CALLY VOICES
CALLY VOICES an anthology of poetry celebrating the Temple and Designed Landscape of Cally, Gatehouse of Fleet
Cally Voices Cally Voices was a community project led by local writer and poet Liz Niven during 2014-15 which formed a part of a larger project to consolidate the building known as the Temple, in Cally Woods at the heart of the Fleet Valley National Scenic Area. The Temple is an eighteenth-century gothic folly, originally designed to be a prominent landmark in the designed parkland of Cally House, but is today hidden deep in the woods. The Cally Voices Literary Project has played an important part in interpreting the building and the surrounding landscape. Workshops ran throughout the project involving children from Gatehouse School, students from Glasgow University, poetry groups, visitors to the town, Forestry Commission Scotland staff and others. All the poems produced at the workshops can be found on the Gatehouse website. A series of guided walks to the Temple have also helped create many ‘Cally Ambassadors’.
Cally Voices an anthology of poetry celebrating the Temple and Designed Landscape of Cally, Gatehouse of Fleet First published in the UK in 2015 by Gatehouse Development Initiative 56 High Street Gatehouse of Fleet Dumfries and Galloway Scotland DG7 2HP Poems copyright Š the respective authors 2015 Illustrations Š Lucy Hadley 2015 ISBN 978-0-9557318-2-2 The rights of the respective poets and Lucy Hadley to be identified respectively as authors and artist of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with Section 77 of the Design, Patent and Copyright Act, 1988. All rights reserved.
Acknowledgements The Cally Temple conservation and historic environment awareness raising project has been carried out in partnership with Forestry Commission Scotland and has been made possible by the generous support of Heritage Lottery Fund, Dumfries and Galloway Council (National Scenic Area programme), South West Communities Action Trust, Solway Heritage, The Galloway Association of Glasgow, Scottish Book Trust, Creative Scotland, Galloway Preservation Society, and the Murray Usher Foundation.
Galloway Preservation Society
Murray Usher Foundation
Cally Woods Today at Cally woods the silence is so loud Close your eyes and you can hear The birds singing, the burn flowing, the bluebells bursting into bloom Just as it has done for many many years For not only is the forest rich in nature and fauna But history So much history lost but in Cally it lives on Motte with its mysterious granite stone For what reason? Who knows? The reason is lost but the Motte is not The temple why two floors? The answer is lost but the temple is not The sunken dyke for what reason? The answer was clear To see the beauty of the land without man In Cally history lives on for all to see. Kat Forestry Commission Scotland workshop
Restoring Cally Temple Every lapsing ledge of this ruined folly has been colonized by something. Herb Robert flourishes on a sandstone staircase of slabs gripped in a wall. Like the caged motorway embankment, nature encroaches where people don’t go. Here are all the offspring of the wood: sycamore winning battles between tall and tumbling, honeysuckle the tussles between sprawling and straight. If the temple must be mended, let the wilderness shift to the poet’s heart, let sonnets free severed ivy to wriggle up crumbling walls like escaping snakes and perfect villanelles reflect the raindrops catch the sunlight, hold the skeleton leaves and snow. Clare Phillips Gatehouse Writers workshop
In Cally Woods I found a Time Capsule in the Woods. It told of times gone past. Victorian ladies walking out, with grace, and slow. Not fast.
I wonder not what I would hide if asked to bury Time. What memories and stories heard to put into my rhyme.
I saw the Drover guide his beasts along the winding paths, beneath a ceiling dense and green, below a sky so vast.
Would I hear the voices of visitors to the Woods? Laughter from some hotel guests? A blackbird song, the craw of rooks?
I heard the children laugh and cry when teachers let them play along the old school garden whose shell’s still seen today.
