Epochs
-
Midsomer and the Battle of the Somme
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episode: 11×01: Shot at Dawn)
•The episode begins with a black and white picture. “France, July 1916.” is superimposed. Is it 1 July 1916 – the first day of the Battle of the Somme? The assumption is very obvious, but is not explicitly confirmed in the episode.
We watch soldiers walking forward, landmines explode, people are screaming. But there is a soldier limping in the opposite direction. It is Private Thomas Hicks. He escapes from the obviously life-threatening situation and wants to go back to the Royal Midsomer Yeomanry base. At the street he meets a car with three officers, including his friend Lieutenant Douglas Hammond. Thomas Hicks can only muffles in response to Douglas’ astonished question as to what he is doing here, and pulls behind him with his finger to the battlefield. Douglas Hammond pushes the still muffling Private into the car with light pressure.
-
The Fisher King in Midsomer County
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episodes: 03×03: Judgement Day & 07×03: The Fisher King)
•Near to the village Midsomer Priors, on the site of today’s Midsomer Barrow, in Celtic times, during the Iron Age, 3000 years ago, there was a local chieftain: the Fisher King. He was a wealthy man and died of the dolorous stroke, a symbolic death: he was stabbed in the thigh with a spear. (Note: Paul Heartley-Reade calls it the dolorous blow, but in the context of Arthurian legend it’s called a stroke).
-
Not Dead But Sleepeth
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episode: 13×04: The Silent Land)
•Joyce and Cully Barnaby attend a concert by a tenor singer and a pianist. While Joyce listens with enthusiasm and devotion to Ben John’s rendition of “Drink to me only with thine eyes”, Cully is visibly bored. Later, on the drive home to Causton, the two discuss the style of music, for Joyce has not had enough and listens to more singing on the car radio – much to the displeasure of Cully, who eventually falls asleep from boredom in the passenger seat as they pass the March Magna village sign.
-
Ghost Villages in World War 2
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episode: 19×01: The Village That Rose From the Dead)
•A curtain opens, revealing a room with nine people. All the people are dressed in 1940s style and are sitting at three tables. Only the older woman, Sylvia Lennard, who opened the curtain, is standing in front of them and is just finishing her presentation über ein living museum in Little Auburn.
Those present applaud. Roderick Craven, the landlord of Great Auburn and heir to Little Auburn, thanks her. 75 years ago, Little Auburn became a military base and fell into a ghost village after the war. The inhabitants founded Great Auburn not far away, but tomorrow the army will return the land to the Craven family. In return, the landlord wants to support a project – including his mother’s living museum.
-
Domesday in Midsomer
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episode: 07×02: Bad Tidings)
•Sergeant Daniel Scott has just arrived at his new police station in Causton and is assigned to investigate a murder in Midsomer Mallow. Tom Barnaby and his new sergeant are walking across a meadow where a woman’s body has been found. Daniel Scott is struggling to walk on the uneven ground and in the tall grass. Meanwhile, Tom tells him that this place is called Chainey’s Field and has been common land for centuries – even in the Domesday Book.
-
Francis Galton
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episodes 13×05: Master Class, and a bit for 14×06: The Night of the Stag)
•The Fieldings’ manor, Devington Hall, is currently hosting auditions for Sir Michael Fielding’s Master Class. The manor is a 19th century country house, the grounds of which belonged to the Knights Templars several centuries earlier and has been built on since at least the 14th century. Its real name is St Katharine’s Convent and it is situated in the little hamlet of Parmoor, Buckinghamshire. A very detailed documentation of the house, which has been on the National Heritage List since 22 January 1986, can be found on the Buckinghamshire Gardens trust site.
-
At the Beginning of the Year in Englefield
Much like Englefield House and its 16th-century owners, not much is known about the history of the parish of Englefield, much of which lies within the Benyon family estate. Yes, two battles took place here – firstly a bloody battle in September 1643 during the Civil War, the site of which is now known as Deadman’s Lane. The other was in Anglo-Saxon times – the battle of Englefield – which I will come to in a moment.
The parish of Englefield
But perhaps the most special thing about Englefield is that it has its visual origins in the 19th century (apart from the 18th century St Mark’s Church and, of course, Englefield House) – and that this appearance has not changed with industrialisation and urbanisation, as has happened in many places. This is because the enclosure of Englefield began early, by private agreement, and there were many farms in different ownerships. In 1846 there were still about 13 other small landowners in the parish.
