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Revisiting The Slow Train

One of my favourite songs, by the genius songsters Flanders and Swann, is called The Slow Train. It is a lament for the stations that were at the time, going to be axed in the Beeching Cuts.

It was reputedly written by Michael Flanders, in a hotel room, from a list of stations in a newspaper, making them fit together into the scan of the song.

There is one station which is a mistake and is probably a confusion of two stations, but other than that, all the stations are genuine.

I have done a little research and found the stations, or at least their original locations. Each name is linked to google maps:

The Slow Train

Miller’s Dale for Tideswell …
Kirby Muxloe …
Mow Cop and Scholar Green …
No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street
We won’t be meeting again
On the Slow Train.
I’ll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw
At Long Stanton I’ll stand well clear of the doors no more
No whitewashed pebbles, no up and no down
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town
I won’t be going again
On the Slow Train.
On the Main Line and the goods’ siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Trouble House Halt.
The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate.
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay
No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives
They’ve all passed out of our lives
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train.
Cockermouth for Buttermere …
On the Slow Train, Armley Moor Arram …
Pye Hill and Somercotes …
On the Slow Train
Windmill End.

A little bit about the stations:

1. Miller’s Dale:

History: Opened in 1863 by the Midland Railway on the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midland Junction Railway route. Closed in 1967.
Location: Derbyshire, England.

2. Tideswell

History: Opened in 1903 by the Midland Railway as part of the Dore and Chinley line. Closed in 1967.
Location: Derbyshire, England.

3. Kirby Muxloe

History: Opened in 1863 by the Midland Railway. Closed to passengers in 1964.
Location: Leicestershire, England.

4. Mow Cop

History: Opened in 1848 by the North Staffordshire Railway. Closed in 1964.
Location: Staffordshire, England.

5. Scholar Green

History: Opened in 1893 by the North Staffordshire Railway. Closed in 1964.
Location: Cheshire, England.

6. Blandford Forum

History: Opened in 1863 by the Dorset Central Railway. Closed in 1966.
Location: Dorset, England.

7. Mortehoe

History: Opened in 1874 by the London and South Western Railway. Closed in 1970.
Location: Devon, England.

8. Midsomer Norton

History: Opened in 1874 by the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. Closed in 1966.
Location: Somerset, England.

9. Mumby Road

History: Opened in 1882 by the Great Northern Railway. Closed in 1970.
Location: Lincolnshire, England.

10. Chorlton-cum-Hardy

History: Opened in 1880 by the Midland Railway. Closed in 1967.
Location: Greater Manchester, England.

11. Chester-le-Street

History: Opened in 1868 by the North Eastern Railway. Closed in 1964, but later reopened.
Location: County Durham, England.

12. Littleton Badsey

History: Opened in 1866 by the Great Western Railway. Closed in 1966.
Location: Worcestershire, England.

13. Openshaw

History: Opened in 1856 by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. Closed in 1953.
Location: Greater Manchester, England.

14. Long Stanton

History: Opened in 1847 by the Eastern Counties Railway. Closed in 1970.
Location: Cambridgeshire, England.

15. Formby Four Crosses Clarification

History: Formby Four Crosses was a proposed but never built station in the 19th century.
Location: Merseyside, England.

Like Armley Moor Arram, later on it is assumed that a comma was left out between the station names, in this case, referencing a station that was never built. The likely stations in this case are:

Formby

History: Formby Station was opened on September 1, 1848, by the Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway. It became part of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1855. The station has undergone various upgrades and modernizations over the years. It was not closed during the Beeching cuts and remains operational today, serving the Merseyrail network.
Location: Formby, Merseyside, England.

Four Crosses

History: Opened in 1860 by the Oswestry and Newtown Railway. It was closed to passengers in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts.
Location: Four Crosses, Powys, Wales.

16. Dunstable Town

History: Opened in 1858 by the London and North Western Railway. Closed in 1965.
Location: Bedfordshire, England.