Or would I capture silence, in the lonely stone-filled dark? The ghosts of Time still dreaming of the mysteries of the Park? Liz Niven
False facade
to the temple
Mud clings to the boots like memories here.
we are quarrying into our landscape digging into the past unearthing histories before they are lost
Out in the forest at the Temple, seventeen seventy nine construction. Granite walls, arched windows, castellated roof. False windows on the side to face the mansion, impress visitors. Seventeen ninety three, Burns ‘greatly depressed by the values of society’. (Some things don’t change). The wind sighed, lightning gleamed, Burns ‘fumed and raged’ like the weather, said his friend John Syme. On the same day, Thomas Muir, charged with sedition, passed through Gatehouse town. Led in chains to unfair trial, later sentenced to fourteen years transportation. Burns, compromised enough to hide allegiance, a steady excise job, a family to support, penned ‘Scots Wha Hae’ instead. An oblique means of protest. ‘Wallace an allegory for the real hero’. Mud clings to the boots like memories here. Liz Niven
we are felling trees in the forest cutting our way through the growth telling stories and legends of people and times long ago we are walking into the woods treading paths together and alone asking our curious questions seeking answers from silent stone Liz Niven
Midwinter The shortest day approaches on Cally forest paths, silver- edged ferns. Soil is sugar icing coated. Few furred creatures move. Night falls on Christmas Eve. A first star appears, lights oak tree branches, escaped winter firs, sharpens palace stone and roof. Stillness fills the Temple. A sense of waiting hangs, as might have filled a stable once. Emptiness sighs. Carols faintly echo from Gatehouse streets and kirks. A twig underfoot snaps like a Christmas cracker. In townhouses, children’s dreams open like parcels. Liz Niven
Temple bodie Hey, ma bodie’s a Temple, ken. Fit as a fiddle. A’m mibbe ower twa hunner year auld Bit A’m in guid shape A wee bitta lichen here, Bitta ivy there, An ma stone scabbles are a touch mingin wi moss. Naethin that a wee dicht o a spring clean Fae Historic Scotlan couldnae fix. Oh an clearin the decks a wee bit O thae trees has fair helpt Couldnae see a thing so A couldnae They used tae could see me fae the big hoose Thocht A wis the bees knees Aw shinin an gleamin in the echteenth centurie sun. A hid a drover livin here fir ten year, An ladies whae lunch ower fae Cally Palace Drinkin tea fae wee dinkie cheenie cups. Oh aye, A wis big in ma day. Noo folk dinna even ken A’m here Jist burds nestin in ma nooks an crannies An a’ll have ye ken, A’m B listit It wid be folly tae hiv left me faw tae bits Ma bodie’s a Temple, ken. Liz Niven
A Walk in Cally Woods We walked a way in woods today, where once were witches... We walked where once a drover drove Where once a master dallied We walked where water tumbles still Eroding manmade ditches
The longest day has passed through Cally forest paths.
We walked a way in woods today, beside a manmade lake, We walked where still a Folly stands And wondered at man’s pride To strive to tame these wondrous woods And all for grandeur’s sake
Ferns uncurl their greenery. Earth stores up warmth.
We walked a way in woods today, where war was waged on wild Wild won...
Spirits of the forest float through green splendour.
Katrina McCready Cally Hotel Guests workshop
Midsummer
Bird cacophanies assault the ears. Creatures scuttle to and fro. In the dense undergrowth all is luscious, life-affirming. The school beats with activities. Sports days, celebrations, outings. Staff and pupils at the starting gun for the longest break of the year. In Gatehouse homes, children fight sleep while light still illuminates curtained windows. The year, half through, hinges on another midsummer night. Liz Niven
Mr Freeman Speaks I’m standing here in my best jacket. Livery, it’s called. Buttons on both sides, a red shirt beneath. Look at my face. How unsure I look. Can’t you see my situation? There’s the children, white, free, happy. I know there’s one behind me, right now. Mocking me. Best to say nothing. Don’t upset the Master and Mistress. They’re patrons, see. Rich. Don’t get me wrong. They’re good. Caring. Shoes for the girls. Frocks. Books, slates. Soup if they need it. We’ll catch the little boat home. It’s tied to a rusting iron ring down by the river bank. Home we’ll go. And then my work will start. ‘Fetch the tea. Bring more coal. Fill the log basket. Light the lamps. Polish the boots. Take my bonnet to the maid for starching’. Endless. And all the time I smile. I must. Questions sit silent on my lips. When will I be free? Am I doomed to be their manservant till I’m old and frail? I want to leave this Estate. Venture out, back to my own country. A free man. No-one to boss me.
Two Poems from the Environment Fair In the woods I can see lots of green trees I can hear birds looking for food I can touch the hard stone By Olly age 5
I’ll call myself Mr.Freeman.
