Saturday 29 April 2017

The Eton wall game / St. Andrews Day At The Eton Wall Game (1914-1918)







The Eton wall game is a game which bears some resemblance to rugby union that originated at and is still played at Eton College. It is played on a strip of ground 5 metres wide and 110 metres long ("The Furrow") next to a slightly curved brick wall ("The Wall") erected in 1717.

The traditional and most important match of the year is played on St Andrew's Day, as the Collegers (King's Scholars) take on the Oppidans (the rest of the school). Although College has only 70 boys to pick from, compared to the 1250 or so Oppidans, the Collegers have one distinct advantage: access to the field on which the Wall Game is played is controlled by a Colleger. Despite this, it is usual for them to allow the Oppidans to use it whenever they wish.

The wall game being played in the late 19th or early 20th century. At right is The Wall, the dark strip of ground running alongside it is The Furrow.
At the annual St Andrew's Day match, the Oppidans climb over the wall, after throwing their caps over in defiance of the Scholars, while the Collegers march down from the far end of College Field, arm-in-arm, towards the near end, where they meet the Oppidans.

The Wall Game is also played on Ascension Day, immediately after a 6 a.m. service on the roof of College Chapel. Various scratch matches are also played throughout the Michaelmas and Lent halves (terms), where boys from different year groups, as well as masters, take part.

The aim of the game is to move the ball towards the opponents' end of the playing area. In those last few yards of the field is an area called the "calx". In this area a player can earn a "shy" (worth one point) by lifting the ball against the wall with his foot. A teammate then touches the ball with his hand and shouts "Got it!" These two plays must happen within the calx. After this, if the umpire says "Given", the scoring team can attempt a goal (worth a further nine points) by throwing the ball at a designated target (a garden door at one end of the field and a tree at the other end). A player can also score a kicked goal, worth five points, if he kicks the ball out and it hits a goal during the normal course of play.


The main game consists of the two sets of players forming a rugby-style scrummage (called a "Bully") in which neither team may "furk" the ball, which is to hook it backwards (except in Calx, where a different type of Bully called a Calx Bully occurs). The Bully is formed next to the Wall and crabs slowly along the Wall until the ball emerges. Many players, particularly those whose position is actually against the Wall, lose the skin off their elbows, hips and knees. Because of this, players usually wear long sleeves. Players within the Bully shove and push each other, mostly with their bodies but also by placing their fists against the faces of the opposition and attempting to lever them backwards and away from the Wall. Actual punching is not permitted, and grabbing an opponent's shirt ("holding") is also not allowed.

When in Calx, a different type of Bully called a Calx Bully occurs. The fastest way to make ground is by kicking the ball upfield and out of play whenever it comes sideways out of the Bully – unlike most types of football, play is restarted opposite where the ball stops after it had gone out, or was touched after it had gone out.

Consequently, the most common tactic revolves around the formation of a 'phalanx'. This consists of a tunnel (coming out from the wall, diagonally forward from the position of the ball) of players from one team who are crouching on hands and feet next to each other. Once the team in possession of the ball has formed a successful phalanx, it attempts to pass the ball down the 'tunnel' using the knees of the players forming it, to a player standing at the end of the phalanx, known as Lines, whose job it is to kick the ball upfield. The team not in possession is constantly attempting to disrupt this, and win the ball back.

The game lasts up to an hour, with two halves of 30 minutes each. Many games end 0-0. Scoring goals (ten points) is very rare; they occur about once every 10 years and there have been no goals scored in the St Andrew's Day game since 1909. There was a goal scored in a recent scratch match (a less formal warm-up match for the St Andrew's Day game) in May 2016 by a College player. However, shies (worth 1 point) are scored more frequently.

In the 2015 St Andrew's Day match, the outcome was a 0-0 draw. This marked the 106th consecutive St Andrew's Day match in which no goals were scored by either team. There was, however, a near controversy in the latter stages of the match. College was in Calx and shouted "Got it" to claim that they had scored a shy. Even though even an Oppidan player told the umpire that it was a clear shy and that it could be seen from where he was, the umpire claimed he could not see the ball off the ground and did not give the shy.

In the 2016 game, the 250th St. Andrew's Day match, College triumphed 1-0 against the Oppidans. This was the 107th consecutive St Andrew's Day match in which no goals were scored by either team; however, College scored a shy.

The Wall Game is organized entirely by boys, particularly by the Keepers (captains) of College Wall, Oppidan Wall and Mixed Wall. Famous past players of the Wall game include Boris Johnson, who was Keeper of the College Wall, George Orwell and Harold Macmillan.[citation needed] The First World War flying ace Arthur Rhys Davids also played, representing College with Ralph Dominic Gamble in 1915.

