The Castle and Village of Vertine

A Medieval Jewel

 

Vertine seen from the air with its gate tower and castle keep tower and what remains of the curtain wall

The castle of Vertine is first mentioned in a document of 1013. Thus the village of Vertine is over 1000 years old. A statement like this can stagger. As a native of the Antipodes where white settlement goes back a mere 250 years, I am continually staggered, in this part of the world.

the castle keep, today an attractive B&B

Apart from being a castle and village for 1000 years, Vertine can almost certainly claim to have been inhabited over the same period. Not bad for a tiny village which must have seen wars, plague and countless other crises in its long existence.

Lucca's Garden Show

Verdemura, 

the annual greening of the city of Lucca

camelias sitting on grass; a simple but effective display

Lucca is a city famed for its magnificent walls. At the end of March each year these walls become the venue for a delightful gardening and outdoor living market and display called Verdemura, Green Walls.

For the first time visitor to Lucca it is the venue which is most stunning. Lucca's walls were built from 1504 to 1648 and were never used as military fortifications although they were considered a deterrent to the ambitions of Florence and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. They stretch over 4 kilometres to enclose the entire historic centre. 

The Roman Avenue?

Revealing the past

The 'Roman Road' when we first discovered it in 2005

Our first explorations at Le Ripe over 10 years ago were motivated by curiosity and caution. Our curiosity requires little explanation: we were about to acquire 30 hectares of wooded land; it is obvious we wanted to investigate. Our caution was owing to experience. So many times, on our quest for a home in Tuscany, were beautiful ruins revealed to be duds: one house situated beneath perilous-looking, overhanging cliffs; another not far from a pylon; wandering around yet another revealed giant pipes and steam vents connected to the boric acid and geothermal energy stations near Larderello; a short walk from another beautiful house opened onto the freeway and its collection of factories in the valley below: you name it, we found it. 

the top section of the 'Roman Road', in 2005

The Moroccan Wall

At last, a drystone wall!

after: the completed wall and earthworks

before: the crumbling old wall, seen behind the line of the broom plant with new stones piled in front

In his The Stone Book Quartet, Alan Garner evokes the art of making a drystone wall in language as essential as dressed stone.

Grandfather was rough-dressing the stone for the wall, and laying it out along the hedge. Joseph unwound the line and pegged one end in the joints where Grandfather had finished the day before, and pulled the line tight against the bank. His job was to cut the bank back to receive the stone and to run a straight bed for the bottom course.
He chopped at the bank.
...
'Get your knee aback of your shovel,' said Grandfather. 'There's no sense in mauling yourself half to death. Come on, youth. Shape!'
...
Grandfather took the spade from him and looked along the bank. He walked along the raw cut edge and shaved the earth with light swings of the blade.'You've got it like a fiddler's elbow,' he said.
...

Grandfather grunted, and swung the blocks to lie as he wanted. They seemed to move without more than his hand on them.

...
Grandfather and Damper Latham worked together, as they had always done. The stone moved lightly for them.

Stones, steps, lawn and hortus

New at Le Ripe

Le Ripe has been undergoing some changes over the past months. A no-man's land has been graced with steps, a broken drystone wall is being replaced, a vegetable patch is gradually transforming into a hortus conclusus, a lawn has been sown, a new vegetable patch is to be established.

The lawn or prato inglese as our helper Paolo likes to call it, entailed a massive job of stone-harvesting, the bulk of which we completed in one back-breaking session. Sowing the seeds was a doddle by comparison. The daily watering has been handled by a chief hose-master who has been extremely assiduous.

We have finally found builders willing to lay a drystone wall; it will run along the back of the orchard where once the farmers had made their own wall. The stone comes partly from the old wall but mostly from near Greve; our stone is called alberese, this one colombino or, simply, pietra dura, hard stone. More on this when it is completed.

The new steps made with railway sleepers, and an attractive river-pebble gravel over a cement and rock aggregate called stabilizzato and non-woven fabric to protect from weeds. Here the (mostly aromatic) plants are in place.

view of steps from below; note large iron nails hammered in horizontally to fix the sleepers in place

Walls, walls, walls

The Stones of Le Ripe

Originally at Le Ripe the farmers laboured over many winters to build terraces up the slopes so that they could better work the flatter land that resulted. As you wander around the part of the farm that was cultivated and grazed you happen upon odd sections of ancient wall, some crumbling, some hidden under rampant growth, some concealed by earth, moved during recent building renovations.

old wall uncovered after who knows how many years

 

a well-preserved original drystone wall which has become a feature