A candle in the jar…and a bit of history

The farm we’re based on has been here in its current form for over 500 years and as it was mentioned in the Domesday Book, it’s probably safe to assume that there have been people here for centuries.

I often get a sense of yesterday’s world as I wander around the fields – and every now and again we find interesting glimpses of past lives spent here and I find myself wondering about who they were and how they lived.

An apple tree unexpectedly in the middle of a field hedge leads me to wonder if a farm worker threw away the core of his apple and never dreamt that a long time in the future, we would be picking apples.

This time it was the remnants of a cider jar I found in one of the field banks when we were getting things ready for the hut to arrive. The jar was in pieces and caked with dirt, but I squirrelled it away into the house, with the hope of connecting this piece of history to our Dimpsey Hut.

Sure enough, when it was cleaned off, the jar revealed that it was from a few miles down the road and, given that farm workers were routinely paid in cider, was probably an everyday item on the farm in its day and had been thrown into the hedge when it broke and became useless…

We gave it a scrub and a clean-up and then Becky had the brainwave of putting a candle in it and making it into a vintage candleholder. Given that Dimpsey is a Somerset word for twilight – I loved the idea of this relic lighting the corners of the hut as darkness falls.

I’ve taken a quick piccie to show you and I’ll get one taken in the hut asap – this must be about as eco as it gets – recycling rubbish from at least a hundred years ago!