Deep in a forest, Forgotten and lonely, A beautiful grey temple lies. Built for pride Set to impress But now forgotten And hidden from all eyes.
Liz Niven
By Eva Flanagan age 13
Bonding We went walking with hotel guests, released from their three day conference. Property Bond delegates up to enlarge their portfolio, adding Borgue’s nearby old Coo Palace.
Some guests viewed the holly tree ringed by rusted railings, hazarded guesses, Was it a Jubilee Tree? Were there dabblers in the occult?
Strolling Cally Estate grounds, freed from round table talk, role play, consideration of financial figures, delegates breathed wood scented air, donned sturdy shoes and outdoor clothes.
Others considered Laundry Cottage, imagined lives and labours from another time, another world. Cloud-white sheets forest-ferried.
Fragments of chat filled the forest, vied with trickle and tinkle of Asshouse Strand burn, frogmarched from the lake to channel water to town. Between commissions and property sales, delegates learned of ‘recreational trees’ classed as having, ‘no great value’.
Guide informed, guests listened, paired up with a colleague here, caught up with a guest there. pertinent questions back and forth; like some green forest dance. A red squirrel scuttled unnoticed across the approaching party’s path. Evening dinner in china crockery beckoned. In the woods, under star-studded Dark skies, furred nocturnal creatures returned to the Temple. Liz Niven
Gatehouse Cally Temple The narrow track insinuates through the wood The ground dark-stained below pale beech Under a trickle of light, trace of mud; The grey stone walls no broad landscape can reach; Not the shadow of travellers passing by The mud-soft sound of plodding feet, it feels Abandoned now, no noise or echoing cry No joy of living presence will it reveal Just grey-blue-stone-blind windows, no roof cover An emptied pit, red-cup fungus, spikes of moss Tall tower walls block the cattle drover His view obscured, shrouded, a sense of loss And those who visit observe wistfully, Don’t build to impress; its just a folly. John Priestley Kirkcudbright Literary Society workshop
Coin Once, they found a coin, embedded in peat soil. Irish. Round as a full moon in a dark sky; polished. Piggy back hump. Moon-coin dropped through cosmic slit.
Return to River Path I used to know these woods, above, the bright sky patterned with bare branches, below, the path well worn, dead twigs and leaves packed down, an easy walk. My camera-hand is chilled, at the ready and my nostrils take in frozen wet ground, green beginnings, my cheeks nipped. I hear the river’s music from below, a fast flow mingled with the motorway’s indifferent roar. Above, a crow cries out. Alone and safe, concealed here, I want to run free on this childhood path, and I do, find joy, forget myself. Ahead, a well-remembered Ash all clothed in ivy, has fallen, blocked the way, much larger than I knew. Instead of turning it to firewood, someone has made a way round, a bypass path, with fairy tale steps. This is the mosses’ time, the bare trees wait to start again, buds not fat, but ready. Katy Ewing Glasgow University workshop
Questions came: Whose coin? How did it get here? When did it fall? In the silence, a lone owl wakes for the night’s activities. bat does its crazy flight path dance. Still, motionless, coin-mouth retains its secrets. They kept digging. Hands black. In hope of more. Thoughts shifting with soil to a connectedness the coin lent. Did currency purchase evidence of their own lineage? Liz Niven
At the Temple We saw Detailed brick work all the way up Sparkly ice water fall at the bridge Stone bricks in the background gleaming in the rain Fresh green leaves battered by the horrendously heavy rain Which appeared as a light mist A glimpse of light through mossy trees Bright green leaves on an old oak taller than the hills Green leaves glistening in light Gargantuan fallen trees seemed trampled by a giant I thought I saw a rough looking man with clothes all torn Ladies having tea in the Palace We heard Water flowing down the stream Crunching of stones, sticks under boots, Twigs all around noisy kids chatting sound of wind on trees creaking Rain plopping on ground Scouts’ voices echoing off the pitch dark tunnel We smelt Leaves rotting Wild garlic Fresh air and cow poo Flowers The wind as it passed by Mud in the air
We felt Rain hitting off hands Stones on the walls that kept the Temple standing Roughness of rocks Bumpy and rough under hands Wet blade of grass hard stone of the ancient house Gravel under boots Dead squashed slugs I imagined tasting the ladies warm tea From china cups Dainty rich little pastries of different colours I wanted to taste meat cooked on the Drover’s fire A big hunk of venison on my plate Lovely honey on toast I wanted to taste chocolate or cake or candy floss or marshmallows I imagined the smell of a woman making porridge I felt happy and imaginative Gatehouse Scouts workshop
Gait-hoose On the auld route wey fae Dumfries tae Creetoon, the Murrays biggit a clachan, growin in reknown.
