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velarisnightsky444 · 2 years ago

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Teatime*

Kinktober Day 15: Face Sitting with Elucien

AN: This is my first non x reader post. We don't have a lot of interaction between these two yet, so i don't really know their dynamic. I will do my best.

CW: Face sitting, oral(f receiving)

Summary: Elain has accepted the bond in this and lives in the Spring Court with Lucien.

Word Count: 770

⳾⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅*⳾

Elain was preparing a tea out of herbs she grew in her personal garden. Lucien would be back from his hunt any minute now.

She had been so lonely the past two days without him. She'd thought about him every single night.

This tea was his favorite. She'd made it for him after she'd first accepted the bond, merely two weeks ago.

When the door opened, she nearly dropped the teapot. She placed it on the table and ran to the door, leaping into his arms.

He chuckled, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing tightly. She rested her head on his shoulder, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Lain, it's only been two days," he cooed, stroking her golden brown hair.

"I know, I just missed you," she sniffled, pulling back to glance up at him. He smiled, kissing her forehead.

"I missed you, too, love," he promised.

"I made you some tea," she said, taking his hand and leading him to the kitchen. He sat at the table, allowing her to pour him a cup.

She enjoyed doing little things like that for him. Though he was fully capable of doing them himself, he let her because he saw how happy it made her.

It was nothing like his own mother, who did everything for her husband because she had no choice. Elain did it because she wanted to show him how much she loved him. He appreciated that.

He and Elain retired to the bedroom when they were done drinking their tea.

Elain immediately got down on her knees, undoing his belt, the same way she had always greeted Grayson when he returned from a long day.

"Not yet, little flower," he decided.

"You've been gone two days," she said. "You need your release."

He stroked her cheek. She still had traditional views of servicing her husband, left by her last relationship. He desperately wanted to show her that her pleasure mattered just as much as his.

"You made me tea," he recalled. "You greeted me at the door. You have been so perfect while I've been gone. I think I need to reward you."

She got to her feet, her confusion showing on her face. He climbed onto the bed and laid on his back.

She got on the bed as well, going to unbuckle his belt again.

"Not yet," he repeated.

She stared, her eyebrows furrowed. She could see that he was hard. It was her job to take care of that. She'd been taught that during her engagement.

"You are just as aroused as I am," he pointed out to her.

"I can handle it," she whispered.

"I want you to lift your skirt and take your underthings off," he told her. She obeyed, though she wasn't sure where this was going. "Now I want you to come over here and sit on my face."

Her cheeks went red. She'd never once heard of such a thing. Why would he possibly want her to do that?

"Trust me, my love," he said, chuckling at the shock on her face.

"Won't I hurt you?"

"Of course not," he promised.

She flushed, but did as she was told. She climbed up to the top of the bed and carefully set herself on his face, hovering just above him.

He gripped her hips and pulled her down, his tongue lapping at her clit. She let out a loud moan, grabbing his wrists.

He didn't let up. He parted her lips with his tongue, flicking it around to find the spots that made her a mewling mess.

And she was a mewling mess.

Already, she was whining, moaning, and whimpering above him. Nobody had ever used their mouth on her before. She'd heard about it briefly, but usually blushed and left the room when conversations like that arose.

His tongue dipped into her cunt, making her gasp and grind her hips against his face.

Her head was thrown back as she relished in the pleasure unlike any she'd ever felt before.

"Lucien," she moaned, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. "Gods, Lucien."

He hummed against her heat, making her tremble as her vision nearly faded to black. Her stomach was so tight. She whimpered, her hands in his long hair.

"Mother above," she cried out as the tightness released.

Her orgasm overtook her, more powerful than any she'd ever felt before. She gasped, riding his face until the pleasure faded.

She fell back onto the bed, panting as she tried to catch her breath. He chuckled, sitting up and wiping her release from his face.

⳾⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅*⳾

Elucien Taglist: @roxan1930

General Taglist:

comment to be added to the taglists!