17. Dog Dyke

History: Opened in 1848 by the Great Northern Railway. Closed in 1961.
Location: Lincolnshire, England.

18. Tumby Woodside

History: Opened in 1913 by the Great Northern Railway. Closed in 1970.
Location: Lincolnshire, England.

19. Trouble House Halt

History: Opened in 1959 by British Railways. Closed in 1964.
Location: Gloucestershire, England.

20. Audlem

History: Opened in 1863 by the Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway. Closed in 1963.
Location: Cheshire, England.

21. Ambergate

History: Opened in 1839 by the North Midland Railway. Still operational.
Location: Derbyshire, England.

22. Chittening

History: Opened in 1917 by the Ministry of Munitions. Closed in 1964.
Location: Bristol, England.

23. Cheslyn Hay

History: Opened in 1858 by the South Staffordshire Railway. Closed in 1965.
Location: Staffordshire, England.

24. Selby

History: Opened in 1834 by the Leeds and Selby Railway. Still operational.
Location: North Yorkshire, England.

25. Goole

History: Opened in 1848 by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. Still operational.
Location: East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

26. St Erth

History: Opened in 1852 by the West Cornwall Railway. Still operational.
Location: Cornwall, England.

27. St Ives

History: Opened in 1877 by the Great Western Railway. Closed in 1971.
Location: Cambridgeshire, England.

28. Cockermouth

History: Opened in 1865 by the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway. Closed in 1966.
Location: Cumbria, England.

29. Buttermere

History: Never had a railway station but refers to the valley in the Lake District.
Location: Cumbria, England.

30. Armley Moor Arram Clarification:

Armley Moor

Likely refers to Armley, a district in Leeds, which was served by Armley Moor railway station (closed in 1958).
Location: West Yorkshire, England.

Arram

Refers to a village with a currently operational station.
Location: East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

31. Pye Hill

History: Opened in 1875 by the Great Northern Railway. Closed in 1963.
Location: Nottinghamshire, England.

32. Somercotes

History: Served by a branch line that closed in 1960.
Location: Derbyshire, England.

33. Windmill End

History: Served by the Dudley and Stourbridge railway, closed in the 1960s.
Location: West Midlands, England.

Now all I have to do is visit them and take photographs!

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Marianne North and the case of the missing species

Ever since Marianne North’s sister, Janet Catherine Symonds, published a condensed version of Marianne’s journals, it has been claimed that one Genus and four species were named in her honour and for the last century, the claim has been repeated so often that it has become gospel. Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple, while the Genus name and one of the Species names are verifiably correct, there are problems with the remaining three that range from mis-transcribed to non-existent.

In Recollections of a Happy life, Janet Symonds states:

Her name has been given to five; four of which were first figured and introduced by her to European notice, viz-

Northea Seychellana
Nepenthes Northiana
Crinum Northianum
Areca Northiana
Kniphofia Northiana i

The 1st to 4th editions of the Gallery Guide, make reference to only one of the Species cited by Mrs Symonds, though it doesn’t explicitly state that it was named after Marianne:

565. Brisbane Botanic Gardens. – Palms in the foreground and avenue of Araucarias behind. The two tall palms are a species of Ptychosperma ; the dwarf one behind, Areca Northiana, Hill; with Kentia minor, F. Muell., on the right.ii

From the 5th edition of the guide onwards, the forward explicitly states that one Genus and three Species are named after her:

On her return from South America in 1885, Miss North at once commenced hanging the new paintings, which, including those from South Africa and Seychelles, are some two hundred in number. Among the latter was the “Capucin,” an imperfectly known tree. The drawing of the foliage and fruit brought by Miss North, with the flowers, which were subsequently sent at her request, enabled Sir Joseph Hooker to determine the tree to be a new genus, which he appropriately named Northea in honour of the artist. Miss North is also commemorated in Crinium Northianum, Baker, Kniphofia Northiana, Baker and Nepanthes Northiana, Hook. f.. the former of which was described from her drawings, – the highest compliment which could be paid to their scientific accuracy. iii

The fourth species, which was numbered 565 in the 1st to 4th editions of the guide, by the time of the 5th edition is re-numbered to 743, using exactly the same text as the original. At no point is there any confirmation that Areca Northiana is actually named in Marianne North’s honour. The only person to make this connection is Janet Symonds in Recollections.

