Little shop of history
QUESTION Where is the building in which BBC2’s The Repair Shop is set?
THE repair Shop on BBC2 is a wonderful programme where a team of craftsmen rescue broken objects and restore them to their former glory. it’s an antidote to today’s throwaway culture.
the repair Shop is at the Weald & Downland Living Museum in Chichester, West Sussex. My husband is a great devotee of the programme, so i took him there last week for his birthday.
the museum village comprises reconstructed historic houses through which you can wander, with craft-working displays by staff wearing period costume. it was a good day out, in beautiful countryside, and close to several good dining pubs and lovely places to walk along the estuary at nearby Bosham.
Carole Blackshaw, Bovingdon, Herts.
THE Weald & Downland Living Museum was set up in 1967 to preserve rural buildings and the history of life in the South-East over 1,000 years.
the museum, in a lovely 40-acre site in the South Downs national park, is home to 50 buildings, including half-timbered tudor houses from Sussex, hampshire, Surrey and Kent, which have been painstakingly taken down and re-erected.
it’s an interactive museum so you can take lessons in a tiny schoolhouse, and there are demonstrations of flour grinding in the 17th-century watermill, blacksmithing, butter making and spinning.
As well as the repair Shop, the museum has featured in TV shows including Flog it!, Celebrity Antiques roadtrip, CBeebies’ Great Fire Of London, Countryfile, hairy Bikers, the One Show, the hollow Crown and Most haunted.
Danny Darcy, Reading, Berks.
QUESTION Why is the Corwin Amendment so contentious in the U.S.?
IN FEBRUARY 1861, thomas Corwin of Ohio in the house of representatives and William h. Seward of New york in the Senate introduced an amendment to the u.S. Constitution that would protect ‘ domestic institutions’ from the constitutional amendment process.
in effect, it would protect the ‘slave states’ from the abolition of slavery by Congress, and make the later amendments protecting the rights of former slaves impossible to pass.
the Corwin Amendment was one of several proposals put to Congress in the hope of preventing border states from seceding and joining the Confederacy.
however, it was badly timed. Seven states in the South had already voted to secede, so the amendment could not gain the required number of votes in both houses required for approval.
though Congress approved the amendment in 1861, to become law it needed to be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures. it was ratified in five — rhode island, illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and Maryland — but has since been rescinded in Ohio and Maryland. illinois, at that time, was not sitting as a legislature so its ratification is therefore registered as ‘questionable’.
there was an attempt to withdraw the amendment in 1864 and stop the ratification process, but this resolution was not adopted.
the Corwin Amendment is still technically open for ratification, but no state has done so since 1862, though it was considered by texas in 1963.
the contention arises from the expected effect of ratification. if it had been ratified before 1865, it would have made the abolition of slavery by the federal government difficult or even impossible.
Some people fear that if ratified, slavery could be re- established, but as it was never explicitly referred to in the Corwin Amendment, this would not happen.
if ratified today, it could prevent federal government from legislating in local state matters.
Chris Farrall, Barnsley, S. yorks.
QUESTION What became of Oscar Wilde’s sons, Cyril and Vyvyan?
I’M PLEASED that the previous answer referred to the positive influence of thelma Besant on Vyvyan holland’s life. As well as being the Queen’s make-up consultant, she invented a camouflage cream in 1940 for the war effort.
thelma protected Oscar Wilde’s reputation. Just three weeks before her death in 1995, she placed flowers beneath a window dedicated to Wilde’s memory in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.
thelma and Vyvyan’s son, Merlin, is a writer who has edited and published several works about his grandfather.
Rachel nye, london n1.