The parish church of St Mark was also a filming location in the episode. This is where Tom Barnaby meets Aloysius Wilmington for the first time and learns about William Tyndale. As a result, the parish of Englefield is now a tourist attraction without being overcrowded. There is only one road into Englefield, which leads straight to Englefield House. If you drive out of the village, you have to take the same road back. A visit to the local shop and tea room is highly recommended.
You could say that Englefield is much the same as it was 150 years ago, but that’s not quite true: ‚For all that, Englefield has not stood still, preserved in aspic, as are some of the more famous ‚chocolate-box’ tourist attractions.Model village it may be: but it is a working model, an estate with the village its active centre providing jobs, houses and an orderly social structure‘. ‚New housing has been built in the late 20th and early 21st century, but of an appropriate scale and design and tastefully blended into what was there before‘.
The town of Englefield has had several name variations and it is still not entirely clear where the name comes from: from ‚Angel‘ or ‚English‘? We can now rule out a 19th century hypothesis that the syllable ‚Ingle‘ was the Old Saxon word for fire. (Englefield is recorded in the Domesday Book as ‚Inglefelle‘ and in the 18th/19th century it bears this prefix (again) as Englefeud. In fact, ‚Ingle’ is not an Old Saxon word, but derives from Scottish Gaelic in the 16th century. However, this was not known in the 19th century and it was thought that the place was named after a battle between Anglo-Saxons and Danish Vikings. This was because of the fire beacons that were lit on the hill to warn of the approaching Danes in 870 – presumably a bit like David Heartley-Reade, who stood on a Saxon burial mound at Midsomer Barrow at Summer Solitice and sent a burning arrow towards the rising sun to save his marriage.
The Battle of Englefield
During the 9th century there were repeated invasions of Anglo-Saxon England by Norsemen, until finally in 865 a large army of several Danish Viking chieftains (“the Great Pagan Army”) landed in East Anglia to conquer the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. They also entered the territory of the West Saxons. Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia were already Danish. On 28 December 870 they set up their main camp between the rivers Thames and Kennet.
The Battle of Englefield was the first of several battles fought between Christmas and Easter 870/871.
It is said to have taken place on a hill above the parish, just north of Englefield House. On the West Saxon side, Æthelwulf of Berkshire was the leader as Ealdorman of the county. On 31 December he waited in the area of future Englefield for marauding Danish raiders – and two Danish jarls (quasi earls) passed by. Despite being outnumbered, Æthelwulf attacked the Danes and took them by surprise. There were heavy losses on the Anglo-Saxon side and very heavy losses on the Danish side – including the death of one of the Jarls, Sidrac. The surviving Danes fled back to the main camp near Reading.
The surprise victory of the Anglo-Saxons gave them not only courage, but also arrogance. Three days later, King Ethelred and his brother Alfred attacked the Danish main camp. It was ultimately a bloody defeat for the West Saxons, costing the life of Æthelwulf among others.
Further battles followed, including the Battle of Ashdown, in which Alfred led the Saxon forces to victory, and the Battle of Basing, in which the Danes retained the upper hand. Ethelred died in the latter battle at the end of April 871. His brother Alfred took over the government and was later nicknamed ‘the Great’.
870 or 871? Both are correct.
Above I wrote: ‚The Battle of Englefield was the beginning of several battles between Christmas and Easter 870/871‘, but that is only half true, because historically both were in 871, because the year of the West Saxons began at Christmas – 25 December, not on 1 January. So the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is correct in dating the Battle of Englefield to 31 December 871, and today’s chronologies are correct in dating it to 31 December 870.
Leaf from Psalter: June Calendar, Man Carrying a Bundle of Wood. Flemish (Artist), ca. 1270-1280, ink and pigments on parchment Starting the year on 25 December was a popular way of starting the year in medieval Europe, used in many countries and regions across the continent, and only became popular in modern times. (By the way: Our current beginning of the year on 1 January is no coincidence either, but the day of Jesus’ circumcision).
But there have been other beginnings of the year. And just as you have to change your watch to suit the time zone when you travel today, so the year could change when you travel. There were some small areas where the year began at Easter. This had two consequences: Since Easter is not a fixed day, the years were of different lengths. And: Easter could be 8 months before Christmas or 4 months after Christmas.
