There is a reference to Beggars Bush in a version of the popular melody “Yellow Stockings” printed in a dubious Irish anthology. It isn’t possible to be certain about the author of the verse, which is almost certainly a literary creation rather than a collected “folk song”, although one reviewer rather cruelly suggested it was “neither Irish nor literature”. All that can be said is that the author and printers assumed that readers would understand the phrase, which is consistent with the standard literary usage. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Donnybrook, Ireland, Walter Jones, Yellow Stockings, songs | No Comments »
“If ever a grig was spent out of the way he always behaved as if we should all of us go home by beggar’s bush!”
False Colours is set in 1817. The remark is made by the spendthrift dowager mother of the central character, explaining why she did not admit all her borrowing to the family lawyer during her husband’s lifetime. The usage is in the correct historical literary sense. A grig is a farthing.
Author
Georgette Heyer (1902-1974) supported her family by writing on average one crime novel and one historical romance every year from about 1931 until the early 1970s. She is best known for a series of romances set in the Regency period. Although not appreciated, or even reviewed, by critics, for many years she sold more than 100,000 hardbacks annually and her paperbacks were issued in print runs of 500,000.
Her historical novels are sometimes criticised for the amount of incidental detail and colour she included, but not accuracy of it. She had her own reference library and collected period material.
Source
Heyer, G., False Colours, The Bodley Head, London, 1963 (p.21)
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Georgette Heyer, Literary | No Comments »
The story is set around Copthorne on the Surrey/Sussex border. The main character is the daughter of a farm labourer born in 1834. Her father works at a farm called Pickdick. She is sent as a child to scare birds in an oat-field on nearby Beggars Bush farm where she sees a vision and becomes a preacher for the Colgate Brethren. It appears the Colgate Brethren meet at another farm called Horn Reed. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Literary, Sheila Kaye-'Smith, Sussex | No Comments »
Beggars Bush Farm was an isolated farm near the village of Grewelthorpe in the Parish of Kirkby Malzeard, West Yorkshire, about 8 miles from Ripon. It is an example where there is a documented alternate simple Bush name, which survives. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Grewelthorpe, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire | 2 Comments »
On current OS Map east of the village on Higham Road, at a junction. Recorded on the Tithe Survey (33/176) at TL730652. Suffolk XLIII.5 Old Series OS shows the road as having trees along on side. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Gazeley, Suffolk | No Comments »
Beggars Bush House is now at 53 Haddington Road, EU21 7SZ, and all references appear to be to a house. The location of that is close to the boundary between Edinburgh & Haddingtonshire. An entry in the Edinburgh & Leith County Directory 1842 gives Andrew Elley, gardener at Beggars Bush. The name is not shown on the 1854 or 1898 OS Maps or Wm. Roy’s Military Survey of Scotland 1747-55. The name is referred to in The East Lothian (Electoral Arrangements) Order 1998, Statutory Instrument 1998 No. 2804 (S. 164) defining the boundary of Ward 5 Musselburgh East. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: East Lothian, Scotland, Thomas Trotter | 3 Comments »
Rocque’s Survey of Dublin (1760) shows Begarsbush over three fields running north-south west of the lane south from the Lucan to Palmerston road (now the N4). The site roughly corresponds with what is now Ballyowen Park. It is opposite the gate house to the park marked Hermitage, and an area marked Woodville. Taylor’s Map of Dublin (1816) shows Beggars Bush running west-east across the same lane, and appears to show the area as being a small hill. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Donnybrook, Dublin, Dublin Lucan, Ireland | No Comments »
This site is now Beggars Bush Kennels, Spithandle Lane, Wiston, Steyning, BN44 3DY. The owner says the house is part C16, set in 12 acres of good grassland and 1 acre of woodland. The lane is shown at Geograph.
West Sussex Record Office, Wiston Archives contain a number of references. WSRO notes the importance of the Wiston Archives in part because they provide a record for the area between Storrington and Steyning, at both of which there are Beggars Bushes. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Ashurst, Sussex, West Sussex | No Comments »
“if a man be a tree invers’d, he’s beggar’s bush”
The usage is clearly literary, and consistent with standard literary usage. However, the form is unusual. The concept goes back to Aristotle History of Animals, “Man is an inverted tree, and a tree is an inverted man”. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 24th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Cambridge, John Cleveland, Literary | No Comments »
The poem is from a collection Sea Weeds: Poems Written on Various Occasions, Chiefly During a Naval Life published for Thomas Trotter (1760-1830) who at that time was a surgeon practicing in Newcastle. The text says no more about the “maniac” who is supposed to have cut it down. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 24th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: East Lothian, Thomas Trotter | No Comments »
