tring Archives

Tring in Spring

20th April 202118th June 2021 Mary TebjeLeave a comment

Tring Park is a vast green space that merges comfortably with the market town of Tring, in the northern Chilterns.

I am regular visitor to Tring Park where I take Leo and meet with friends to walk. This spring, I have been exploring new routes around the 260 acres, and have discovered paths tucked away through gates and shady copses.

I have focused, not on the big statement avenues of trees and follies, but on the smaller, more intricate detail of the parkland.

Tring Park paths — The primroses lead the way

Making regular appearances in the history books, the town and surrounding land are recorded as having been handed on from one monarch to another, to their wives, to a Groom of the Bedchamber or a Clerk of the Treasury. Throw in a couple of Royal mistresses, and you’ll be thoroughly confused.

Innovation

We pick up the story when the space was formally landscaped in the 1720’s by Charles Bridgeman, who helped pioneer the naturalistic landscape style. If like me, you haven’t heard of him, it’ll be because innovations in English landscape architecture have been eclipsed by the work of his more famous successor, Lancelot “Capability” Brown. He was responsible for landscaping the nearby Ashridge House estate and the statement ‘golden valley’ amongst other impressive projects.

There are neat piles of miscellaneous stones, discarded bricks, and tumbled down walls that are sinking slowly back into the hillside.

Tring park boundary walls — Flint and bricks crumble and decay, ivy lazes on the top like a giant boa.

What Bridgeman did was mix and successfully merge the formal woodland layout (and their follies), with the more free-flow chalk downland and broad open landscape. The feature that is most striking is the steep ridge that runs like a spine along the southern edge of the park, along which the Ridgeway National Trail traverses. Passing through the park, the Ridgeway follows the King Charles’ Ride, this broad avenue is one of my favourite places to walk, with wonderful views over Tring and across the Vale of Aylesbury to Ivinghoe Beacon and Mentmore Towers. All beneath a canopy of stately trees.

Copper beeches get dressed

Past Lives

All over the park, you’ll find signs of past lives and purpose. From wobbly walls and names of landscape features, to the two most prominent: Nell Gwyn’s’ Obelisk that commends the centre of the woodland and just further up the trail, you will see the remains of a summer house. The latter was full of chalk praise for Donald Trump when I walked past!

King Charles’ Ride — Like a penny farthing bicycle stuck in the mud

The avenue of lime trees welcome most visitors from the town as you cross the intrusive A41 on the footbridge from the National History Museum car park. This is the best way in fact to access the park.

The A41 cuts through Tring Park — Tring Park school for the Performing Arts sits over the road, to the north of the park

Zebra’s and kiwis

When the Rothschilds bought the Tring estate in 1872, they transformed the mansion house, but left the park largely unaltered. Apart from the exotic animals that were added! This dynasty has left its mark across the region in homes, landscapes, heritage and the arts.

Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868 – 1937) was an avid collector of animals. At its largest, the Rothschild’s collection included 300,000 bird skins, 200,000 birds’ eggs, over 2 million butterflies, 30,000 beetles as well as thousands of specimens of mammals, reptiles and fishes. Revolting. But at that time, travelling to hunt and collect specimens was fairly common. He formed the largest zoological collection ever amassed by a private individual. He found time to found the nearby National History Museum, just to house his growing zoological collection, including circus fleas and a polar bear. It’s a charming museum, that has retained most of its quirky Victorian displays.

A trail in Tring Park — Was this such a good idea?

His interest in animals saw imported cassowary’s, zebras and kangaroos roaming free in the park. Whilst in the park, his father’s patience was sorely tested when a cassowary chased him. I wonder what the locals made of it all?

Now you’ll likely encounter a herd of cows who munch their way from one end of the park to the other, leaving behind nothing but nutritious pats.

Spring shadows in Tring park — The shadows are long, and the grass wet with a light frost, the air cold in the shadow of the beech trees

Tring Park is a well used and popular green space for the community. Busy with dog walkers, runners, gossip and events, best of all is the King Charles’ Ride for the sheer joy of it, the far-reaching views and a place to sit and think.

Each time I go, this microcosm of the Chilterns has something new to share; an opening vista in the autumn, horses trotting along the Ridgeway, tiny wildflowers, sledging in the winter or the call of the song thrush in April.

Spring flowers in Tring park — Primroses, lesser celandine and blackthorn

Further information

There are several trails to follow, information on the notice boards at the various entrances to the park, or you can simply wander and see where the paths take you. Woodland Trust

Not just a pretty face, Tring has a lovely high street full of independent shops and refreshment stops.

Lodged now at the British Museum, the story of the Tring Tiles is frustratingly brief. Not much is known about them, not even whether they were made in England.

Directly accessible from the park is the hilltop village of Wigginton, with thirst-quenching pub and village shop selling homemade cakes and supplies.

Celebrate the seasons in the Chiltern Hills with a NEW range of beautifully designed gifts and unique souvenirs from Chilterns Gifts.

A Brief History of…

In which eight rare medieval wall tiles are bought for £17 and are now priceless.

26th November 201725th July 2018 Mary TebjeLeave a comment

The Tring Tiles.

Tucked away on a side wall in the Medieval Galleries in the behemoth that is the British Museum, hang the enchanting Tring Tiles. Remarkable then, that despite such an immense archive spanning thousands of years, these eight tiles have been on a world tour and are now on permanent display.