⳾⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅❀⑅*⳾

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renehall-pharroe · 2 months ago

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Just me hoping to stand in front of a book announcement very soon and say this

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1800naveen · 1 year ago

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I hate Tik Tok. I saw a comment saying that Rhysand is a better High Lord than Tamlin. Re-read those books and find out who the better Lord is. The Spring Court loves Tamlin, he'd play the fiddle alongside them and the fiddle is considered lower class, he doesn't enforce ranks, he protects his Court, and he would fight and die for his Court if it met they would be safe. One of the best High Lords for centuries until Feyre wanted to fuck it up.

2/3 of the Night Court hates Rhysand and highly wants that man dead. He doesn't care about the women of Illyria and Hewn City, he lets the men abuse the women, and uses the Illyrians only when it comes to battle.

Hewn City must have hundreds of people who wish to leave and see the beautiful outside, who are dreamers. But Rhysand keeps them in a MOUNTAIN. I can't imagine how many citizens have died before seeing the night sky. The young girls that will follow in the saddening footsteps of their mothers and the young boys who will become like the men around them.

Rhysand cannot be the most powerful High Lord if the majority of his Court hates him. He can't protect the women and children so how can he be the most powerful?

Rhysand and his inner circle are literal Fascists. Fascism is political ideology characterized by authoritarianism, nationalism, suppression of opposition, and often a dictatorial leader. It emphasizes strong centralized control, militarism, and the belief in the supremacy of the nation or race (If you didn't know the meaning, also I got this off of ChatGPT, Google was confusing me on the definition). If this doesn't give off the vibes of the inner circle, I don't know what does.

I already compared Rhysand to Donald Trump so calling him a fascist ain't gonna hurt anyone.

RIP to Rhysand, you would love voting for Trump and overturning Roe Vs Wade.

#anti rhysand #pro tamlin #anti inner circle #anti acotar

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tubbsmccracken · 4 months ago

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On this day - March 6, 1857

Dred Scott

In the spring of 1846, Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, thought they had a chance at freedom. They lived in Missouri, a “slave state,” but their enslavers had previously taken them to free states or territories where slavery was outlawed. Other enslaved people had won so-called “freedom suits” in St. Louis courts thanks to Missouri’s “once free, always free” doctrine, which held that once an enslaved person had been taken to free territory, they remained free even after they returned to a “slave state.”

When the Scotts’ enslaver died, leaving his estate to his widow, the Scotts sued for their freedom. The Scotts’ case moved slowly through the legal system, ultimately reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. Five of the nine justices were from families that enslaved people.

On the morning of March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Taney read aloud the 7-2 majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Scotts were not, and never could be, American citizens, the Court held, and therefore had no right to sue in federal court. They would remain enslaved.

The Court viewed the principle in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” through the lens of white supremacy. Those words “would seem to embrace the whole human family,” the Court acknowledged. However, “it is too clear for dispute,” that no one had ever intended such equality to apply to Black people, enslaved or free. By the “common consent” of all “civilized Governments and the family of nations,” the Court said, “the negro race” had been ”doomed to slavery.”

The Dred Scott decision validated the doctrine of racial difference, enshrining racist ideology that continues to haunt our nation today.

#racisminamerica #racialtrauma #hatred

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silverflameataraxia · 5 months ago

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This fandom is so backwards.

Feyre destroys an entire court and people say the Spring Court citizens are better off.

Nesta frees Midgard and saves all worlds, and these same people say she deserves to be executed.

#acotar #antifeyre #spring court #nesta is a boss #acowar #nesta archeron #hofas #pro nesta #anti acotar fandom #nesta #nesta acotar #nesta deserves better #nesta supremacy #nesta stan #lady death #nesta is a queen #queen of queens

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the-ruby-enchanter · 3 months ago

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When are we gonna start questioning this blind trust in Lucien?

Can we please stop pretending he's just chillin’ as Rhysand’s loyal messenger boy?? Like?? This man is called Fox for a reason — and last time I checked, foxes aren’t known for blind obedience or playing fetch for High Lords they can’t stand.

He’s out here supposedly helping: 🔹 A man he clearly doesn’t like, who served Amarantha for 50years 🔹 A woman who literally destroyed the only home he ever had, mocked his new one, and then dipped. 🔹 A court that’s using his mate like a chain around his neck.