Three poems from Gatehouse Gala Day 2014 A ruined temple in the forest stands Built by many, many hands. Home to a drover, not the usual shack, Posh at the front, plain at the back. One man’s ostentatious whim And now Gatehouse people Pay to immortalise him. (Anon) There once was a tumble-down folly Which the locals thought rather jolly So they had a whip round And enough money was found To repair it, and all said ‘O, Golly!’ (Anon)
Near the mooth o the Watters o Fleet, wi toons twice its size, this village growed tae compete. Fower mills, a brass foondrie, tannin an brewin, boat biggin, cotton makkin, an a fine soap factorie. The roads rinnin throu strecht an lang bi the mile, hooses paintit white an neat road-edged, dykes biggit in the Gallowa style. Cally field names tae mervel gin they’re heard; Bush Moss an Whillan, Moat Park an Saugh Yerd. A motte in the wuids whaur Derk Age warriors leeved an focht, an auld ruined scuil by the deep loch pool, a Temple noo prood an strang near buried fae sicht. Past an future there tae be socht, forests o flora an fauna, toon thrivin yet, wi weans an folk.
Late light touches the Temple. Bats chitter. Cars on the bypass. Roar. Human folly!
On the auld route wey fae Dumfries tae Creetoon, the Murrays biggit a clachan, growin tae a place o reknown.
Alan James
Liz Niven
Temple An empty sadness, dead space A hole in the heart Magic and life scraped off with trowels A cold wind blowing across trampled ground Water-logged mud, poisoned stumps, not yielding; I huddle deeper into my coat Grey granite gravel like a shroud Around dank stones, a rotten tooth, Witnesses to old wrongs To think that not so long ago This was a green place of wasps getting drunk on ivy flowers Where striped spiders were hunted by wrens Of blackbirds mick-micking, bats flickering at dusk, and the small scratchings of mice Whilst tendrils of growth wrestled it back to the earth How long will it take to gather up the courage To start again, disperse this bitterness into a vibrant fecund wilderness? Michael van Beinum Glasgow University workshop
Drover’s Son How high the trees must have looked to the drover’s son. Fern and lichen tickling his toes on a hot summers day. Running along light-streaked forest paths to that old school for boys. Wondering about his Father’s day, driving cattle to the south. Wishing he had the stick in his hand instead of school slate. Prodding cows to cross the miles instead of words across a page.
The Ghosts’ Picnic song Chorus: If you go to Cally Woods today, you’re in for a big surprise. If you go to Cally Woods today, you’ll hardly believe yours eyes. The Patron and Patroness his wife are visiting the School from a bygone life. Today’s the day the ghosts are having a picnic. Chorus
Dreams of sun or even rain touching his face, instead of staring through high school windows,
There’s soldiers up at the forest Motte discussing weapons and battles fought. Today’s the day the ghosts are having a picnic. Chorus
or feeling hissing coal heat, from the communal fire. Liz Niven
There’s dykers talking about their walls, how best to build so nothing falls. Today’s the day the ghosts are having a picnic. Chorus The Drover is setting out on the track his cattle won’t be coming back. Today’s the day the ghosts are having a picnic. Liz Niven (To be sung to the tune of the Teddy Bears’ Picnic)
Gatehouse Writers workshop Three Question Poems When the wind blows through the Temple does it hear the voice of William Todd? Are there black cattle grazing there Beyond the ever growing trees? Granite blocks which hold the corners secure Who placed you there; where did you come from? David Steel Where does the wind come from That whines around your stairs? And the stars framed above your grey quadrant Were they there before you? Were they waiting for the mason and the navie To catch and enfold that place in the night sky? And was the moon placed thus Before you were known? Were its beams shadowing there in the wood Before your life began?
