This week's mystery object...

Every now and then we Ragged Ramblers leave the country lanes and ancient crumbling ruins and stumble into the odd museum. We particularly like the old fashioned cabinet of curiosity approach with rooms stuffed to the gunnels with all sorts of interesting and unusual artefacts. And so it was with great joy that I found myself in Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich. Originally a Tudor hall it grew and developed as fashions changed and it is now a museum and gallery full of twists and turns, nooks and crannies, step ups and step downs and creaking floor boards. Lots of creaking floorboards! Even the sink in the toilet had an period feel...

A pleasure to wash one's hands in such a generous sink...

It is packed full of fantastic furniture stained with the dark hues of everyday use and touch. There are little rooms here and there, austere Tudor and Stuart portraits; their occupants sitting in judgement on all the meaner sort like many of us Ragged Ramblers who pass by. There are all sorts and sizes of room, from rich men's closets to the scullery and kitchen where the meaner sort like many of us Ragged Ramblers would have once turned spits and fetched water. It's a labyrinth, because as fashions and tastes changed the house grew and in later times furniture and even whole building from elsewhere in Ipswich were absorbed into the structure. There is too much there to describe, from Georgian costume to Tudor whipping posts and cucking stools and so I have decided to focus on two objects that caught my eye....

The joy of courtship...
Click on image to make larger

The first is small jug made in the late 18th century in the ceramics collection and it's subject reflects a major theme of times past and perhaps even times present. In truth I'm not really into ceramics, but this jug had a certain appeal because of its theme, namely the struggles between man and woman, husband and wife, which has been a constant cause of both concern and jocularity in the long and not so long ago. Many a medieval illuminated manuscipt and Tudor and Stuart woodcut are littered with images of arguing couples and so too this 18th century jug, for as it says...

When two fond fools together meet
Each look gives joy, each kiss as sweet
But Wed, how cold and cross they be
Turn upside down and then you'll see...

And then when you turn it upside down the message is complete!

The realities of Matrimony!

This is not an attack on men nor women, but simply a joke that makes people laugh and so hopefully lessens tension between men and women, husband and wife. Surely we all need a laugh every now and then!

The other object that interested me was this wooden contraption that I found upstairs in a Tudor bedroom packed full of court cupboards, chests, wooden cribs and ancient wall paintings...

This Week's Mystery Object

But in the spirit of honorary Ramblers of times past like the late great Jack Hargreaves and the East Anglian antiquarian and tweed fancier, Dick Joyce of Bygones, I am not going to tell you what it is. Just as Jack and Dick would have done in their TV studio sheds long ago, I am presenting it to you as a mystery object - A competition to guess what it was and what it did? Answers can be sent directly to the Contributions Sec., or left in the comments section of this post.

The winning entry will receive a years supply of self satisfaction in the knowledge that they are nearly as clever as the Ragged Society of Antiquarian Ramblers.

Huzzah!

+Many Coats R.S.A.R+