Almost too small to be a building, this structure is simply too special to ignore. It is a shelter containing 33 niches or boles to accommodate straw bee skeps, the traditional English forerunners of bee hives. There is nothing else like it in the world.
The shelter was originally made in the Gloucestershire town of Nailsworth by a stone mason, Paul Tuffley, some time between 1824 and 1852. Its carved scrollwork decoration shows that Tuffley was an accomplished carver and from the beginning the structure must have looked impressive. By the 1960s, though, it was unused – the bee skep had long been replaced by the wooden hive and the shelter looked likely to be demolished. But it was rescued and resited at Hartpury Agricultural College – only to be moved once more to Hartpury churchyard in 2002, when it was thoroughly restored. It’s still there, showing how well housed some of Gloucestershire’s bees once were.
4 comments:
Gor blimey you know don't you. One to go with a Zebra House that's supposed to be at Borough Court in Leicestershire, but I've got a funny feeling I might have been mischievously misled on that one.
What a fantastic find.
Of course skeps were very destructive, the only way a keeper could get the honey was to kill the bees. Well housed they may have been but their untimely death was certain
@Richard_london_traveller- what about bee fumigation? I am sure they would have used that in the 19th century, as is quite an ancient method to keep away angry bees.
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