When mist pearls the air, the sky full and heavy, what secrets are hidden in the grass? As twilight seeps across sweeping parkland how many swallows nested here? Before autumn leaks to wind-wailing winter who remembers the first days of spring? As you drift off to sleep in the hum of night whose name do you call, who captures your soul? How many cattle have you driven through here, how many hoof prints on woodland paths? Can you smell the rich green breath of the trees when the owl flies low catching prey? Kriss Nichol
Sheena McCurrach
Temple Mesostic no shelTer here abandonment, loss, nEglect, incongruity sentinels of oak, beech and sycaMore surround you now romantic glimPse of gothic windows - water shrouded a cube of rain faLls inside the roofless tower dignified, erEct and enigmatic
by Gatehouse Writers workshop
Geophany A language fit for the secular celebration of place It is needed in woods, vocabulary for trees, grammar for stone. So we say, granite, grass, oak, pine. We say, look how the crannreuch frost coats the rocks, how the yowes dream in June sun dwams. We have always been name-callers, christeners of things. Not enough to marvel, be enchanted, or, fearful if thunderclap clashes, lightning flashes. We humans find words, conjure names, own by naming? It is in our DNA and thus we differ from animal ancestry. Or so we like to think. But hear starlings’ murmurating flutter. wind’s whispers in shaken pines, peewit’s high cry, houlet’s toot in the wood’s quiet nightfall. Liz Niven
The Temple, Cally, once the home of the Todd family In the early decades of the eighteenth century the Murrays of Broughton and Cally were pioneers in the fattening of black cattle. The land around Cally was divided into grass parks, where the cattle, which had been brought to Gatehouse, were fattened till they were ready to be taken by drovers to the growing markets in England. In 1782 William Todd, who had been employed as a ploughman at Cally for a number of years, was appointed by James Murray to look after the drove cattle and he moved with his wife Mary and family to the newly built Temple. William’s youngest daughter Margaret was born here in 1783. The Todd family continued to live at the Temple till 1792 when William hoped to better his situation in the cotton trade, which was then at its height, and they moved into Gatehouse. By 1795 the boom was over and in that year the family moved to Leswalt near Stranraer where William became manager of a farm. The story of the Todd family at the Temple has been passed down to us by one of William’s sons, also William, who was for many years schoolmaster at Drummore in Wigtownshire. In 1854 at the age of 80 he wrote an account of the parish of Kirkmaiden with notes on his own life, in which he records that he had been born at Syllodioch in 1774, moved to Bush when he was two years old and had moved again with his family to the Temple when he was eight years old. As a teenager he recalls how he had walked through the dark woods to attend night school in Gatehouse and how he was taken on as a pupil teacher, thus beginning his career as a schoolmaster. We have also been assisted by William’s four times great grandson, who has been researching the history of the family from his home in Canada.
Some background notes Coin. During some excavation around the base of the Temple an Irish coin dated 1775 was found. Letters from the Past. Alexander Craig in Bonny Galloway. Burns in Gatehouse. Various sources including Wikipedia. Letters of John Syme. Thomas Muir (1765-1798) was tried for sedition and harshly sentenced to 14 years transportation. Robert Burns sympathised with Muir’s support of Paine’s Rights of Man and a direct result of this was the writing of Scots Wha Hae in 1793. Poems of G.B.Sproat (Cally sonnet Note XVIIS) Poems of Robert Burns Cally Designed Landscape leaflet: set of Fleet Valley Trails. ‘Cally Story’ by Nic Coombey ‘Cally Lake School’: J A Russell’s booklets on Education in the Stewartry ‘Cally Chapel and schools’ in D & G Advertiser (circa 1947) Cally Accounts: the original bill for quarrying and materials for the building of the Temple. Mr Freeman Speaks. In the grounds of Cally Estate, outside the ruins of an old school (built c1820), there is a reproduction of ‘The Visit of the Patron and Patroness to the Village School’ by Thomas Faed. The painting depicts the interior of an 18th century schoolhouse. Pupils from Gatehouse Primary School wrote and performed a tableau based upon the Faed painting as part of the Cally Voices project. Joseph Barrett and Anne Titley were schoolmaster and schoolmistress respectively of the separate Boys and Girls Schools in Gatehouse and Cally Lake. They married in 1859. Cally Motte - 12th-13th century earthwork.