By Ken Harrison
One of my favourite shops is Grandad's Shed. Run by Paul Kean and supported by cheerful Colin, the shop is an emporium of quality furniture. It a truism to say that I'm about the shop several times a week, even if its just en-route to The Loft, which incidentally is managed by Paul's wife, Beryl - a fellow Liverpudlian, so we, at the start, immediately struck up a chord of mutual interest.
Before venturing to The Loft yesterday to sample one of the award-winning bistro's excellent meals, I observed a number of new Stephen Hill's - a Brigg-born artist - paintings.
Stephen has in the past tended to concentrate his paintings upon well-known Brigg characters, such as the late Bryan Robins, characterised in the picture complete with cameras and standing outside the Lincolnshire Times office in Wrawby St., but Stephen has thrown in the odd Brigg scene. For example, Grandad's Shed recently displayed Stephen's picture of the now demolished Glebe Road School.
However, the most recent paintings on display show a slight, but very interesting diversion and include a Victorian, circa 1850, scene of folks gathered about the well pump in Grammar School Road. It is captioned, 'Wharf Well Pump', while next to the pump there is a wall poster advertising the wares of one Edward Smith - I assume a forebear of Smith's hardware shop, Smith Parkinson and dare I say, Cllr Penny Smith. Others include scenes of Stennett's Market; the auction room of Brigg's Cattle Market and a portrayal of Brigg life 60 years ago with a painting of , 'Friday Night's Dilley Men' going about their business in Glebe Road in the 1950s.
Well worth a visit - and have a coffee and scone in The Loft afterwards.
Hysterical note: The C19th communal water pump in GS Road did not draw from water directly from the water-table. It was gracity fed by a pipe from St Helen's Well on the sloping limestone escarpment on the edge of Wrawby.
ReplyDeleteThe pipe also fed a tap in the Brigg/Wrawby cemetry - and at one time, the pipe burst causing severe flooding and became a grave concern!.
As the pipe contined, it fed an undergraound tank below the water pump in GS Road. The volume of water was controlled by a giant-like ball-cock valve and the whole contraption was like an enormous toilet cistern.
It was the contamination, probably by sewage and the like perculating down from the roadway above, into this holding tank that caused the recurring outbreaks of water-borne cholera in Brigg from the late C19th.
Subsequently, the communal pump was condemned and improvements were made to the provision of directly piped water to households.
Further info: St Helen's Well - in the fields between Brigg and Wrawby - is tiled. Access can be gained by seeking permission from Wrawby farmer, Colin Day who is the custodian and has the key.
Ps - If anyone asks what which aspect of medicine has made the biggest impact on the life chances and well-being of people - it's not advances in cancer cures, or cardio-vascular research - it's the slow, but vital progression in that rather mundane discipline, Public Health - it's saved billions.