Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
10
Part 1.
INTRODUCTION:
The West Quarter is a special place for us. We made some of our
earliest site-specific performances here. And we want to be specific
to the Quarter tonight.
NO POINTING
FUNNY STORY
Phil: The funny story I won’t be telling is about the houses in the
Quarter that would occasionally collapse and bury entire families.
That’s not particularly funny, but on one occasion a house near the
river fell down and the husband and wife inside, in their bed, were
pitched into the river, and floated off towards Trew’s Weir. Which
people said was the first time they’d been seen out together for
some time.
Part 6.
Simon: I will not tell you about the day of an accident at the White
Hart in 1648. The inn had an old well that had long been
neglected. The White Hart's owner Roger Cheek employed Paul
Penrose to climb down the well to repair it. At the bottom, Penrose
suddenly fell dead - a second workman named William Johnson
was called to go down and investigate. After also descending the
well, Johnson too fell dead. The burial records of St Sidwell's
Church record that William was buried on 28th April 1649 having
died of a damp of the well, at the sign of the "White Hart" in South Gate
Street.
A friend of the men, wishing to help his workmates, also
descended the well and almost died himself. Those on the surface
pulled the man back up, and he rolled around in agony, to be
revived with water and oil. When he came round, he said that
there was a strong smell that hindered his breathing. Some said
that it was a Cockatrice that caused the deaths…a Cockatrice is a
legendary creature that is part lizard, part rooster. One night I and
Phil were in this very bar rather late and the bar tender closed up
shop without noticing we were still in here. At first we thought it
would be fun to just sit here for the night but then a strange
procession of ghastly looking folk appeared before us and two
weird looking men started telling them stories and ghostly tales
about a deathly creature part lizard, part rooster…
Part 7.
Phil: The health and safety talk we’ll be dispensing with tonight,
would have included a warning to you to beware of any uneven
quality, particularly in this introduction, and, when crossing roads
to take particular care not to be mortally ruined by the Western
Way, as half the West Quarter has been.
Part 8.
Simon: I will not mention about the issuing of fire buckets to every
household or of the waterseller, Charlie Combe of West Street. Or
that “Water is probably the most important feature of the area. In
addition to powering the Brewery, the grist and flour mills and the
Baryta Works, it was used extensively in the processes themselves
- from the complexities of the tannery or the wool trade to the
cleaning of the blood and offal of the slaughtered animals on
Butchers Row. Water was dipped up …from the leats for
household purposes, and until the 19th century from the river near
Horsepool Bridge to load onto the water sellers carts….Up the hill,
…water was a valuable commodity and had to be fetched to most
private households. On a Saturday morning the turncock would
open the granite conduit at the bottom of Lower Market so that the
water would flow down the cobbled streets towards West Street,
the housewives calling to one another "water`s on" as they ran out
to stop the drains with cushions and brush down their yards in
haste. But I wont be telling you any of that. I won’t be telling you
about the council workers who were ordered to knock a huge hole
in the ancient Roman Wall of the city to make way for the building
of Western Way. A route for the efficient flow of vehicles that in
turn would divide us from the flow of the very river that made the
city itself.
Part 9.
Phil: Simon, we can get rid of these folders that we won’t be using
now.
And so we won’t have to give any credit to local historians such as
Peter Thomas, Hazel Harvey, Todd Gray, Jaqueline Warren,
Walter Minchington, William Shapter; Richard Izake or any of
those old families that used to live in the West Quarter.
instructions.
A/
Fill and collect buckets of water from tap in the pub’s ‘secret
garden’ – empty some in a fake (wishing) well there and carry
others with us.
(after this the walkers were given the option to talk while
walking)