Broadway's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations

For further information about our self-catering Cotswold holiday cottages in the beautiful village of Broadway visit www.broadwaymanor.co.uk.

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RMS Titanic

100 years ago today, RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton bound for New York. Amongst the 1st Class passengers on the ill-fated liner was Broadway resident Francis Davis Millet who joined the ship at Cherbourg. Millet was travelling with his friend Major Archibald Willingham Butt (military aide to President William Howard Taft and President Theodore Roosevelt).

Frank Millet (Civil War soldier, painter, mural decorator, sculptor and writer) born in Massachusetts on 3rd November 1846 spent many years of his life painting and living in Broadway with his wife and family, firstly at Farnham House and later at Russell House. Millet died in the sinking of the ship and was last seen helping women and children into the lifeboats. His body was later recovered from the sea by the crew of the cable ship MacKay Bennett and is buried at East Bridgewater Central Cemetery, Massachusetts.

Francis Davis Millet

Millet’s paintings can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Detroit Insitute of Art and the Tate Gallery, London.  Millet was the first director of the American Academy in Rome and his painting Between Two Fires painted c1892, which hangs in the Tate, was painted in the refectory of the 14th century Abbots Grange, Broadway.  Millet restored Abbots Grange from its monastic ruins and it became a studio for the artists’ colony in Broadway he helped create. The ‘Broadway Colony’ included artists and writers such as John Singer Sargent, Alfred Parsons, Fred Barnard, Henry James, Edmund Gosse, Edwin Austin Abbey and the actress Mary Anderson (Mme de Navarro), to name just a few. Sargent spent the summers of 1885 and 1886 with the Millet family at Farnham House and Russell House. It was in these Broadway gardens that Sargent painted Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose which now hangs in the Tate Gallery, London.

At the saxon church, St Eadburgha’s, on the Snowshill Road in Broadway there is a lychgate dedicated to Frank Millet. In 1932, twenty years after the Titanic disaster, Millet’s son Jack (John Alfred Parsons Millet) sent £120 to St Eadburgha’s for the creation of the lychgate. The inscription was devised by two Harvard classics professors and reads:

‘FRANCISCO DAVIS MILLET VIRO IN ARTIBVS LITTERISQVE PRAESTANTI QVI NAVI TITANICA FRACTA DVM SPEM TIMIDIS AFFERT MORTEM LAE TVS OPPETIVIT HOC MONVMENTVM SVAVIS AMICITIAE MEMORES SODALES PONENDVM CVRAVERVNT’

the original English translation is:

‘To Francis Davis Millet – A man of outstanding attainment in literature and art who, when the ship Titanic was sunk, gladly faced death while bringing hope to those in great need. His intimate friends have had this memorial erected in memory of a dear friendship’.

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Chris Dee, Tourism Manager at GFirst, commented: “Cotswolds Tourism, which is a partnership between local authorities and over 300 tourism businesses in the area, thrives on the high quality of local tourism businesses and services. These awards reward our achievers and help us to highlight the best of what’s on offer here.”

For further information about our self-catering Cotswold holiday cottages visit www.broadwaymanor.co.uk.

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We have chosen to plant whitebeams as they are a native ornamental tree with an attractive foliage. The leaves are almost white underneath as they are covered in fine white-grey hairs which will look lovely blowing in the breeze. The trees will produce beautiful white blossom in the spring and scarlet red fruit in autumn much loved by birds, squirrels and hedgehogs.

‘Flashing as in gusts, the sudden-lighted white beam’ from ‘Love In the Valley’ by George Meredith (1828-1909).

Morris began publishing poetry and short stories in 1856 and his poem ‘Love is enough’ (published 140 years ago in 1872) is a romantic poem for Valentine’s Day:

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass’d over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

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It is a day to remember Dickens’ connection with the colony of artists in the Cotswold village of Broadway. Broadway resident Fred Barnard illustrated nine Dickens volumes published between 1871 and 1879. These included; David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House and A Tale of Two Cities – http://bit.ly/bFdaF3 (2010 blog post: Charles Dickens, Fred Barnard and the Broadway Colony).

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For a list of February walks click here.

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Sir Roy spent 6 years at the National Portrait Gallery followed by several years as Director at the Victoria & Albert Museum before retiring in 1987 to concentrate on his love of the English countryside and gardening. The Laskett Gardens are the result of 35 years of hard work which Sir Roy is bequeathing to the public so that the gardens can continue to give pleasure to many.

This June’s Broadway Arts Festival will focus on art and the garden and Sir Roy will be formally opening the Festival’s art exhibition ‘Country Gardens: John Singer Sargent RA, Alfred Parsons RA and their contemporaries’ on Friday 8th June 2012.  Sir Roy will also be giving a talk on The Laskett Gardens in Broadway’s village hall during the morning of Saturday 9th June.

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The Wychavon Way was originally opened to mark The Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. The route used to begin in Holt Fleet, Worcestershire, ending in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, but the revised route will now start in Droitwich Spa. Prior to finishing in Broadway the path crosses the corner of our field in West End where it joins The Cotswold Way National Trail just a few hundred metres from the Village Green.

The Wychavon Way passes through the attractive countryside of the Vale of Evesham, Worcestershire’s “heritage garden” through many villages, along streams, through woodland and includes several hills providing lovely panoramic views over the Vale.

You can reduce the footprint of your stay by simply turning off lights and appliances when not in use, fill the kettle with only as much water as you need and by turning off heating when you are not in the room or cottage.

In conjunction with Carbon Footprint, our guests have the opportunity to carbon offset their stay with us by purchasing carbon offsets that support Verified Carbon Standard projects (VCS aims to be the global bench mark standard for project based voluntary emission reductions).

Our guests have the choice of: ‘Pledge a Tree’ in the West Midlands area through a UK Tree Planting Scheme (in conjunction with ‘Tree Appeal’), or reforestation projects in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya.

UK Tree Planting Project

Planting trees is a great way to offset your carbon footprint and become carbon neutral. Through photosynthesis trees absorb carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and wood. By helping to plant a UK tree our guests are helping to:

• offset carbon dioxide emissions
• provide valuable wildlife habitats
• plant native broad-leaved trees
• enhance the natural UK landscape.

Pledge a Tree in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya

The reforestation activities in the Great Rift Valley are being lead by a small community based project team called Escarpment Environment Conservation Network. All trees that are planted are native to the Great Rift Valley and will be carefully planted and managed so as to live their natural lifespan and meet their biodiversity targets. Each tree planted helps:

• disadvantaged communities
• reduce poverty
• create a brighter future for orphans and people living with HIV/AIDS
• provide habitats for wildlife
• offset carbon emissions

If you have any questions or would like further information about carbon offsetting your stay with Broadway Manor Cottages please do not hesitate to contact us. Details of our Cotswold holiday cottages can be found on our website at www.broadwaymanor.co.uk.