Elizabethan schools and most interesting museums

Today we meet Mike and Dott's daughter Sarah and her husband Michael for a tour of Stonyhurst, an exclusive Private school where they both work. Stonyhurst has a remarkable history and Michael who is the deputy headmaster of the Middle School took us on a long tour.

The oldest portion is the Shireburn Mansion (Stonyhurst Hall). It was founded by the Roman Catholic, Richard Shireburn. He built the gatehouse and open cupolas on top of an older settlement dating from 1592.

During the Civil Wars, Oliver Cromwell's army encamped near the Hall on their way to the Battle of Preston in 1648. Cromwell spent the night at Stonyhurst and slept on a table in the middle of the Great Hall in full armour. He is said to have preferred this option to a bed due to his fear of assassination and mistrust of his Catholic, royalist hosts.

Richard Shireburn's successor and grandson, Sir Nicholas Shireburn, began a massive building plan to extend and completed the great hall, gardens and avenue so that it could be a great manor house. His son Richard was poisoned in the gardens in 1702, and with no male heir Nicholas ceased building. Upon his death in 1717 the buildings began to fall into disrepair. Eventually, the houses were inherited by a cousin, Thomas Weld in 1754 who donated it to the Jesuit order who ran a school in Europe to provide a Catholic education for English boys as this could not happen in England. The order were being ejected from France so Stonyhurst was a welcome gift. They had to do a lot of repairs and then gradually added to it over the years. It still is very Catholic.

There were all these wood cuts which are very valuable. In fact the school has a huge collection of very valuable art works and other artefacts.

Arthur Conan Doyle went to this school and apparently it was the school which was the model for Baskerville Hall and the woods outside were the wild woods were the hounds were.

This was the beginning of the Elizabethan section of the building

The chapel was magnificent. It was Victorian.

This was the grand hall when it was a private house. It still has the minstrel gallery up the end.

This is is the traditional teachers room. Teachers have a challenge to get around the room without touching the floor. Michael said he tried and he ended up pulling down all the curtains.

The gallery there are lots of exhibits collected from all over the world.

Oliver Cromwell stayed at the house during the civil war which was ironic seeing it was a Catholic stronghold. Apparently he was guarded as he slept on this table.

Another chapel

The family.

We had lunch at a pub near the school and then went to another museum. Mike had worked at this museum as curator for 20 years so was a great guide

It had a fantastic display of the earliest cotton making machines.

Mike explaining to Geoff how they worked.

There was some magnificent manuscripts in the museum.

And the following icons. Blackburn museum has one of the most impressive icon collections in the country.

 

A sheet of the Gutenberg Bible.

And there was a wonderful exhibition of 19th century Japanese block prints.

Afterwards Mike took us to see the canal which had been so important during the industrial revolution to transport materials and goods.

Then it was back to the house for a lovely lasagne tea