The history of the Tring Tiles is so terribly brief, as not much is known about them, not even whether they were made in England, or in France.

They have been described as a ceramic religious comic strip of the life of a young Christ, almost like a 14th century Springfield cartoon. The yellow characters tell apocryphal tales about the childhood of Christ in a raw comic strip full of odd and unfamiliar images; Christ killing a school mate who has annoyed him, in another scene, a man dies because he spoilt a pool that Jesus made and he is brought back to life and simply walks away! I don’t recall being told these stories as a child.

Fashions come and go, and that extends to things ecclesiastical. During an early 18th century make-over of the Tring Parish Church of St. Peter & St. Paul, the tiles were covered up and then stripped out in the early 1880’s, only to be offered for sale in the Dickensian-sounding local Curiosity Shop. The owner refused to say how he came by them. Happy to sell them on however, to a Rev Owen, who upon his death in Chelmsford in 1922, the tiles were disposed off amongst his personal and household items. They were bought by an antiques dealer for £17, and he sold them to the British Museum.

So much could have gone wrong through all of these transactions! And then another two tiles turned up in Tring and were gifted to the V&A. Will any more turn up one day…I hope the residents of Tring are thoroughly examining their cellars and garden walls.

Although not a common English method, I like to think they could have been made in the nearby Penn potteries, an important centre for decorative tiles that were destined for great houses and buildings across London and the South East.

Just like the Holy Trinity Penn ‘Doom’ painting that was very nearly lost if it weren’t for the rain, so too would these remarkable treasures have also been lost. Thank goodness for eagle-eyed folk and purveyors of all things curious!

Tring Tiles — “Eight tiles of lead-glazed red earthenware with decoration representing incidents from the apocryphal accounts of the infancy of Christ. Executed by scratching through and cutting away a white slip under a yellow clear glaze.’ British Museum
Artist: unknown
Maker: unknown
Origin: England. or France
Made: late Medieval, circa 13th century

The Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Tring — Saint Peter & Saint Paul Tring

Further ideas on things to visit and places to explore in Tring

For more information on what to see and do locally in Tring and the Chilterns.

“Mama, Papa, I’m going to make a museum…” claimed the precocious founder of the Natural History Museum in Tring!

National History at its Victorian Best

15th November 201723rd January 2020 Mary Tebje3 Comments

“Mama, Papa, I’m going to make a museum…”

The historic market town of Tring is a busy, growing commuter town within easy reach of London and within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Located on the original Akeman Street – a major Roman road in England that linked Watling Street with the Fosse Way, the Natural History Museum (NHM) Tring is in auspicious company. Built in 1889 to house one of the finest zoological collections in private hands, this in a museum frozen in time.

Just across the street are the picturesque Louisa Cottages Alms Houses on Akeman Street, built in 1893.

Inside the NHM Tring is a veritable feast of the exotic, elusive, exquisite, extinct and downright delightful exhibits from another age of museum-going. With not a gadget in sight, the slightly surreal setting of sturdy, floor-to-ceiling wooden display cases, drawers and fine cabinets that house thousands of stuffed exhibits that continue to entrance generations of local residents.

Circus fleas

The galleries are busy, bustling with families looking for items to capture on their trail sheets and clearly enjoying themselves. You don’t have to be five years old to qualify for the free trails, it’s a pleasure being able to potter. We saw the iconic Chilterns red kite and elusive kingfisher up close; delighted at the fruits of a busy mother’s labours as she sat up late at night dressing the fleas her children had caught from their pets, are on display next to exquisite moths and butterflies, to marvel at the 128-year old tortoise that lived with an assortment of animals (including kangaroos and an Emu), in nearby Tring Park.

On display is more than just stuffed animals though. It is a whole other value system in which our relationship with wild and domestic creatures was clearly very different: witness the display case of stuffed domestic dogs, a dodo and the famous Tring polar bear. We accept them as the animals were captured, slain and stuffed long ago, but I was surprised to see some dogs ‘donated’ as late as 1970. Perhaps not such a lost art after all?

“Mama, Papa, I’m going to make a museum…”

The museum founder, Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868 – 1937), second Baron Rothschild belonged to a rich and powerful family that influenced and shaped the local landscape (and seems once owned much of it), was a keen naturalist from an early age and collected all manor of exotic creatures which he brought back to his private museum in Tring. Famous for riding around town in a carriage pulled by a zebra, local response is not, unfortunately recorded, but I do wonder what they made of it all.

Armadillo, Natural History Museum, Tring

My son wanted to show me the Galapagos tortoise that Lord Rothschild once road upon, but I was too distracted by the dust on top of the display case to appreciate the size of the animal…I really must stop doing that. That said, this is no fusty-musty museum, some of the galleries have been overhauled to improve presentation and durability of the exhibits without detracting too much from what I really enjoy; a museum that is not trying to hard, knows its core product, doesn’t smell of fried food, nor does it break the budget – it’s free! What’s not to like?

Ideas for local places to visit and explore

For further information on visiting NHM Tring which is open all year round except from December 24 – 26th, there is also a regular programme of events and wildlife photography exhibitions.

The story of the Tring Tiles is so terribly brief, as not much is known about them, not even whether they were made in England, or in France.

For information on what else to explore and enjoy in the Chilterns

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