Cider Making

These stoneware casks are part of the Worcestershire County Museum Collection. Victorian earthenware and stoneware vessel were used to serve many alcoholic beverages, and in the case of these items, locally made cider.

Cider is a popular drink in Britain today, enjoyed as refreshment on a warm summers day or served warm on a cold winters night. It can be both a traditional, time-honoured beverage that has barely changed in centuries, and a modern tipple that comes in a vast variety of flavours. It is celebrated during the wassail in ancient orchards with folk songs and torchlight, as much as it is in the bars of the city centres. Much like our taste in clothing, your taste in cider may be very personal and specific, made possible by the enormity of choice that the drink’s long history has produced. Worcester Beer Cider and Perry Festival 2023 served nearly 6000 pints of cider so its popularity is certainly not on the wane.

At its roots, cider production links to the deep past of rural England. Whilst The Romans are credited with spreading apple orchards to norther France and Britain, it is also known that the Celts were already consuming fermented crab apple fruit before the Romans arrived on our shores. This is hardly surprising however as, unlike wine or beer, the fermentation of alcohol from fruit is a naturally occurring process that you do not have to be human to discover. There are many documentaries that show the intoxication effect of fermenting marula fruit on the animals that eat it. Apples have the same quality, as demonstrated in Sweden in 2011 when a drunken moose gorged itself on fermenting apples and had to be extracted from a tree by Gothenburg Fire and Rescue.

Cider is a drink that has associations with many places throughout England. If you can grow apples you can produce cider, hence the variety of regional terminology and dialects associated with its production. There are local speciality apple and pear varieties too, that mirror the hop varieties used by the brewing industry. Our neighbours in Herefordshire and nearby Somerset are now responsible for most of the Cider production in England, with Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Cornwall and Kent following behind.

Times did get rough for small scale regional cider production at the end of World War II. Larger companies began to dominate the market, as farmers and small producers sold their presses and mills. As was the case for many industries, large companies amalgamated the small into their own businesses and the ancient traditions of cider making began to decline. The drink that captured the spirt of the agricultural worker, paid to work the fields in cider produced on the same farm, gave way to industrial scale production and competition. The quality cider in an earthenware costrel that would entice the best workers to harvest, had become as obsolete as the labourers themselves, replaced by the combine harvester.

Thankfully, traditional brewing and cider production has encouraged the resurgence that has accompanied many artisan products. Commercial brands are still aplenty, but there is often the option to sample something traditional as well. Cider and fruit juices can easily be prepared at home by the amateur too, making good use of local produce with a minimum of outlay. We are once again beginning to celebrate and enjoy the produce raised on our local soil.

Abalone Divers

This is the only print in Worcester City’s small Japanese print collection that does not have a definite artist attribution. It has no publisher’s seal or censor stamp, so it cannot be dated with any certainty. It does, however, have a signature – Utamaro.

Kitagawa Utamaro I (1753-1806) was one of the greatest masters of ukiyo-e. He produced a number of prints like this one, picturing diving-women, some with a near-identical composition to this one. However this print does not seem to have the quality of his work, and its general style and use of colour are not those of an 18th century print.

Utamaro had a pupil, Koikawa Shuncho, who worked with him and possibly contributed to his work at the end of his career when his health was failing. On his master’s death, Koikawa Shuncho married his widow, took over his name, and continued to make Utamaro prints using the same carved signature as his master, so that it is hard at times to be certain whether a print is by Utamaro I or Utamaro II. The likelihood is that this one is by Utamaro II, who continued to use that name until 1820, when he changed it again to Kitagawa Tetsugoro.

The subject of this print is three awabe-tori – women who dive for abalones, which were (and still are) a much-prized delicacy. Diving for shellfish was a tradition in Japanese coastal villages, and it was always done by women, who developed astonishing powers of breath-control. The tradition is continued by a few women, mostly elderly, in some remote parts of Japan today. Of course, the erotic potential of showing bare-breasted women at a time when most Japanese women revealed very little flesh explains the popularity of the subject.