How bizarre this can be is shown by the beginning of the year on the day of the Annunciation. Although the year always began on 25 March, it was possible – as with the beginning of Easter – to start the year later or earlier. The two Tuscan cities of Florence and Pisa used this method of beginning the year. However, while in Florence the year began after the usual year elsewhere, in Pisa it began about eight months earlier. Florence and Pisa are only about 50 mi (almost 80 km) apart, but Pisa was always about a year ahead of Florence.
The beginning of the year is also the reason why our February has so few days. Our modern way of calculating the year and creating a calendar goes back to Julius Caesar, but back then the year started on 1 March.
The few days in February are simply the remaining days of the Roman year. This also explains why there is a Latin word for seven (septem) in September and for ten (decem) in December: When the beginning of the year was moved to 1 January, the counting of the months also shifted. In Caesar’s time, with March as the first month, they were actually the seventh and tenth months.
Back to England – and the start of the year
How has the beginning of the year changed here? To be honest, I have not been able to do much research on this and would be grateful if someone could verify or confirm this.
From 43 BC – c. 440 AD: 1 March (Roman beginning of the year)
c. 440 – sometime in the 9th century: Easter
Sometime in the 9th century to 1151: 25 December (Christmas)
1152-1752(!): 25 March (Lady Day)
Since 1753: 1 January (Circumcision of Jesus)
In 1753, England also adopted the Gregorian calendar, which is slightly more accurate than the Julian calendar. In the period from Julius Caesar to 1752, there had been a discrepancy of eleven days due to the miscalculation! Catholic countries had adopted the new calendar, named after Pope Gregory, as early as 1582, and other Christian countries – including the Angelican Church – slowly followed suit.
Further reading
Cheney, C. R.: A Handbook of Dates. Cambridge 1945.Read more about Midsomer Murders & History
The Chronology of Midsomer County by Year or by Episodes • Deep Dives into Midsomer & History.
I would like to point out that this is an unofficial fan site. I am not connected to Bentley Productions, ITV or the actors.
-
The Dantean Anomaly
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episodes: 14×06: The Night of the Stag)
•On a colourfully decorated village square, a very well-attended, joyous fete takes place. There are stalls and plenty of alcohol to drink. We are at the Midsomer Abbas May Fayre, which is celebrated jointly by residents from Midsomer Abbas and Midsomer Herne – always on the first of May. Malmsey wine is served in a sweet version (= the well-known sweet Madeira wine) and in a tart version. Now, a man, Reverend Conrad Walker, enters the wooden platform and speaks into a microphone and welcomes the crowd.
-
Midsomer’s Old Railways
•
(Caution: Contains spoilers for Episode: 08×01: Things That Go Bump in the Night)
•
Map of the London and North Western Railway and Caledonian Railway systems, about 1900. Public Domain. (Click to enlarge it.) Joyce and Tom Barnaby are guests of Elizabeth Key in Fletcher’s Cross. They go out of the cottage into the garden. Elizabeth Key carries a tray with three cups and saucers, sugar bowl and creamer. Joyce carries the teapot in her hand. The two women walk side by side in front, Tom Barnaby with his hands in his trousers behind.
The Barnabys admire the garden and the location and Elizabeth Key enlightens them that back then in Victorian times, there was a railway just behind a row of trees near the house. Joyce is startled and apparently imagines express trains. But back then they were only steam locomotives, of course. However, the line was later closed.
Now, the railway is to be partially restored and Fletcher’s Cross Station reopened. We learn later at the railway inauguration festival that it is mainly thanks to James Griss! But he is not quite respected in Fletcher’s Cross because he is a bit of a show-off.
Barnabys and Elizabeth Key sit down at a small table and set it and talk about Elizabeth’s parents and the upcoming meeting of the Spirit of Friendship Group. Just before the scene change, you hear the rattle and toot of a steam locomotive, but you don’t see it.
A steam locomotive is also seen in Great Worthy in another episode (14×03: Echos of the dead), but without any further information about the railway system there.
Old, new railway stations
The episode takes up a rather topical theme – both at the time of filming and the first broadcast and today. In the 19th century, the construction of railways was booming, even in rural areas, but in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, many of these railways were closed down because they were no longer lucrative enough.