And y’all think he’s just fine with that?? Sweet baby Lucien, loyal Lucien? Nah. I don’t buy it.

I like to believe that deep down, Lucien is playing his own game. Maybe even pulling a secret alliance with Tamlin to rebuild Spring — not because he’s a villain, but because he’s smart, strategic, and not about to let any court use him like a pawn.

I mean, come on. He’s a fox. It’s time he starts acting like one. 🦊

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whitesinhistory · 4 months ago

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In the spring of 1846, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet Robinson Scott thought they had a chance at freedom. They lived in Missouri, a “slave state,” but their enslavers had previously taken them to free states or territories where slavery was outlawed. Other enslaved people had won so-called “freedom suits” in St. Louis courts thanks to Missouri’s “once free, always free” doctrine, which held that once an enslaved person had been taken to free territory, they remained free even after they returned to a “slave state.” Mr. Scott suffered from tuberculosis and, at close to 50, he was considered old, especially for an enslaved person. Harriet Scott was in her late 20s. The couple had two small children, Eliza and Lizzie. Two sons had died in infancy. Black families were at the mercy of enslavers who routinely sold and separated family members. Mr. Scott’s first wife had been sold away and sent to a plantation in Arkansas. The man who enslaved Dred and Harriet Scott and their two small children, Eliza and Lizzie, died in 1843, leaving his estate to his widow. Enslavers’ deaths sometimes resulted in children being sold away from Black families at estate sales. Mr. Scott tried to buy his family’s freedom, but the widow turned him down. After that, the Scotts filed a freedom suit in St. Louis Circuit Court. "This is a case of a family that wants to stay together," said historian and legal scholar Lea VanderVelde. The Scotts cited the case of a woman identified as Rachel who, like them, had been taken by her enslaver to Fort Snelling, a free territory where slavery was illegal, before returning to Missouri. She later won her freedom suit. Enslavers often retaliated against people who filed lawsuits, but researchers have unearthed records of nearly 300 freedom suits—including the Scotts’—filed in St. Louis between 1814 and 1860. More than 100 plaintiffs succeeded in winning their freedom. Those who risked violent reprisals and separation from their loved ones to sue for their freedom should be celebrated as “America’s first civil rights litigants,” historian David Thomas Konig said.

The Decision

The Scotts’ case moved slowly through the legal system, reaching the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856. Most of the justices were from families that enslaved people. Chief Justice Roger Taney, the son of wealthy Maryland tobacco planters, had emancipated the enslaved people he had inherited, but he remained, at 80, a staunch defender of white supremacy—as was Andrew Jackson, the president who had put him on the court. By one account, Justice Samuel Nelson’s tuition at Middlebury College was financed in part by his father selling an enslaved girl. On the morning of March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Taney read aloud the 7-2 majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Scotts were not, and never could be, American citizens, the Court held, and therefore had no right to sue in federal court. They would remain enslaved. The Court’s decision denied citizenship to all Black people in America—to the four million enslaved men, women, and children whose backbreaking, unpaid labor powered the nation’s economy, as well as to the several hundred thousand Black people who were free.

An illustration of Dred and Harriet Scott.

The Court’s ruling validated the doctrine of racial difference and hierarchy that had been used to justify racialized slavery and continues to haunt our nation today The Court described Black people “as beings of an inferior order” and concluded that Black people are “altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations.” The Court also found that Black people are “so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”. The Court viewed the principle in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” through the lens of white supremacy. Those words “would seem to embrace the whole human family,” the Court acknowledged. However, “it is too clear for dispute,” that no one had ever intended such equality to apply to Black people, enslaved or free. By the “common consent” of all “civilized Governments and the family of nations,” the Court said, “the negro race” had been ”doomed to slavery.” The Court could have limited its judgment to the Scotts’ quest for citizenship. Instead, the Court broadened the ruling to address the bitterly contested question of slavery in the territories. In 1820, Congress had enacted the Missouri Compromise, which banned slavery in territories north of the Missouri state line. Mr. Scott’s case was based largely on his enslaver having taken him to Fort Snelling, which was located in free territory that is now Minnesota. But the Court held that Mr. Scott was property and the Constitution does not allow the government to deprive a citizen of property without due process of law. With this reasoning, the Court ruled against Mr. Scott and legalized slavery in the territories by overturning the Missouri Compromise. It was only the second time the Court had overturned an act of Congress.

