Taking a Wrong Turning

The long and winding road... it was the first
time we had ever seen grass growing in the
middle of the road!

Today's Saturday Snapshot is a kind of follow-up on last week's, because on the way back from Bigbury Beach and Burgh Island we took a wrong turning, and instead of driving along the'A' road we wanted, we found ourselves on a single track country lane, with grass growing in the middle! Parts of it were so overgrown it was like being in an ancient hollow way.

The Man Of The House was driving, and Elder Daughter was navigating, with the aid of her SatNav, which is usually very reliable. However, it failed to differentiate between 'bear left' and 'turn left' so somewhere along the line the Man Of The House, who possesses a very good sense of direction (unlike me and Elder Daughter), failed to continue along the main road (which gently curved around to the left) and instead turned into what looked like the world's narrowest road, with burgeoning greenery on either side - and overhead - and grass where one would normally expect to find a central white line.

This one is a bit blurred (it's not easy taking pictures in a
moving car, even if you are travelling very slowly, but you
you can see how the land is built up at the side of the road

Having landed us in seemingly uncharted territory, Voice of the SatNav became uncharacteristically silent – there was not even the standard message about re-computing our route. At this point my imagination got the better of me, and I began to wonder if our route finder was really a Discworld-style machine powered by two bad-tempered imps taking turn and turn about on an oversized bicycle (rather than a state-of-the-art, hi-tech gadget using a satellite to tell us the way). Right now, I decided, the imps had both stopped pedaling, and were searching through a pile of maps and reference books, whilst quarreling furiously over who was to blame – one of the, both of them, or us!

Eventually, some decisiom having been reached, a disembodied voice urged us to Keep Right On To the End Of the Road (or words to that effect), which made me hope our satellite guide would burst into song but, sadly, no tune was forthcoming. However, it's an idea SatNav manufacturers would do well to consider. Just think how much more interesting a journey would be with carefully selected musical accompaniments (all suitable suggestions will be gratefully received). 

This shot is even more blurred, but it's kind of
arty, and I rather like it, because it gives a sense
of the tunnel effect of the vegetation.

Anyway, since the road was much too narrow to even think about turning round – let alone trying such a manoeuvre – we had no alternative but to follow instructions, and we crawled along very slowly, in a very low gear. Fortunately the few cars we encountered travelling in the opposte direction were equally cautious, and there were passing points, where the road was slightly wider on each side, and you could avoid hitting anyone by pulling into the hedge!

I took photos through the car window, as an experiment, to try and show what the road was like. When we got home I looked at a map, but I'm still not sure where we went! However, I do wonder of sections of the route could have been an old hollow way  - a sunken lane, with trees and bushes growing on earth banks on each side, and forming an arch overhead, which makes it feel as if you are driving through a tunnel. Hollow ways (which I think are also known as green ways or green lanes) are ancient roadways and, apparently,  there are a lot of them in Devon, so I like to think we were following a track established in the distant past.

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog at http://athomewithbooks.net/ 

... And higher...

The sides got higher...

Back to normality!

Chained Books - Power or Protection?

"In most old libraries the books are chained to the shelves to prevent them from being damaged by people. In the Library of Unseen University, it's more or less the other way around." So says novelist Terry Pratchett in Sourcery, and I’m inclined to think if it’s good enough for Discworld, then it’s good enough for us.

However, I suspect custodians of the Chained Library at Hereford Cathedral would not subscribe to Pratchett’s reasoning - although I half expected a large, orange orang utan to swing in to view, eating a banana and shouting 'Ook'.  Anyway,  conventional wisdom would have us believe books were chained to prevent them being stolen. But after seeing them I’m puzzled. Many of the books are enormous – they are so large and heavy, often with covers of wood and leather, that it would be difficult heaving them down from the shelf, let alone carrying them any distance. Plus, I would have thought their sheer size would have meant a thief would be spotted fairly quickly – you certainly couldn’t stroll out with a book stuffed under your cotte.

I know books were scarce and valuable, but these volumes are not the kind of thing that could be easily flogged in a tavern or market and, since few people could read, they would only have been of value to monks, clergymen and scholars. All in all I can’t understand why anyone would have wanted to steal books, especially when you consider the draconian punishments imposed on wrong-doers.

So, was chaining books really the most widespread and effective security system in European libraries from the middle ages through to the 18th century? Or have we all missed the point and was the object of the exercise not prevention of theft, but a show of wealth and a demonstration of power? That thought takes me back to Patchett again, for according to him: “Books contain knowledge, and knowledge equals power, which according to the laws of physics can be converted to energy and matter, so the Library contains an extremely large mass that can distort time and space.” Forget about the distortion of time and space, but I think he’s right about knowledge and power.

Whatever the reason, Hereford’s 17th century chained library is fantastic, and is well worth the entrance fee. It’s housed in a new building (alongside the famous Mappa Mundi) and is an amazing place, very quiet, very peaceful, with centuries-old books stored in tall wooden cabinets, each with its ledge where books can be rested as they are read, still chained securely to their protective rail. These days, of course, common visitors like me cannot lift the books down, although I believe they are available (by request) to scholars, and there are smaller, thinner facsimiles in an excellent exhibition in a separate room.

The first thing you notice is that the books are stored upright, the wrong way round compared to modern custom – the spines are at the back of the shelves, where they cannot be seen, and it is the page edges which face you. Each book has a metal chain, attached to the front edge of the cover with a hasp, with a ring at the other end slotted over a metal rod which runs the width of the cabinet. The books can be lifted down and read, but the chain cannot be removed unless everything is unlocked.

Books are stored alphabetically, and at the end of each cabinet are index boards listing the contents. The bookcases and chains date from around 1611, but many of the volumes stored here are far older – the cathedral has had a library for 900 years or more, and contains hand-written illuminated manuscripts, as well as early printed works. The oldest book in the collection is the Hereford Gospels, created in the 8th century, at the same time as the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

The exhibition on the library was fascinating, with information about the way vellum was produced and manuscripts produced, as well as details about the development of printing and the way books have been stored over the years. And there were two fabulous book trunks, which bowled me over. One, beautifully carved, had three locks, and the key for each was kept by different people, so no-one could access it on their own. The other was plainer, with a huge iron ring at each end, to hold a sturdy wooden pole, so the chest could be carried along when high-ranking clergymen went on their travels – I wonder what they would have thought about modern, light-weight E-readers!

The guides manning the library and the exhibition were really helpful and informative (as was the man who told us about the Mappa Mundi), and we also enjoyed wandering around the rest of the cathedral, before treating ourselves to coffee and home-made cake in the cathedral café. A perfect day!

By the way, photography is banned in the library, so the pictures are from the guide book, Rare Treasures of Hereford Cathedral, Mappa Mundi, the Chained Library and Magna Carta, which is available from the Cathdredal Bookshop.