Especially since the turn of the millennium, there have been repeated initiatives to reopen these disused stations. Though the plans always fail to materialise because demand remains too low or costs too much to open. And that is also the difficulty in Fletcher’s Cross. That’s why James Griss is talking to potential investors.
Some former railway stations become museums – like Quainton Road Railway Station, now Buckingham Railway Centre. Fletcher’s Cross station was filmed there. The name of the village is Old English for Queen’s Estate. It presumably refers to the estates of Edith, who was the wife of King Edward the Confessor.
A good 800 years later, in 1860, the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway Company was founded and the line opened 8 years later. Initially it only connected the Wycombe Railway (Maidenhead-Abingdon) in Aylesbury to the south and the Verney Junction of the Buckinghamshire Railway (Bletchley-Banbury-Oxford) to the north. In 1899 a junction was added to the north just beyond Quainton station, linking the line with the Great Central Main Line (Sheffield-London).
Unlike the connection from Fletcher’s Cross to Causton, the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway had no connection to Wallingford, 30 miles (about 50 km) away, which is known to be the filming location for Causton.
Quainton Road Railway Station
Ravenseft: Quainton Road Railway Station, Buckinghamshire, 2008. CC-BY SA 2.0. Quainton Road Railway Station was one of six stops on the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway. Although it opened in 1868, it was not worthwhile in this underpopulated area and yet it was probably the most important stop on the line. It had a special status because the Brill Tramway started here – or ended here, depending on which way you were travelling.
The Brill Tramway’s main purpose was not to transport people, but goods. The Dukes of Buckingham were all interested in railway construction and this new means of transport. Their new estate, Waddesdon Manor, was being planned and was to have its own railway station nearby. Because of lobbying, the planned line was extended to Brill.
The tramway overcame a first financial decline of the line due to newer and faster connections to London and the north of England, as it was modernised and the trains now travelled 7.5 mi/h (12 km/h) instead of 4 mi/h (6.4 km/h). This meant that goods were now taken from Brill to Quainton in 40 minutes.
The tramway became part of the London Metropolitan Railway. Therefore part of the London Underground even as late as 1933, although 40 mi (64 km) from London and this train route was anything but underground. But two years later it was over. When the last train left Brill Station on its way to Quainton on 30 November 1935, hundreds of people watched and some members of the Oxford University Railway Society travelled from Oxford to get a last ticket.
A new life as a museum and well-known film location
After the Brill Tramway was closed, Quainton Road Railway Station also lost its importance. However, the station was closed to passengers in 1963 and to local goods in 1966. Three years later the Quainton Road Society was formed with the aim of preserving the station and started The Buckinghamshire Railway Centre as a museum. In 1971 the London Railway Preservation Society took over its collection of historic railway equipment, which included many locomotives, and passenger and non-passenger rolling stock.
Thanks to the society, Quainton Road is one of the best preserved railway stations in England. It is also still part of the railway network and can be booked for special events. As a film location it was not only used for Midsomer Murders, but also for Doctor Who and other films and shows.
🤓 Read more about Midsomer Murders & History
The Chronology of Midsomer County by Year or by Episodes • Deep Dives into Midsomer & History
Further readings
The Rail Map Online maps historic transport maps and lists the so many railways in the UK, most of which no longer exist today. See: https://RailMapOnline.com/
Literature
- Oppitz, Leslie: Lost Railways of The Chilterns. Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire. Newbury 2017.
I would like to point out that this is an unofficial fan site and I am not connected to Bentley Productions, ITV or the actors.
First published on MidsomerMurdersHistory.org on 27 November 2023.
Updated on 5 December 2024 -
Midsomer Connections: Episodes & Epochs
Under the menu item „Midsomer Connections“ you may have already seen the sankey chart in the lower half. It connects episodes with historical events from the respective era. In contrast to the charts above, this one not only includes references to British history, but also to Midsomer’s own history: Sir Hugo Melmoth, Ellis Bell, St Cicely, and so on.
Click on the chart to enlarge it. The chart shows it clearly: the 20th century is very strongly represented in Midsomer Murders, especially the period after the Second World War. Tudor, Stuart, Georgian are equally represented, as are Victorian and Modern 1.