Amid escalating national tensions over slavery, Dred Scott’s obscure “freedom suit” took on monumental significance. Newly elected President James Buchanan had pressured Associate Justice and fellow Pennsylvanian Robert Grier to persuade other members of the Court to broaden the ruling in favor of expanding slavery. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1857, Mr. Buchanan—knowing how the court was about to rule—predicted that the decision would settle the slavery question and that the country would be “most happy” with the ruling. Justice Benjamin Curtis, from Massachusetts, wrote a stinging dissent and resigned from the Court shortly afterward, reportedly in part because of the decision. Abraham Lincoln, then a candidate for U.S. Senate from Illinois, said the Court had turned the Declaration of Independence into a "mangled ruin." “The court had lost all moral authority,” historian Eric Foner said, “at least in the northern half of the country.” “In the spring of 1857,” said historian David Blight, “to be Black in America was to live in the land of the Dred Scott decision, which in effect said, ‘You have no future in America.’”

Black Americans Respond

Black leaders who were already risking their lives to resist slavery and advocate for equality voiced their outrage at the Court in editorials and speeches. A month after the decision, hundreds of Black people gathered at the Israel Church in Philadelphia, four blocks from Independence Hall, to draft protest resolutions. Charles Remond declared that his grandfather had fought for his country in the Revolutionary War. Now, that same country “grinds us under its iron hoof and treats us like dogs,” he said. Reporting on the Philadelphia meeting in The Provincial Freeman, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a Black abolitionist who had moved to Canada, implored Mr. Remond and other leaders: “Your national ship is rotten, sinking. Why not…leave that slavery-cursed republic?”

Five generations of an enslaved family in South Carolina, 1862. (Library of Congress)

Robert Purvis, a Black leader who was active in the Underground Railroad, said that Dred Scott meant the government had “deliberately, before the world [declared] one part of its people disenfranchised and outlawed.” Frederick Douglass declared that “this infamous decision of the Slaveholding wing of the Supreme Court maintains that…slaves are property in the same sense that horses, sheep, and swine are property.” The Court’s thundering denial of the humanity of Black people drove Mr. Douglass into a depression, historian David Blight wrote, and yet he kept giving electrifying speeches about the promised future of Black people as free and equal Americans. The justices did not have the last word, Mr. Douglass declared, God did. The Court had made America “awake” to the slavery question at last, he said. “My hopes were never brighter than now.” Mr. Douglass’s former North Star co-editor, Martin Delany, who had been admitted to Harvard Medical School but was forced out after white students complained, responded to Dred Scott—and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850—by writing a novel whose hero escapes bondage and plots an overthrow of slavery. The novel was serially published in The Anglo-African Magazine in 1859.

Before Dred Scott

The role of the Supreme Court in legitimizing slavery and embedding the narrative of racial hierarchy in the legal system long predated Dred Scott and continued long afterward. In 1842, Margaret Morgan and her six children were seized from their beds in Philadelphia in the middle of the night by Maryland lawyer Edward Prigg and three other white men, loaded into an open wagon, and taken forcibly south to Maryland, where slavery was legal. Mrs. Morgan had been born in Maryland, where her mother had been enslaved. But the will of her mother’s long-deceased enslaver seemed to free Margaret Morgan. She married a free Black man from Pennsylvania, and in 1832 they moved to Philadelphia. They did not consider themselves fugitives. But the descendants of the man who enslaved Mrs. Morgan’s mother hired Mr. Prigg to “return” Mrs. Morgan and her children to Maryland.