The following is a summary of each claim…

Northia 

The accepted name for the genus of plants in the family Sapotaceae. The name was first published by Joseph Dalton Hooker, in Hooker’s Icones Plantarum (Sep 1884), in his description of Northia seychellana. The spelling was given as Northia on the plate, but the variant Northea was given in the text, probably due to a typographical error. Northia seychellana is the only species accepted in the genus and it is endemic to the Seychelles. A few other species were formerly included in Northia but have since been moved to Manilkara.

Nepenthes northiana

The accepted Species name Nepenthes northiana, or Miss North’s pitcher-plant, is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to Borneo. Marianne North was the first person to illustrate the species and so it is named in her honour.

 

 

 

 

 

Kniphofia northiana    Kniphofia northiae

A misgiven name, referring to Kniphofia northiae. The species was named after Marianne North, but the name has been misgiven in the gallery for over a hundred years. It is one of the African torch lilies or poker plants. ‘Kniphofia northiae’ is the accepted species name, while ‘Kniphofia northiana’ has no standing.

 

 

 

 

Crinum northianum 

This name is a synonym of Crinum asiaticum var. asiaticum. It is an evergreen perennial, producing a rosette of fleshy leaves ‘Crinum asiaticum’ is the accepted species name, while ‘Crinum northianum’ is only accepted as having been at some time, a former, sparsely used, reference to the species.

 

 

 

Areca northiana

Is an invalid name and the species being referred to is unknown. The name of the species is taken to have been proposed by Helmsley in the 1st edition of the Marianne North Gallery Catalogue (1882), although in reality, the entry for painting 565 (see above) merely attributes the name to Walter Hill of the Brisbane Botanic garden. If Hill did name the palm, he didn’t follow the appropriate naming conventions and publish a description. Indeed, there appears to be no paperwork in Hill’s collection referring to Areca northiana. The only evidence of Areca northiana therefore, is the gallery painting itself, where it is depicted as a dwarf palm growing behind two larger palms.

Dr Dowie of the James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, suggests that the palm may be a juvenile Dictyosperma album, or hurricane palm. There is a very old specimen of this, growing in the same location (as of December 2017) and this may be what was painted by Marianne in its juvenile state. The palm that was painted by Marianne North however, looks as if it has fibrous sheaths which do not occur with Dictyosperma. This may mean that the Dictyosperma which now occupies the area, is younger than Marianne’s visit, or that Marianne was confused about the features she was painting. Because of this, and failing any other information coming to light, it is likely that we will never know what species of palm Areca northiana was intended to be. Therefore it will just have to remain an unknown palm.

i Symonds, Mrs J. A. : Recollections Of A Happy Life, Vol. II, p. 337 : Macmillan and Co. : London : 1892

ii The Gallery of Marianne North’s Paintings, p. 103 : Spottiswoode & Co. : London : 1892. By the time of the fifth edition of the guide, the painting had been renumbered 743, and the entry is on page 113

iii “Biographical Notice of Marianne North” : p. ix. : Official Guide to the Marianne North Gallery : Sixth Edition : HM Stationary Office : London : 1914

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I am related to Sir Hugo Baskerville!

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, the demonic ancestor of Sir Henry, is a character called Sir Hugo Baskerville, who was based on a real character, called Richard ‘Dirty Dick’ Cabell.

Dirty Dick Cabell, lived for womanising, drinking and hunting. He reputedly sold his soul to the devil and had it collected by a pack of hell-hounds on his death. He is buried in the Cabel sepulchre at Buckfastliegh, on the edge of Dartmoor.

