Rugby Festivals

megbensey — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:12:17 -0700

Rugby's spring festival was in mid-May. We thought of going, but didn't, because there were too many other places to go in May. Going to Rugby would have been especially appropriate for us, since I've been researching Rugby for the past six weeks, the historic houses at Rugby inspired us to buy our own historic house, and we had a home wedding in the garden of our Rugby-inspired historic ...

Married 20 Years on May 20

megbensey — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:40:47 -0700

May has been such busy month that we spent what time we could at Blackberry Corner, our almost 100-year-old house. It's our own private B & B.We celebrated being married 20 years on May 20 with a large leisurely holiday breakfast, white wedding cake with lime icing and pink roses, and a hike at the nearby Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge on the loveliest of days. We drove over to Seven Islands ...

Maytime at Blackberry Corner

megbensey — Sun, 31 May 2009 08:33:57 -0700

We marked May Day with spring decorations--a pair of lavender pansy wreaths on the veranda, vases of pastel silk flowers throughout the house, and gardens of real flowers blooming outside during the month of May: lavender irises and ladybells; pink tulips, tiger lilies, and cherry blossoms; white roses and apple blossoms.Throughout the month, we had a cluster of celebrations: my birthday, our ...

Our Historic House

megbensey — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:11:47 -0700

Our inspiration to buy a historic house came as a direct result of visiting the little English village Rugby in August 1988. Our wedding was nine months away, and we were thinking of where we might want to live. That trip to Rugby swung the decision toward an antique house, antique furniture, antique life! At home in my garret apartment, with its cathedral ceilings and cream-colored carpet, I ...

Our Rugby Pilgrimage

megbensey — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:49:05 -0700

We—my fiancé Michael and I—first visited Rugby over 20 years ago for the Rugby Pilgrimage festival in August 1988. We were enchanted by the little village preserved from the previous century! While we were there, we visited the blue-painted Rugby Library and were stunned by the cases of perfectly preserved books in bright jewel colors, lettered in gold. At concert time, we sat in the little ...

Rugby Families 1900s-1950s

megbensey — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:05:00 -0700

Most histories I have read about Rugby note that the utopian English village lasted only during 1880-1900, leaving the impression that the area was deserted from the 1900s through the 1950s, until the village's 1960s historic restoration began. Thats why it's interesting to me to find that some English descendents of Rugby actually continued living there throughout the twentieth century and are ...

Rugby in the 1900s

megbensey — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:38:29 -0700

What I like best about the two Grey Gables cookbooks is the Rugby history. We in our family have been visiting Rugby and reading about Rugby for over 20 years; we have been to Grey Gables for lunch; and we have heard of Linda Brooks Jones' books, though we hadn't read them or heard her speak until this week. The standard history of Rugby that we usually read, on our tour guides or in books we buy ...

Inspired by Grey Gables

megbensey — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:14:15 -0700

Today Linda Brooks Jones spoke for the Knoxville Writers' Group. She runs the Grey Gables, a bed-and-breakfast inn at Rugby, Tennessee, the 1880s English utopian settlement. Her two books The Table at Grey Gables and Always a Full Table at Grey Gables, are full of history, pictures, and recipes--of the Rugby environs and of her family who settled there in the 1850s. I'm thinking of how I can ...