The Blackden Trust Blackden


Founders and Trustees

Garry Prior Tessa Roynon Michael Peach Griselda Garner Richard Morris Patsy Roynon Alan Garner Elizabeth Garner The foundation of the Trust on 3rd December 2004

 


 

Founding Trustees

Garry Prior, Tessa Roynon, Michael Peach, Griselda Garner, Richard Morris
Elizabeth Garner
 

Founders

Alan Garner, Patsy Roynon
 

at the foundation of
The Blackden Trust - 3rd December 2004


Founders and Trustees

Alan Garner has lived and worked in Toad Hall all his adult life. He is best known for his novels.  (Link to his first and second website.)

Alan recalls: 

There was a torn piece of hardboard lodged in the hedge. On it was daubed in whitewash: 17th. CENTURY COTTAGE FOR SALE. I opened the wicket gate and pushed my bicycle down the overgrown path, across the brook and up the field.

The line of the roof appeared and, with each step, the house stood up from the land. I began to shake. This was no seventeenth century cottage. I was looking at a timber-frame medieval hall. I lifted the doorknocker at 7.20. p.m., 19th. April 1957. Good Friday.

The price was £510, and I had 8s. 3d. and no prospects. I rode back to Alderley.

"And what's up with you, then'" said my father.

"I've seen the only place I can ever live."

"And where's that'"

"Blackden."

Patsy Roynon is the daughter of the architect, John Stanley Beard, and has inherited his interest in buildings, and in particular, timber-frame houses. Now retired, she has been a teacher, a Brown Owl and a Justice of the Peace. In 1983 she safeguarded Alan Garner's occupation of Toad Hall, by becoming a joint owner of the whole property, and in 2007 she donated The Old Medicine House to The Blackden Trust.

Patsy recalls:

It was August 1981; we were visiting Griselda and Alan at Blackden. Griselda and I were sitting at her kitchen table late at night when she mentioned that she was hoping to get someone to buy into the Medicine House project, and that if she couldn't they would have to sell the whole site. I decided on impulse that I wanted to contribute, although I didn't say anything straight away. I rationalised the decision later on, and wrote a letter afterwards to offer help.

The Medicine House had bowled me over as a building - the chimney and the spiral staircase. Walking and smelling and feeling the house had got me hooked before Griselda and I ever held that conversation. This house had something different. Something coming through every pore of my skin. It was something about the smell of the Medicine House and the way the sun came in through those old mullioned windows.

I was aware that Alan could only write at Blackden. If he'd had to write in a little house on the edge of Macclesfield, he couldn't have written the books that he wanted to write. His was special and different writing - and it needed to be done in a special and a different place.

 

Professor Richard Morris (Chairman) is a writer and composer. The author of works on archaeology, historical biography and aviation, until 2010 he was Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. A former Director of the Council for British Archaeology, today he also chairs the Expert Panel of the Heritage Lottery Fund.  (Link to his website.)

Elizabeth Garner has worked in the film industry, initially as a reader, script editor and then as Head of Development for Gorgeous Enterprises. Her first novel, Nightdancing, won a Betty Trask Award in 2004; her second, The Ingenious Edgar Jones, was published in 2007.  (Link to her website.)

Griselda Garner has spent most of her professional life in the classroom, teaching English and running school libraries. She devises and develops learning resources to encourage independent research. Since 2004, Griselda has been organising activities and developing educational programmes for The Blackden Trust.

Sue Hughes has worked in the museum and heritage sector for over 20 years; initially as a curator, then specialising in education before eventually moving into museum management. She is currently Director of Cheshire West Museums Service and is a Fellow of the Museums Association. She is chair of Cheshire Museums Forum, a Trustee and Board Member of the North West Federation of Museums and a member of North West Renaissance Collections Group.

Sue's main research interest is in Medieval and Tudor herbs, folklore and medicine. She is also interested in the literature and drama of Medieval Cheshire, the role of its pilgrimage sites and the relationship with Medieval music. She is an active partner in the Mapping Medieval Chester project.  (Link to her website.)

Elizabeth Musgrave (Treasurer) was for a ten years a senior inspector with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. She then spent nine years as a Director with the global professional services firm, KPMG. She is now involved in providing consultancy services to businesses in the North Wales area in which she lives.

Catherine Paxton has D Phil in Medieval History from the University of Oxford. She worked for 11 years as a general manager in the National Health Service, before joining Merton College, Oxford as its Senior Tutor.. Catherine now works as an internal project consultant for the University of Oxford.

Tessa Roynon has a PhD in American Literature from the University of Warwick.  She is a stipendiary lecturer in English at St Peter's College, University of Oxford, where she primarily teaches American literature.  She has also worked as both a secondary-level English teacher and a youth worker.  While volunteering for a London settlement she gained experience in voluntary sector fundraising and management.  (Link to her website.)

Michael Peach and Garry Prior have retired as Trustees.

© The Blackden Trust 2008-2010
    Updated: 27/02/2010		 The Blackden Trust is a registered charity no. 1115818