Dirty Dick’s 2nd Great Grandfather, Richard Cabell of Cayford and Frome, is my 15th Great Grandfather, via my 10th Great Grandmother Damaris Cabel (somewhere along the line, they lost an ‘l’).

Dirty Dick is therefore my 3rd cousin, 13 times removed.

 

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Garum – The Roman Ketchup : Part 2 – Testing Heinrich Wunderlich’s Recipe

Heinrich Wunderlich, on his German page:  Garum oder Liquamen der Alten, provides a method by which the industrial method of garum production can be reduced to quantities which can be produced in the culina, in sealed jars.

Kilner jar after shaking

Fresh sprats being available, I decided to replicate the recipe and see how well it worked. Equipped with a Kilner jar, sprats and salt, I set to.

I purchased 2lb of sprats, 1lb of which was for the experiment and 1lb for cooking a paella.

Since the sprats for the paella did not require the offal, I gutted them and added them to the salted sprats which were lined whole in the Kilner jar in alternating layers of sprat/offal and salt.

Produced salt liquid, submerging half
of the fish after three hours.

Once the Kilner jar was full, the lid was sealed and shaken to ensure that the salt was evenly covering everything in the jar.

The jar was left to stand (there being a heatwave at the time) and observed at regular intervals).

What was immediately noticeable was that the salt was instantly causing the liquids within the sprats to seep out of the fish, resulting in the rapid submerging of the fish in a salt liquid.

Produced salt liquid submerging all of
the sprats after 12 hours

Within three hours, the liquid was filling half of the depth of the Kilner jar. Within 12 hours, the liquid had filled the jar.

In preparation for reproducing this process, a few months ago, I purchase a yoghurt incubator, but I need to perform a little manipulation of the Kilner spring in order to make it fit.

Within five hours of placing the Kilner jar into the incubator, the liquid had expanded and the internal pressure was causing it to seep out past the rubber seal, resulting in a crystalisation of the salt on the outside of the jar. In order to stop this, I hastily sterilised an old olive jar and transferred the floculence into it.

Unfortunately the lid of the incubator will not fit on, thanks to the size of the olive jar, but I hope that this doesn’t result in too much heat loss from the incubator.

Floculence transferred
to olive jar
Olive jar in incubator

Results

Floculence after 15
days

After fifteen days, the garum was beginning to separate from the floculence. What was surprising about this was that the garum was appearing at the bottom of the container, not the top.

This seems at odds with the description that a fine woven basket was pushed into the top in order to extract the garum.

Garum at the bottom of the jar
after 20 days.

After 20 days the garum at the bottom of the jar was quite clear. There was a deposit on the bottom of the jar of material which was obviously denser than the garum, while the floculence itself was less dense than the garum and remained floating above it.

There was no significant observational change between day 20 and day 30.

Liquid draining into bowl

On day 30, the contents of the jar were poured into a fine sieve so that the liquid would drain into a bowl. A towel was placed over the bowl and sieve to ensure against airborne contaminants. The whole sieving process required five hours.

The resultant liquid contained particulates, making the garum cloudy. Is it possible that the liquid in this state, constituted ‘garum’ while the clarified liquid was ‘liquamen’? There may be something in this, considering that the ‘mock garum’ recipe, which was made from alec, would undoubtedly be cloudy.

Right: liquid after sieving. 
Left: liquid after filtering.

In any case, I decided to filter the liquid. Using the cut up top of a 250ml mineral water bottle and a paper kitchen towel (I was unable to get filter paper quickly since my homebrew shop has moved over to the next town), I started filtering the liquid into a sterilised bottle.

Alec after all of the liquid was drained

The alec was placed into a plastic container and frozen, to keep for the next experiment, which will be making mock-garum.

The final product: ⅓ pint of garum

Coming next…

Making ‘Mock-Garum’

Reconstructing an industrial process

Creating a miniature garum tank

Experiment 2: Recreating the process on a small scale