Saturday, July 26, 2008

Around the Vale of Belvoir

Today dawned warm and sunny. The stream babbled outside our bedroom window, a cockrel was crowing in the distance, and it had all the signs of being a glorious English high summer day. I ate my breakfast in the garden with Gracie for company. Later, Julie and I set off to visit some of the places my ancestors lived in over the last few hundred years. This particular branch of the family lived in the Vale of Belvoir. That's Belvoir Castle you can see in the distance, home of the Duke of Rutland. The view is from Woolsthorpe, where my g grandmother, Jane Dunsmore, was born in 1873. We poked around for a while and then ate a delicious lunch at "Chequers" a 17th Century Inn in the middle of the village.

The next stop was Redmile where my gg grandfather, Frank Dunsmore was born in 1832, Here is the very font he was baptized at. We bought some herbs and flowers that were for sale outside the church door, leaving our coins in the slot inside the church. 
At Bottesford we crossed this ford to go to the cottages where my g uncle Herbert Dunsmore lived. We also found the place where his sister, my g grandmother, and the rest of his family lived. Which was the same group of houses that her future husband, Dick Huskinson, lived in. 
Our last stop was Orston, where Dick Huskinson was born and baptized in 1863.  And my gg grandfather, William Huskinson before him in 1839. Orston church was delightful, with a drum that had been played in the Battle of Waterloo, fragments of medieval wall paintings and a pencil sundial on an exterior wall.
We drove home through some wonderful scenery - the cornfields are ready to be harvested at any time, and the fields are golden. Belvoir Castle appeared round every bend and I have a much stronger sense of how all the Huskinsons and Dunsmores fit together. It was  a lovely day out. 

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