Celebrate the Thunderbox

There are some items that are particularly special as they represent a lost or significant part of our culture. Likewise, there are items that are such a common necessity, that they are rarely celebrated at all. This vital, lifesaving device from Worcester City’s collection, is often overlooked, perhaps due to our own modesty and embarrassment about a crucial fact of life.

The lack of this small, often unappreciated invention can lead to the polluting of water sources and a disastrous knock-on effect to the health of people throughout the globe. Worldwide, this sanitation crisis costs the lives of 1000 under-fives every day.

This was once the case in Britain, where the lack of adequate sanitation caused multiple cholera epidemics, and the deaths of over 100,000 citizens. Medical minds were convinced that the epidemic was spread via dank air, dirt, or interpersonal contact. It was not until a third outbreak in London in 1854, that conclusive evidence from Dr John Snow, positively identified a cause. Snow linked the pollution of drinking water downstream of sewage outflows, to a huge rise in cholera cases. His findings led to the immediate removal of the handle of a Soho water pump, and the loss of life decreased immediately. It was this act, that led to serious improvements in how sewage and water was dealt with in built up areas.

Toilets are not a new concept, and predate this crisis by several thousand years. Dealing with waste products has been a fact of life for millennia, and evidence of neolithic toilets in Scotland show that Britain has been looking for civilised solutions since at least 3000 BC. Romans saw the act as a communal occasion, with large, multi-occupant public latrines. The Sidbury Barrel in the collection is a fifteenth century barrel toilet excavated in the centre of Worcester in the 1970s.

The origins of the first flushing toilets are up for debate, but the Palace of Knossos in Crete featured pans flushed with a water supply in 1700BC. In Britain, Sir John Harrington invented a water closet with a raised cistern and flush system in 1592. Thomas Crapper is most famously linked to the flushing toilet, but was in fact, a talented sanitary engineer and plumber, who created many related innovations such as the U bend, and floating ballcock. The quality of his products led to a Royal Warrant, after supplying the plumbing for Edward VII’s Sandringham House. His name adorned manhole covers in Westminster Abbey, as well as many household cisterns, making “the Crapper” a common shorthand for the toilet.

The alternative to the toilet was the potty or chamber pot, which in medieval times was simply emptied into the street from an upstairs window. It was this act that contributed towards the contamination of water sources. It was not until 1848 that the British Government made it a requirement for every new house to include a water closet or earth closet. Despite this, it was well into the late 20th century before grant schemes ensured that they were common in all houses. Before then, most people had a box in the bedroom like this one to use.

Often a decorative piece of furniture, crafted to suit the bedroom, with a lid to discretely conceal a removable lidded potty. Upholstered to resemble a stool, the ornamental nature of some pieces is the reason that the word commode can describe both decorative furniture and furniture containing a potty. The most humorous common title for this piece of furniture was “Thunderbox”, due to the acoustic echoes that accompanied their use.

Gloves and Etiquette

Gloves are synonymous with high fashion, but a closer look into their history reveals how they were tightly bound in social understandings, especially during the 19th and early 20th centuries. During the Victorian era, social morality and status were primarily displayed through physical attributes, such as the latest fashions, and gloves were a large part of this. This example, a Victorian white leather glove with gold piping and decorative buckles, is from the Worcester City collection.

There were strong etiquette rules regarding taking gloves off when greeting one another, which isn’t always shown in the period dramas of today. Women were meant to keep their gloves on so they were still “untouched”, whilst the man took his off so when he shook her hand it would not dirty the lady’s glove.

Generally, there was no eating, drinking or smoking in the gloves and no activities such as putting make-up on or playing cards. When eating, women would discretely have to remove their gloves, partly hidden by the table, and place them on their lap covered with a napkin and then eat. At the end they would dip their hands into water to clean them before subtly putting them back on. This could be quite a trouble considering how tight gloves were to make women’s hands seem elegant and slender.

