The Witches' Piper

Our mill is full of stories and quite often we have storytelling at our events, there will be some at our Tudor Festival coming soon.  This folk tale isn't really about mills at all, but after discovering this Bulgarian story and telling it in the original form a few times I decided to change it a bit and create a version set in my native Cheshire.  Visitors to Stretton will recognise quite a few names and places in the locality...

You’ve hear how my elder brother plays the bagpipes?  Well, he was called to play for a party at Carden Hall, it must’ve been the day before Ash Wednesday.  And another feller from aback o’ Malpas was called to play his pipes for the children, Uncle Diccen his name is, he still lives in that village.

Now, at around eleven o’clock, Uncle Diccen was paid for his troubles and set off home.  But he was only betwixt Barton and Stretton when he was met by three women, all dressed in grey they were, and they said “Uncle Diccen, Uncle Diccen, come to play for us!” and dragged him away to a house at the end of the lane and set him on a bench there to play.  Well, other folk kept coming in and soon enough the place was thrunk and coins came crashing at Uncle Diccen’s feet until he thought it was as if he had the rent of the Dee Mills, until it turned midnight. 

Then, with a crash, Uncle Diccen found himself at the top of the poplar by Tilston stocks, and the night as black as a bag.  “Odd rot it! How did I get here?” thought Uncle Diccen.  On the lane below there was a chap coming from Shocklach way, and Uncle Diccen called to him to fetch him down, but this feller took boggart at some devil atop a tree at midnight and rushed off.  Soon enough though, there was a horse and cart coming from the Leche’s place and in it was Thomas Hulme.  “Is that you Uncle Diccen?” says Thomas.  “Damn it, of course it’s me! Now help me down.”

As soon as he was on the ground, Uncle Diccen began to look in the hem of his cloak where he’d hidden the coins he’d gathered, but it was full of nothing but broken crockery and chips of glass.  Such strange things sometimes still happen.

The End of Another Season

At the end of an enjoyable, but tiring, weekend we've now closed to general visitors for the rest of the year, but we've got schools visiting us for the next couple of weeks before the end of season clean and putting the mill to bed. 

As has become tradition now we end our summer with a Victorian Harvest weekend, which suits the time of year and the mill's heritage perfectly.  Of course we've been grinding wheat into flour, but also pressing apples for juice and churning cream into butter.  And where else do you get free cake?!  Our visitors have also enjoyed tastes of apple cake, caraway cake, fruit cake and Victoria sponge all made following old recipes.

There were 19th century tunes from Chris, Joan and Tom.

And Chris once again demonstrated his penny farthing riding skills.

So it was a lovely way to round off a wonderful summer for the mill.  But whilst it gets a bit too cold to have everyone visiting over the winter, the work behind the scenes continues, so expect more from us on this blog over the next few months.

Horse Harnesses and...Bagpipes

On arriving at the watermill today there were several picnickers enjoying the view over the millpond, even in its very drained pre-season appearance and lots of walkers wandering past making the most of the sunny Sunday.  Our neighbours from the former mill cottage were out for a walk with their pony.

It's still about a month before the mill opens to the general public again, (1pm on Sunday 1st April as you've asked), but this early visit was to collect some items of horse tack that are normally stored in our stable block as they are going to be displayed in a forthcoming exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester entitled "Taking The Reins: Horses in Cheshire" which will run from 19 May to 23 September 2012.

But it was only a brief visit as it was then on to meet with musicians at the Carden Arms in nearby Tilston to make plans for International Bagpipe Day on Saturday 10th March.  This has been organised by the Bagpipe Society to raise the profile of this traditional instrument, which was once so popular in Cheshire.  There are several events taking place around the local area, but we're proud to say that it all kicks off at Stretton Watermill at the very beginning of the day at 8.30am with some medieval music at the mill to recall Chaucer's Miller from the Canterbury Tales of who he wrote "a baggepipe wel coude he blow and sowne, and therewithal he broghte us out of towne" 

There are many more links between mills and bagpipes, but they are other stories for another day.