Saturday was my first outing with the Victorian Tea Society. When the group gets together and goes somewhere they call it a Tea Tramp. Everyone meets up at the place we are going to go wearing their costume.That's me on the far right side.
I loved the way these two ladies dressed up. I thought they both had lovely dresses and hats.
We met up at St. Luke's Church in Long Beach. We were given a tour of the church by the gentleman in the photo. Some of the church was from the 1800's. Some had been rebuilt as it was destroyed by an earthquake years ago.
This church has beautiful stained glass windows. Some were original to the church from the 1800's.
They have a beautiful carved wood pulpit where the sermons are still given every Sunday.
Some of the women were seated in the pews. I wondered if this is what they would have looked like years ago when this church was first built.
The church is really simple but still full beauty.
From there we were taken into another room to learn about how brass rubbings were done back in the mediaeval times.
It was custom for those who died to have brass plaques engraved to memory. These were often used as tomb markers and portraits. They were often laid on the floor or walls of the church.
After learning a bit about brass rubbings we got to go do one of our own. The room was filled with tables set up with lots of different brass plaques to pick from.
This is a life size rubbing. Since no one had cameras back then people would often use a wax and paper placed over the brass plaques to make a copy. It was their way of having a portrait of those people they loved and respected.
This shows one of the brass plates on the left and one of the rubbings on the right.
Here is one of the ladies from our group doing her rubbing.
This is the one I did. This is a rubbing of Alice Hyde from 1567. She was the wife of William Hyde. They had five sons and five daughters. Alice lived durning a very eventful period of history. The beginning of the turbulent reign of Henry VIII and the difficult years before Elizabeth I became Queen in 1528.
This brass is notable for the elegance of her dress.
After we all finished up our brass rubbings we went to yet another room where enjoyed a typical tea. With finger sandwiches, scones and yummy desserts.
I can't believe I forgot to take any photos durning our tea. The room was set up very nice with china plates, cups and saucers and lovely linens.
It was 93 out and wearing the costume, hat and wig made me fully understand why so many women back in the Victorian era fainted. We were all so hot as the rooms did not have air conditioning.
We all had a great time and I'm looking forward to our next outing.
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