It was also not considered good to carry the gloves – they should be worn. Wearing gloves helped to keep the skin pale, which the Victorians thought fashionable. For the upper classes, they were a necessity even when warm, as to be seen in a state of ‘undress’ was not appropriate.

A New Zealand Icon

Worcester City’s collection has examples of several bird specimens from New Zealand. These were collected and preserved by collectors in the nineteenth century, and brought to Worcester Museum as a centre of Natural History research and learning. Some of these species are now extinct. This one, the kiwi, has become synonymous with New Zealand and is considered a vulnerable species.

The kiwi is a little nocturnal, flightless bird, its habitat commonly being native and exotic forests, scrub and rough farmland in Northland and some of its offshore islands.

When the settlers arrived in New Zealand, they brought with them stoats, ferrets and rats. These have had a devastating impact on the population of the kiwi. A conservation programme is in place to assist in maintaining the species, with five kiwi sanctuary areas across the country.

A City Fit for Returning Heroes

This image, showing Worcester’s historic Guildhall from a viewpoint you are unlikely to ever see, comes from the 1946 Outline Development Plan for the County of the City of Worcester, a copy of which is in Worcester City’s museum collection.

It’s interesting that as the Second World War was reaching its climax, and at a time of very high national debt levels, cities across England were looking to the future with ambition, willing to consider significant and radical change to become fit for the future. Worcester commissioned the architects Anthony Minoprio and Hugh Spencely in 1944 shortly after they had worked on a plan for Chelmsford. In neither city were the recommendations adopted wholesale, but both inspired future development and planning. Minoprio went on to prepare a plan for Crawley in 1947 and saw it be adopted and implemented. In the 1950s, Minoprio and Spencely went on to create plans for Kuwait City, Baghdad, Dhaka and Chittagong.

The 1946 Worcester development plan sets out the weaknesses in Worcester’s planning, and attempted to find solutions to address these. Its main recommendations were to build some new main roads, with the aim of separating different kinds of traffic; to rezone industry, leisure and housing areas to make the best use of the land and to develop new amenities to generate tourism opportunities. It warns that without this ambition, Worcester “might so easily drift into a smaller, sleepy place, inhabited largely by elderly people, or into a bustling manufacturing town without dignity or charm.”

Some of Minoprio and Spencely’s recommendations were incorporated into changes to the city landscape over the seventy years following the publication of the plan.

They recommended removing all industrial buildings between Diglis and Kepax and developing the riverside into a recreation area. Interestingly, despite a strong focus on opportunities for the car, Minoprio and Spencely do not recommend another road bridge in the city, but do suggest that pedestrian bridges at both Diglis and Kepax would be beneficial.

They recommended the building of some key new roads for through traffic, to protect the cathedral in a car-free area. In the 1960s, the Guardian newspaper published a photo of Worcester under the headline The Rape of Worcester, showing its newly developed cityscape with the medieval Lich Gate demolished. Although brutally implemented, the new City Walls Road and widened Deansway enabled the separation of the cathedral that Minoprio and Spencely had been advocating for.

In some recommendations, Minoprio and Spencely show how clearly they were writing in 1946. They insist that no high buildings should be allowed around Perdiswell, to ensure the aerodrome can meet future needs for the city for an ‘aerial taxi service’.

The image above shows a charming new square, recommended to be added to the High Street opposite the Guildhall, ensuring a quiet space in the civic centre of Worcester. Planted with pear trees and with a fountain, it was intended to form a spot from which to admire the dignity of the Guildhall’s facade.

An Early Hiroshige Print

A rare early print by one of the masters of ukiyo-e (the great period of Japanese prints), an enigmatic glimpse at life behind the shutters of the yoshiwara (Red Light District), showing a courtesan secretly passing money to a street-musician.

