The Blackden Trust

Much has happened in the time since the Blackden Trust was formed. Several events are held each year and reports on these will be found on our reports page. Kind supporters have donated items and time to help the Trust in its work.

Sometimes, there are events or stories of a more general nature about the work of the Trust and these appear below with the most recent story first.

Geophysical Survey

Considering land to be surveyed

October 2009

Dominic Powlesland and Ed Blinkhorn undertook two sample fluxgate gradiometer surveys on the land around Toad Hall. The sample surveys showed that gradiometry is an appropriate survey method on the soils around Toad Hall. More comprehensive surveys will be undertaken in the future to expose hidden evidence which will be correlated to give us an insight into the history of the site. When they have been analysed, the results will be published on the ‘Work in progress’ page.

Surveying south of The Old Medicine House

Surveying north of Toad Hall

Filming in the Old Medicine House

The control room

August 2009

The Old Medicine House was invaded by forty people: furniture was removed; the dining area turned into a control room; the link requisitioned for a sound studio; cables ran like vines through doors. All this activity was to transform the library into the location for a scene for Ingenious, a film written by Jeanette Winterson for CBBC.

And the next day, all was quiet. No evidence of the invasion remained - apart from a small scorched patch on the grass, and the remarks in our visitors’ book:

‘Marvellous.’ ‘Lovely.’ ‘Needs modernising.’ ‘Great house’ ‘What a fantastic place. Loved it’ ‘Boss’ ‘Really Boss’

Ingenious was directed by Brian Kelly and produced by Rebecca Hodgson for Lime Pictures. It will be shown on BBC 1 later this year.

Relaxing between takes

Transforming the library

Dave Heath awarded The Frank Carter Memorial Plate - 2009

Dave Heath with the prize winning berries at the Goostrey Gooseberry Society Show 25th July 2009

July 2009

Dave Heath won the Frank Carter Memorial Plate for the heaviest Premier Berry shown at the 2009 Goostrey Gooseberry Society Show.

His winning berry was a Bank View that weighed 31 pennyweights and 18 grains.

The plate will be personalised and then presented to Dave in the autumn.

University places for Blackden students

January 2009

The quality of our courses, which always include an element of research, helps students to achieve their potential.

The 6th Formers who came to Blackden in 2008 have been offered places at their first choice universities. The University of Aberystwyth is now among the growing number of universities that welcome our students.

Our Oxbridge success rate continues to grow. A student who attended all the courses we ran for adults and university candidates in 2008 has been offered a place at The University of Oxford.

The Frank Carter Memorial Plate

Alan Garner presenting the Frank Carter Memorial Plate to Terry Price in the presence of President of the Goostrey Gooseberry Society, Tom McCartney, and the Chairman, Peter Goode

November 2008

As a part of making public its research into the history of Blackden and the surrounding area, The Blacken Trust has also instituted the Frank Carter Memorial Archive, which will be kept in The Old Medicine House, the home of The Blackden Trust. It will contain artefacts and copies of the archives of the Cheshire Gooseberry Societies. The collection will be open to the public.

The plates, which will be awarded each year, will be made by the potter, John Hudson, and will record the year, the name of the grower and the name of the berry, so that every plate will be unique. The award has been inaugurated by The Blackden Trust to celebrate the work of Frank Carter and to help ensure that his achievements are remembered.

The Frank Carter Memorial Plate

Frank, a legend among gooseberry growers, was born in Toad Hall and lived all his life in Blackden. He developed seventeen new cultivars; all grown from seed on Blackden soil.

The Trust hopes to develop a living archive by growing a specimen of each of the seventeen gooseberry cultivars developed by Frank Carter. Some of these may be hard to find, as some of Frank’s earlier cultivars were superseded by his later ones, which are still winning shows. The Trust is very grateful to local gooseberry growers for the promise of the donation of named trees to this commemorative collection. These gifts will be acknowledged in the archive.

Terry Price awarded Frank Carter Memorial Plate - 2008

Weighing the Premier Berry

August 2008

Terry Price has been awarded the Frank Carter Memorial Plate for the heaviest Premier Berry shown at the 2008 Goostrey Gooseberry Society Show. His winning berry was a Lord Kitchener that weighed 31 pennyweights and 15 grams. The plate will be personalised and then presented to Terry in the autumn.

The Frank Carter Memorial Archive has been inaugurated by the donation of a pair of gooseberry scales. They belonged to Colin Garner, who bequeathed them to his grandson, Adam Garner. Adam has been interested in gooseberries since he was a child, when he watched his grandfather watching his berries grow. He now lives in Oxford, and gave the scales to The Blackden Trust because he feels that they belong in Cheshire, but he says that he is now left ‘penniless and without scruples.’

The Blackden Trust houses gooseberry archives

The Blackden Gem

March 2008

We have been asked to house artefacts and archives of the Cheshire Gooseberry Societies. The collection will include a record of the prize-winning cultivars raised from seed by Frank Carter.

Frank was born in Toad Hall and lived all his married life, within quarter a mile of his birthplace, at Blackden Firs. He developed seventeen new gooseberry cultivars. All were grown from seed on Blackden soil.

John Hudson has been commissioned to create a commemorative ceramic plate, the Frank Carter Memorial plate, to be awarded for the heaviest Premier Berry shown at Goostrey Gooseberry Society Show. The plate will be awarded each year.

Blackden Students gain university places

6th Formers examining artefacts from Blackden

December 2007

6^th Form students, who attended courses at Blackden in 2007 have been offered university places at the universities of their first choice. These include the universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, London School of Economics, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, University College London and York.

The students say:

Thank you so much for all your help, the courses really added an extra edge to my application and overall knowledge.

I am pleased to tell you that I received offers at all five of my choices.

The Blackden Trust in Heritage Counts 2007

THE BLACKDEN TRUST GIFTED AND TALENTED PROGRAMME

The Blackden Trust cares for a parcel of land that has been occupied for over ten thousand years. The timber-frame houses that stand on the site, and the archaeological artefacts belonging to it, have determined the educational policy of the Trust, which is to provide intensively-supported courses to small numbers of Gifted and Talented students, giving them the opportunity to work with primary evidence, and enabling them to contribute to the making of history. On each course, nine students become researchers for the day. They are given time to observe and comment on the buildings and on the archaeological materials. They wash unsorted artefacts, and by referring to a type series of locally found pottery, they date and identify the pottery that they wash. At secondary level, students also study aerial photographs, copies of historical maps, wills and probate inventories, which they correlate with the pottery, thereby acquiring a sense of the lives of the people that lived at Blackden and also skills that they can apply to other disciplines.

As the courses are led by academics and supported by graduate specialists, anomalies in the emerging evidence are immediately identified, adding to the knowledge of the site. Students experience the excitement of intellectual discovery and several have returned as volunteers to further the work of The Blackden Trust, where education and research are inextricably linked. Future prospective projects include developing archaeology courses to be taken into the classrooms of local schools, and starting a literary club.

October 2007

The Blackden Trust was mentioned as a case study in Heritage Counts 2007, the annual survey on the state of England’s historic environment, published by English Heritage. In 2007 the report focused on the historic environment as a learning resource.

2007 Newsletter

2006 Newsletter

Mystery object

Gooseberry Scales