An 1851 placard posted in Boston warns Black residents about local police officers kidnapping and re-enslaving people under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. (Corbis)

Mr. Prigg and the other men who kidnapped and trafficked Mrs. Morgan and her children to Maryland were convicted of violating a Pennsylvania law that barred profiteering kidnappers from capturing Black people and turning them over to enslavers or auctioneers. But in an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional. The Court’s opinion pointed to the Constitution’s section enabling enslavers to “retrieve” fugitives from bondage. In a separate opinion in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, Chief Justice Taney said anyone who prevented enslavers from forcing people back into bondage was “a wrongdoer,” and any state law that interfered was “null and void.” Prigg was one of several cases in the 1840s and ‘50s where the Taney Court upheld so-called fugitive slave laws designed to aid enslavers. As Andrew Jackson’s attorney general, Mr. Taney had written in 1832 that Black Americans were “a degraded class” and any rights they enjoyed were because of white Americans’ “benevolence.” Margaret Morgan and her children disappeared into bondage. Mr. Prigg, who went unpunished along with his accomplices, became a sheriff.

The Reconstruction Amendments

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, enacted between 1865 and 1869, effectively reversed Dred Scott by abolishing slavery (except as punishment for crimes), extending citizenship rights to Black Americans (including the right to vote for Black men), and guaranteeing them equal protection of law. But even as Dred Scott was overturned, white supremacy was not. White people organized a brutal resistance against Black citizenship, deploying violence and terror to crush Reconstruction. In response, Congress passed a series of Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871, the broadest being the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Southern white leaders called that act an unjustified federal intrusion on state authority. Adopting the Southern view, the Supreme Court issued opinions that severely undermined the legal architecture of Reconstruction. In case after case, the Court failed to protect Black people from terror, violence, and lynchings. While Black men who tried to vote risked being maimed and murdered, the Court concerned itself with whether laws like the Enforcement Acts might “fetter and degrade the State governments.”

The Court’s dismantling of Reconstruction was orchestrated by John Archibald Campbell, a white attorney and former Supreme Court Justice who had voted with the majority in Dred Scott. Mr. Campbell, an enslaver, had left the bench in April, 1861 to help lead the Confederate States of America. After the Confederacy lost the Civil War, he bitterly opposed Reconstruction. In 1872, Mr. Campbell represented a group of white New Orleans butchers who claimed that efforts by Louisiana’s Reconstruction legislature to regulate their industry violated their Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. They lost their appeal to the Supreme Court in the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases, but the ruling gave Mr. Campbell and other opponents of Reconstruction what they wanted. The Court severely undercut the Fourteenth Amendment by holding that citizenship rights were enforceable only in state courts, which were dominated by the white ruling class and utterly hostile to claims by Black people in the South.

A Massacre Unpunished

Nearly three years later, in another case that went before the Supreme Court, John Campbell represented white men who had participated in the 1873 massacre of an estimated 150 Black people in Colfax, Louisiana. The bloodbath followed Louisiana’s fiercely contested 1872 gubernatorial election, where supporters of the white supremacist candidate refused to accept his defeat and set out to install their own local officials in Grant Parish. Black citizens surrounded the Grant Parish courthouse and other municipal buildings in Colfax to prevent the takeover. Hundreds of armed white men attacked the courthouse and killed an estimated 150 Black people, many of whom had already surrendered. Three white men died.

Rutland Weekly Herald (Rutland, Vt.), May 1, 1873

Under the 1871 Enforcement Act, federal prosecutors secured convictions of William J. Cruikshank, a cotton planter who had served on the parish governing board, and two other white men. They appealed, and the Supreme Court reversed the convictions, ruling in Cruikshank vs. United States that the Fourteenth Amendment “prohibits a state,” not individuals, from violating people’s rights. Mr. Cruikshank and other perpetrators of one of the bloodiest acts of racial terror during Reconstruction went unpunished. Legal scholar Leonard Levy wrote that Cruikshank “in effect, shaped the Constitution to the advantage of the Ku Klux Klan." The decision eviscerated the Enforcement Acts. The Justice Department dropped 179 Enforcement Act prosecutions in Mississippi alone. Emboldened white men no longer wore masks and increasingly carried out daylight attacks on African Americans.