The print on the wall behind her shows an island with a shrine to the goddess Benzaiten, and links this picture to a famous Noh play called Chikubushima – as the print is also named – suggesting that the courtesan and the musician are not necessarily what they appear to be, but could be avatars of Benzaiten and the Dragon King of the Sea, transposed to the yoshiwara.

Hiroshige was one of the most important ukiyo-e artists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for his landscapes, which were a significant influence on Van Gogh, and his lively views of Edo (now Tokyo), showing the sights of the city and people going about their everyday lives. However, in the early part of his career, up until about 1830, his prints were of more conventional subjects, of actors, warriors and beautiful women. This is a very early print, made when he was still in his 20s.

It is one of a series of bijin-ga entitled The Summation of the Modern Benten. Benten, or Benzaiten, is the only goddess among the Seven Lucky Gods, goddess of luck, eloquence and music.

In this print, a courtesan in a richly-patterned kimono, holding a long kiseru pipe, is in her room in one of the brothels of the yoshiwara, with a print of the island of Chikubushima on the wall. Outside, half-hidden by the heavy wooden shutters, is a street musician, and she is secretly slipping him some money wrapped in a piece of paper.

This enigmatic image appears to relate to a Noh play in which a courtier visits the famous shrine of Benten on Chikubushima in Lake Biwa. He is taken across in a boat by a mysterious old fisherman and a beautiful young woman. When he gets to the island, they tell him about the shrine and he realises that they aren’t human. They then reveal themselves to be the Dragon King of the Sea and the goddess Benten herself. the print links to the story, suggesting that the musician might be seen as the Dragon King in disguise, whilst the courtesan is the form taken by the goddess in the city of Edo.

This is a rare and important print in Worcester City’s collection by one of the great stars of Japanese print-making.

Victorian Pocket Watch

The inscription on this silver pocket watch reads; Presented, with a purse of sovereigns, to Mr. Joseph Shilton, Station master Eckington for his strict attention to the Public convenience at that station April 24th 1862. It was donated to the museum by Mr Shilton’s grandson in the 1980s.

Eckington Station was opened by the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway in 1840. It was part of the ‘railway mania’ that saw a frenzy of investment and speculation of Britain’s railway network in the 1840s after the opening of the first modern railroad, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in 1830.

The railway network offered huge opportunities for the people of Britain. Fresh produce could be transported across the country within hours, travel and holidays became accessible to the general population and industry was revolutionised. The introduction of train timetables led to the standardisation of time across Britain in 1840. Before railway time, Victorian train drivers had to constantly adjust to different time zones when they pulled into stations.

Like so many other train stations, Eckington closed to passengers on 4th January 1965 following the Beeching Report published in 1963. The rise of car ownership and the road haulage of goods from the early 1950s was challenging rail’s supremacy. Economist Dr Richard Beeching was brought into British Railways to stem the losses and plan for the future of rail.

The great age of steam was over, but the magnificent Victorian trains still bring joy and a wonderful sense of nostalgia to many.

Jenny Wren

When Helen Boehm took on the reins of the newly formed Boehm of Malvern porcelain factory, amalgamated with Helen’s family firm Edward Marshall Boehm of Trenton, New Jersey, she appreciated the skills of former modellers from the Royal Worcester factory who were experienced in making the little flowers seen on so many Royal Worcester decorative pieces.

She encouraged them to broaden their modelling references and create a new range of British birds. The first three models produced were not up to the standard of the works made at the parent factory in America and were described by a critic as ‘awkward, decoration not first rate and a little bland.’

But by their third year of operation in 1973, the British-made Boehms were firm collector favourites. This little model in the Worcester City collection, the Jenny Wren, was the first non-limited edition from the Malvern factory and proved to be extremely popular with many, many pieces sold worldwide. The modelling and decorating skills can be seen in the rock and expressive movement on the bird’s throat. The little flowers at the bird’s feet also show these workers never lost their skill at porcelain flower making!