It is much more often mentioned that a tradition or estate has existed since Henry VIII than since the Domesday Book. And the period before the Tudors, especially before the Battle of Hastings, is very under-represented. (Under “Medieval” I include everything between William I and the Wars of the Roses, i.e. Normans and Plantagenets).
That’s not so surprising, because Midsomer is actually typically Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, where most of the film locations are. It’s precisely here and in rural surroundings because small hamlets are usually synonymous with idyll, peace, order, even sleepiness, and in such an atmosphere very bizarre murders have a very strong effect. Midsomer Murders is almost a parody of cosy crimes (sometimes pokes fun at its own type) and the really extreme, exaggerated types of murder make us laugh rather than feel horror.
An archetypal English tale with a certain creepy edge
Essentially, Midsomer Murders is an archetypal English tale with a certain creepy edge, but it remains cosy because we know that DCI Barnaby will solve the series of murders with the help of his sergeant and his family. He will put things right – that is his function and he says exactly this in one of the filmed books, Death in Disguise, when he tries to find the murderer of Master Ian Craigie out of the intimidated Tim in his tree house at the Lodge of the Golden Windhorse.
The reference to history – of Midsomer or England, not British – reinforces the stereotypical idyll. But tradition has two directions. It strengthens identity and inhibits progress. Inhibiting process is very rigid form and makes things stay the way they have always been – it becomes preservative and is therefore a particular stylistic device in episodes by Brian True-May, for whom Midsomer County is an area that was a kind of sleeping beauty, but is torn from this fairytale sleep by bizarre murders by people who want to disrupt the established order. (Not always the case, but very often.)
Historical references before and after Season 15
However, tradition can also provide support through identification. In the episodes after True-May, there are some historical references, but more often in a parodic way. Midsomer is no longer so archetypal, and can also be completely atypical of Oxfordshire or Buckinghamshire. But still, history (and the Midsomer-y landscape of the Chiltern Hills for that matter) remains the stabilising element of the show.
This is wonderfully taken to extremes in the very first episode after True-May, The Dark Rider, when Sarah Barnaby attempts to re-enact the Battle of Naseby on the DeQuetteville estate in a historically accurate way but, completely frustrated and annoyed, gives up and hanging the microphone on the holder, causing the feedback to squeak.
Let’s look at the time before and after Brian True-May’s time with Midsomer Murders in the sankey chart.
While the epochal segmentation of the left graph differs imperceptibly from the pattern of all MM episodes, a shift can be seen: exactly half of the historical references are from the 20th century, and there are hardly any references to the time of the Tudors and Stuarts and thus Henry VIII. So there really is a shift.
It is also quite apparent that there are fewer episodes with a historical connection. Now the episodes without Midsomer or English history are not listed in the graphics, so I’ll list them here:
Pilot and 1-14 15-22 Altogether 89 episodes Altogether 43 episodes Thereof 54 episodes with history = 61% Thereof 15 episodes with history = 35% Per each (histo) episode 1.3 historical references Per each (histo) episode 1.2 historical references From the pilot episode to the end of season 14 there are 89 episodes, and from season 15 to the end of season 22 there are 43 episodes. Of these, references to history are made in 54 and 15 episodes, totalling 70 and 18 times respectively.
So there are also fewer “histo episodes” in percentage since season 15, but if it is one, there’s not too much difference given the historical references.
Cosy crimes needs nostalgia
I mentioned tradition and its different directions at the beginning. At its best, tradition is something that gives you identity and forms a base for you. But it’s not something you have to carry around with you; ideally, you can continue to build on it and take responsibility for ensuring that the tradition remains sustainable and keeps up with the times. Tradition is a conscious transfer of history that you want to preserve for the future – like a special family heirloom that you have slightly adjusted so that you can wear it every day and it doesn’t end up in the drawer. And the historical references in Midsomer Murders are in this way, too, because it was and will always be cosy crime and therefore nostalgia takes over the role, the position of identity and the base on which a story from our present day is then told.
Read more about Midsomer Murders & History
The Chronology of Midsomer County by Year or by Episodes • Deep Dives into Midsomer & History.
I would like to point out that this is an unofficial fan site and I am not connected to Bentley Productions, ITV or the actors.
First published on MidsomerMurdersHistory.org on 13 December 2023.
Updated on 4 December 2024