Fleeting Freedom for Dred Scott

Soon after Dred Scott, descendants of the Scotts’ enslavers “purchased” the Scott family and freed them. Mr. Scott found work as a porter at a St. Louis hotel. He told a local reporter—in some of the few published words ever attributed to him—that the long court fight had given him “a heap [of] trouble,” according to The Anti-Slavery Bugle. If he had known it would take so long, Mr. Scott said, he would not have sued. He wished he could travel the country to “tell who he is.” But he died of tuberculosis in 1858, before he turned 60. Born enslaved, Mr. Scott lived for only 16 months as a free man. Harriet Scott, who worked as a laundress into her later years, died in 1876. She was 61.

Descendants gather at Dred Scott’s grave at the Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2007. (MSNBC)

Roger Taney died in 1864. In 1865, Congress tried and failed to fund a bust of him to be placed in the Capitol along with those of his predecessors. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts argued that a man who had done evil “should not be complimented in marble.” A few years later, as white attitudes about Reconstruction began to shift, Congress approved the bust of the late chief justice and it was installed in the Capitol. In 2022, after George Floyd’s murder and amid a movement to remove Confederate monuments along with memorials to those who upheld white supremacy, Congress voted to replace Mr. Taney’s bust with one of Thurgood Marshall, the great civil rights lawyer who in 1967 became the Supreme Court’s first Black justice. In February, 2023, the bust of Mr. Taney was removed from the Capitol. In September, 2023, through the efforts of Mr. Scott’s great-great-granddaughter, Lynne M. Jackson, a towering memorial was erected at his grave in St. Louis.

Roger Taney’s descendant, Charles Taney III, publicly apologized to Ms. Jackson, and to all African Americans, “for the terrible injustice of the Dred Scottdecision” on its 160th anniversary. Ms. Jackson hugged him.

While individual justices, too, have condemned the decision, the Supreme Court has never officially apologized for Dred Scott.

#white history #us history #black history #history #republicans #democrats

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c-e-d-dreamer · 9 months ago

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*Incoming from Prythian Mail. The envelope is thick as the sexual tension between ACOWAR Nessian and smells of something that is so abstract it can barely be considered an adjective*

Elucien and Valkyrie supremacy, the impeccable taste continues!

Alright, let’s get into brass tax here, friend. A little more specific, jump right in now that we are clearly on a path to being best friends for life and fighting in the blood right together.

1.) How do you feel about the holiday aspect of SS? Big Christmas fan? Want to see Nessian at Solstice? Get 8 candles for a Nessian Hanukkah? Vaguely winter wonderland vibes? Nessian escapes it all to have the holiday season on a beach in Mexico/the Summer Court? I’m happy to be as holiday-forward or light as you want!

2.) Dream setting - canon or AU? If Canon, is there a specific time period you’re obsessed with? If AU, modern or other fantasy? Reach for the stars, I have no boundaries on what creatures can be made hot. If there’s something you’ve had on your mind, I’m here to fulfill your wish!

3.) let’s talk genre - fluff? Smut? Angst? Hurt/Comfort? Longing? Pain with a happy ending? Let me know any preferences and also anything you DON’T want!

*Letter disappears like all the side characters Feyre met in the Spring Court who are never brought up again*

Mmmm that ACOWAR Nessian tension.... I can taste it. I can feel it. I can cut it with a knife 🥵

1) Honestly? Whatever makes you most excited to write! I'm totally okay with holidays and holiday things (Christmas Solstice cookies and trees and music). I'm okay with just winter vibes (ice skating and winter markets). And I'm also okay if you say fuck it, it's July in this fic now 😂

2) I will say, I love an AU! Historical/Regency? Slaps. Modern AU? Slaps. You mentioned creatures? 👀 Werewolves and other shapeshifters absolutely slap!

3) Again, I love all things so whatever is really speaking to you! Wherever inspiration is taking you! I love pain. I love giggling and kicking my feet. I love steamy. As long as the happy ending is there? Sold. I feel like the only things I don't like are.... cheating/infidelity? Age gaps in a non-magical/modern Universe? Uhhhh... Maybe that's it? This is hard. I feel like I read most things

But I hope these answers help? Idk if they do. But I hope this Prythian Mail response finds you well! Unlike those poor Spring Court sentries #RIP

#secret santa #answered

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jkarchitecture · 2 months ago

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The Little Red Pump

Just north of Christchurch gate at Canterbury Cathedral there is an inconspicuous junction between Sun Street, Guildhall Street, Orange Street and Palace Street. This Space is a bustling area for a mix of users and sees home to a myriad of shops and restaurants that mark the start of the King’s Mile.