Members of the College Wall also annually commemorate the great Wall Game player Logie Leggatt, making a toast at each year's Christmas Sock Supper with the words in piam memoriam L.C.L (towards the pious memory of L.C.L). Despite its renown outside the school, only a very small number of the 250 or so boys in each year group ever take part in the sport, unlike the lesser-known but much more widely played Eton Field Game.

The Eton Wall Game has been played twice by all-female teams.





Eton Wall Game (1934)

Eton Wall Game (1956)

Wednesday 26 April 2017

Clandeboye House / VIDEO: 1/4 Clandeboye (Ep5) - The Country House Revealed











The Clandeboye Estate is a country estate located in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, 12 miles (19 km) outside Belfast. Covering 2,000 acres (8.1 km2), it contains woodlands, formal and walled gardens, lawns, a lake, and 250 hectares (620 acres) of farmland. The estate is currently home to Lindy, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, widow of the last Marquess (the title being extinct).
Clandeboye was first settled in 1674, but the Clandeboye House of today dates from 1801, utilising a design by Robert Woodgate that incorporated elements of the previous building and was built for the politician Sir James Blackwood, 2nd Baron Dufferin and Clandeboye.
In memory of his mother, Helen, Lady Dufferin (granddaughter of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan), Lord Dufferin and Ava built the stone edifice Helen's Tower on the estate, which has since been immortalised by Tennyson in the poem of the same name. The tower has taken on an unforeseen poignancy, as an almost exact replica of it, the Ulster Tower, was built at Thiepval to honour the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division who fell at the Battle of the Somme. The estate was used for army training during the First World War, and the 36th (Ulster) Division trained beside Helen's Tower before leaving for France. The tower can be reached via the Ulster Way, a five-mile (8 km) section of which traverses the estate.
The parklands familiar to visitors today were originally laid out by the 1st Marquess, who was also responsible for the addition of the banqueting hall to the house in 1898.
As a result of the work of the 1st Marquess, Clandeboye is home to the largest area of broad-leaved woodland in Northern Ireland, consisting mostly of oak, birch, and beech. The estate is also home to a large variety of animal species; those recorded as present on the estate include the osprey, red kite, tree sparrow, barn owl, yellowhammer, song thrush, pipistrelle bat, red squirrel, fallow deer, common newt, marsh fritillary, and the wall brown butterfly. The estate is home to the Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland. The grounds are tended by head gardener Fergus Thompson.

The series from BBC titled The Country House Revealed was accompanied by a full length illustrated companion book published by the BBC which featured Cladeboye Estate as a dedicated chapter appearing as Chapter Five of the book edition. The six chapters of the book correspond to the six episodes of the BBC series.

Tuesday 25 April 2017

Clandeboye Revisited ... Back to this Great House with Dan Cruickshank and his exciting new series at BBC 2


There are few other houses in Britain like Clandeboye - a monument to a man whose life was like a Victorian fairy tale of adventure, and a monument to the golden age of the largest and most far flung empire the world has ever seen.
Clandeboye House and estate was, like the empire itself, an epic creation - but unlike the empire, it still endures, a vignette of a now almost forgotten age and surprisingly little altered since Lord Dufferin died in 1902.
The house is overflowing with relics from the empire and Dufferin's aristocratic adventures - stuffed baby bears, Egyptian monuments, tiger skins and weaponry from India, Canada and Burma to mention just a few, with extraordinary photographic albums that document the collecting of these unique 'souvenirs'. Clandeboye is a genuine treasure trove.


The Country House Revealed is a six part BBC series first aired on BBC Two in May 2011 in which British architectural historian Dan Cruickshank visits six houses never before open to public view, and examines the lives of the families who lived there.
Episodes
Episode 1 tells the story behind South Wraxall Manor, hidden in the depths of the Wiltshire countryside. Built by a family with a dramatic and chequered history - the Longs - who rose in prominence through the Tudor period to become knights of the realm, friends of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and one of the most powerful dynasties in England.
Episode 2 tells the story of architect Sir William Bruce and Kinross House.
Episode 3 examines the architecture of Easton Neston in Northamptonshire and discusses whether it was the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor or Sir Christopher Wren.
Episode 4 shows Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham, one of the largest country houses in Europe. The building exemplifies the workings of British Parliamentary democracy before the Reform Act of 1832, and is important in the history of Whig politics, its owners having included influential Prime Minister Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham. The episode also relates the near-destruction of the estate by controversial open-cast coal mining in the 1940s and 1950s, and speculates on how such a huge country house needing extensive renovation might find a use in the 21st century.
Episode 5 looks at the Clandeboye Estate in Northern Ireland.
Episode 6 views Marshcourt in Stockbridge, Hampshire, designed by Edwin Lutyens.