Bosworth Battle Field and Donnington-le-Heath Manor - Leicestershire

Wednesday 7th July 2010

Yet another battlefield - this time associated with Richard III, one of Rays favourite characters in history. Basically another dead king.

Above is the Battle field. You can just see Richard III's flag flying. This is the site for the final Battle of The Roses, where Richard III was slain (I like that - 'slain' - sounds so much more refined than plain old 'killed') on the battle field, the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. Seems like an anomalous symbol for a bunch of guys killing each other

Here is Ray wearing a helmet and a breastplate from that time. They are incredibly heavy, and of course only a fraction of the armour that was worn. This kind of armour was only worn by rich people - kings and knights I guess. The very poor soldiers had only jackets that were like a parka. Cloth coats stuffed with flock.

It was, all in all, an interesting morning. The exhibition was really well put together. It was not something that we had planned before we left home. Perhaps that appealed to my perverse nature!!

We left Bosworth Field in the hope of having a canal boat ride. There was a wharf with a cafe, so we did have cake, but the canal boats were only operating on weekends.

What we did see (below), was this row of canal boats where people live permanently. Each has outdoor furniture and a garden shed on the canal side.

We left the cafe and headed for Donnongton-le-Heath Manor House. The house has had many incarnations across the centuries, but was really interesting and showed (and the audio guide explained) the different styles of architecture and different uses of rooms across the ages.

The part of this visit that we found most interesting was a personal tour of the gardens. We were treated to an explanation of the uses of various plants and a volunteer has painstakingly labelled each plant with it's use and when it was introduced into the UK.

The picture below is an example of how hedges are made. These twisted branches are living plants. This thickens and strengthens the hedges that are used instead of fences.

I really loved this rose (below). The roses are all old varieties - not new hybrids.

"Little Miss Muffet, sat on her Tuffet"

This was the highlight of the garden for me. Here I am (scroll down a bit) sitting on a Tuffet!! It is basically layers of turf - grass to grass and dirt to dirt until you build it up as you like. It was comfy and I can just see myself lying on it reading a good book on a sunny day!

We also had a demonstration of how soapwort works. Pick the leaves, add water, rub vigorously and it lathers and cleans. The roots are used similarly for personal washing as they are white.

Soapwort and wild marjoram were used to make beer frothy.

They had both purple and white carrotts - orange ones weren't introduced until much later.

The hedges in the garden were yew bushes. Every August they are trimmed and the trimmings are sold to a drug company to use in making cancer treatments. They discovered this use because yew (a different variety) was also used to make long bows and a man who makes these was diagnosed with cancer but no sooner had they diagnosed it than it began to clear up. His specialist wondered if there was a connection to the yew he used in his craft and - hey presto - a bit of research and a new treatment.

Last was a Black Mulberry tree. These were routinely planted in prison exercise yards. they provided a source of Vitamin C for the prisoners and hence the nursery rhyme - "here we go 'round the mulberry bush"..

I love this stuff!! More useless information in my useless head!!