working at two castles in a week, France and England

The last 3 weeks have been hectic but fun. First I worked at Hever Castle in Kent, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, an impressive Tudor castle with fantastic gardens created by Lord Astor in the early 20th Century. 

Is this the best spot to work a lathe ever?
and these are the porringers I made on the first of four days turning, based on an Elizabethan example excavated in Southwark quite close to the Globe Theatre.

We were camping in the grounds of the castle and after the public went home had the place to ourselves, a barbeque at the edge of the lake one evening was very fine.

and then I went out boating with Phil and Deb who do replica leather vessels.

after four happy days turning and evenings socialising it was off to France leaving the white cliffs of Dover behind.

and Bourlogne castle was our worksite. Quite a place. This is to be the venue for the major international bronze age exhibition we have been building the replica boat for.

Sometimes work can feel hard low paid with no holiday or sick pay but then there are times like these when I look at friends in offices and can barely believe how lucky I am.

gorgeous French tarts

I am just back from a couple of weeks working in France and have some nice work pictures to share, first though how about a couple of French tarts.

Why is it that the French do these so well? Tarte au citron and tarte au framboise, just yummy.
The culinary highlight of the trip however was a trip to a seafood restaurant. Google had helped me find it as it was not the sort of place tourists end up. Le Chatillon is based on a fairly grotty industrial estate, but right opposite the fish market of France's biggest fishing port. The owner was previously a fishmonger for 35 years so you can expect the very best, freshest fish possible. You don't pay for flashy surroundings or over attentive waiters the focus is on the food. It opens at 4am to serve the folk coming to work on the docks and fishmarket and closes after lunch, on a Tuesday lunchtime the place was rammed.

We had the set menu at 18 euros and paid extra for scallops (superb) and turbot. Perhaps because I went expecting the fish to be superb the highlight was surprisingly the pudding. This was undoubtedly the best creme brulee that was ever made. The memory of it will last a long time and I shall now be spending some considerable time in the kitchen attempting replication, going to try this recipe first.

pots from Pompeii

A few weeks ago I was demonstrating turning at Hever Castle in Kent and fell in love with these huge pots.

Doing my research afterwards it turns out they were collected in Italy by Lord Astor in the early 20th Century and are thought to be from Pompeii. Wherever they are from I adore the presence of them, the gorgeous form on such a large scale. They remind me a lot of the pots of Svend Bayer, the small base with gradually tightening curve. I wonder where they lived in Pompeii and what function they served, storing olives or oil perhaps? This is one of Svend's

Viking ship launch

The time came yesterday to launch the Viking ship replica I worked on last November. I would have loved to be there, she looks beautiful on the water.



Here is the link back to the blog posts about my time working on the build.

and for anyone interested in traditional ship building I thought it would be fun to post links to a few other builds I am aware of going on at the moment.

Bronze age boat in Cornwall


Building French Frigate Hermione

Greyhound lugger build in Cornwall this one launches August 4 2012