War and was later stationed in India. Thanks to Dilys Mayor for putting this together.

Ryesingers 40th Anniversary

Also currently on display is a collection of posters drawn from the 40 years the Ryesingers have been performing.   They have been loyal supporters of the Rye Museum.  Find out more about them here.

Buddhist Wedding at the Tower

You have already have seen the photos of a Saxon wedding  at the Ypres Tower.   Now there has been a Buddhist wedding!  Click here for the story and photos.

 

OTHER NEWS

The Way Ahead Committee

At a special Members Only meeting on 6th September, Shane Redmond, the Director who chairs our Way Ahead Committee and Treasurer Jeremy Huddle outlined the results of extensive consultations and investigations during the past year.  Plans for the future of the Museum  are exciting.    They involve a brilliantly designed glass-roofed multi-use enclosure where the medieval garden at Ypres Tower is now,  allowing efficient display of artifacts as well as space for meetings and coffee mornings.  The medieval garden would be re-created on the present front lawn of the museum.   If all proceeds as hoped — such as a successful sale of East Street —  this will not only mean a more convenient one-site stop for visitors but more efficient use of our volunteers — and, not least,  great financial savings/a better income too.  Watch this space!

 

Tower Project Fund

Thanks  to all who have been working to raise funds for the restoration of the Women’s Tower!   There has been  progress on the grant front:  more news to come.

Recent contributions have come from Paul McCartney who donated a CD set sold at auction,  the Ryesingers who gave us another concert, professional musician alumni of Rye C9llege who presented an excellent concert on our behalf (for details click here), Year 9 students of Rye College who offered a short play (The visit of King George I), a collection of stories as well as baked goods and games on  9th July;  the Mermaid Inn;  Rae Festing who lent her lovely garden on 30th July for a most successful Coffee Morning which raised over £500 (after expenses) ,  members and friends who have  bought stones  or windows for the restored tower,  and those who have helped with income generating garden group visits, paranormal society visits and ghost walks.

Thanks too to those who have  filled jars with 20p pieces.   Depending on jar size these yield between £25 and £50 per jar! If you too could fill a jar or buy a/another stone we would be that much closer to our goal of £100,000!

 

Publications and Souvenirs

Alan Dickinson’s latest book Rye Through Time  is out and will soon be available at the Tower.   This is a most attractive and informative Then and Now collection,  one of its most welcome features being that all the Now photos are in colour.   Click on Publications  at right for the other titles in our growing list.   Besides books, cards,  postcards (e.g. Captain Pugwash) and DVDs we now also have models (St Mary’s Church and Ypres Tower), WWII replicas, dolls and more.

Members generously responded to an appeal for more books for the bookstall recently for which many thanks — but regular sales mean we once again  need more. Though we will soon be closed for the winter we do have regular events during that period so if your bookshelves are too full . . . .

 

Rye Museum on Facebook

Did you know there is now a Rye Museum page on Facebook?   Our thanks to Jamie Kirkham for setting it up for us. All you need to do to see it is type Facebook Rye Castle Museum in a Google search box.

 

Are you caught up with recent Museum events and activities? new Directors?  additions to the website?  linked sites?

Check previous posts under Latest News and other headings at right to see what you might have missed.  And check the Links list for additions there too.


 

 

 

 

Ryesingers


Congratulations to the Ryesingers on their 40th Anniversay !

In their honour we have put together a display of posters and other items from their 40 years of singing.  The photograph, taken in Rye Castle/Ypres Tower, shows four founder-members, Lesley Brownbill, (conductor),  Jo Kirkham, Susan Manktelow, and Carole Osborne.

The Ryesingers have been loyal supporters of the Rye Museum — they recently  donated the proceeds of yet another lovely concert to our  Women’s Tower Project.  Here are some things to know about them:

  • The Ryesingers held their inaugural meeting in 1971 with eight ladies.  The membership now totals about 40 and includes men.
  • From that very first meeting their Conductor has been Lesley Brownbill who continued to fire members with her own enthusiasm and choose imaginative programmes.
  • They have taken part in competitions all over the British Isles and appeared several times on TV and radio. They have also performed in Germany, France and Belgium.
  • Their repetoire is very wide:  folk songs,  Gilbert and Sullivan, large classical works, church services, oratorios . . . .
  • The Choir has sung for many civic functions in Rye.  One of the members from the beginning has been  Jo Kirkham (our Chairman) who, on becoming Mayor of Rye in 1979 immediately appointed Ryesingers as her personal minstrels — a medieval tradition revived.
  • Ryesingers welcomed inn song Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on her visit to Rye as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1980.

 

 

Sir Reginald Blomfield


The Cross of Sacrifice display at the Ypres Tower

Cross of Sacrifice, Ypres cemetery

Among the recent additions to the Ypres Tower displays is the model for the Cross of Sacrifice which Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942) designed for the Imperial War Museum to commemorate soliders who lost their lives in the Ypres Salient during WWI.   but have no marked graves.  The  display has been donated by Priscilla Ryan and Paul Blomfield, grandchildren of Sir Reginald.   Copies of the cross are present in most Commonwealth war cemeteries around the world.  There is one in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, another in Arlington Cemetery, Washington D.C. , honouring fallen Canadians.   The cross is usually of limestone on the face of which is mounted a bronze cross with the blade pointing down.

 The Menin Gate

Ypres, The Menin Gate

The most famous of Sir Reginald’s war memorials is the magnificent Memorial Gate to the Missing at Ypres,  Belgium, built by the British Government and unveiled in 1927.  It is located on one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line.   Some 300,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed in the Ypres Salient. 90,000 of  whom have no known graves.  The large Hall of Memory contains names on stone panels of 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient but whose bodies have never been identified or found; for lack of sufficient room here others are listed on another memorial.  At 8 p.m. each evening buglers from the local fire brigade sound the Last Post.

 

 

Sir Reginald and Rye

Sir Reginald was well-known before the war as a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period. In 1886 he married the daughter of Henry Burra of Rye where he designed several houses, including his own on Point Hill, Playden.   One he let to the American novelist Henry James.  He also designed the Rye, Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital,

Saltcote Place and many of the houses on the Playden ridge.   Other pre-war projects included the building or renovation of country great houses (e.g. Chequers), university buildings (e.g.Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford) amd commercial and  buildings (e.g. completion of the Quadrant in Regents Street, London).

 

Saltcote Place

And that’s not all:

Did you know that Sir Reginald designed the pylons you see throughout the country?  His  familiar steel lattice pylon design has been in use since the 1920s but is now about to be replaced by a new T-shaped design, winner of a competition to develop a new generation of pylons to keep up with the UK’s goals for greener energy.