However the proportions of this junction appear to emulate that of a forum and not a transient space for connection. It almost appears to be out of place with such a deliberate perforation of the urban grain. Especially being so close to the market forum of the old butter market.

After falling down the research rabbit hole, information about the neighbouring building of no.1 Palace Street shed a bit more light on what this area of Canterbury was used for.

No.1 Palace Street was formerly in use as a processing workshop for leather and subsequently rushes (a material predecessor to modern day carpets). There was reference that this confluence of streets operated as a rush market for local people to buy the business’s product.

“The Rush Market, where rushes were sold, was held at the Red Well; a red pump as a sign on a house in Palace Street still indicates the locality. The demand for rushes arose from the almost universal practice of strewing them upon the floors of houses before the use of carpets became general”

However, looking at modern photographs and even walking by this space which is now occupied by what I am going to describe as a ‘spiritual’ retailer. You will notice that there is an attachment to the front facade of this building which adds to the quirky nature of the current retailer and a further unique element to the building’s facade; however this red water pump has little to do with the building’s current occupation, or its historical ownership.

Since this quirky facade detail is so easily overlooked, it in no doubt leaves the few that spot it asking themselves, why is it here?

Well, the information is seemingly sparse on specifics however a map from 1768 by Andrews and Wren shows the presence of a pump at the centre of this intersection.

MAP

A plan of the city of Canterbury : survey'd by Jn.o Andrews & Mat. Wren

London : printed & sold by A. Dury in Dukes court St. Martins lane & W. Herbert no. 27. in Goulston square White Chapel

1768

I thought that I should include an interesting digression from this article. This intersection was formerly called The Dancing School Yard as this junction marked the entrance to the site of Canterbury’s Theater.

The map also highlights that this area is almost unrecognisable today as this area of land and the surrounding buildings used to form the mansion and residency to that of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England during the reign of King Henry VIII. who was subsequently dragged to the site of the red pump and publicly beheaded as he did not recognise the legitimacy of King Henry VIII’s reign, henceforth denying his supremacy.

Sir More’s estate was subsequently demolished.

Back to the article

The presence of a well in this area appears to be well documented as a central fixture to the urban landscape of the expanding mediaeval city. The presence of this well, being documented by a Roman milestone, suggests that this pump had been a long established fixture within Canterbury.

Canterbury appears to have been well supplied with springs, a factor which may have lead to its adoption as a settlement from prehistoric times. This, together with Canterbury’s considerable importance as a pilgrimage goal through the middle ages, has also not surprisingly resulted in a number of noted cult and religious watering holes being exploited.

The most famous of which was one such spring located under the Cathedral. Reportedly being sourced where the choir now stands within the cathedral grounds. However a stone cap in the Crypt suggests this is the more likely origin.

St. Thomas’s Shrine was associated with a healing spring. Even before his martyrdom the site was a popular pilgrimage destination due to the healing properties of the water from the iron rich chalybeate springs which run under Canterbury.

This Spring became a notable revenue stream for the cathedral, however in 1538, during England's reformation, Lord Cromwell put a stop to pilgrimages to Canterbury and The King's Commission destroyed Beckett’s Shrine shortly thereafter, due to this, the well was consequently lost.

However, outside the cathedral, the nearby “Red Well” became a secondary source to access the spring’s healing waters. It was said that the pump for this nearby well was painted red as a memorial to the saint’s death after the martyrdom.

The affiliation to the Shrine of St Thomas Beckett affirmed the use of the name "Red Well" or "Red Pump Well". However the use of this name had been around for a much longer time, as the local story states that it sometimes produced red coloured water. This was conveniently linked to the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett but as the area is well-known for its chalybeate springs it may suggest that the latter explanation might be closer to the truth.

Regardless of which version you choose to believe, the pump’s alluring colour choice is a fitting emulation of its physical context and the legend of Canterbury.

Despite the well’s definitive use and importance within Canterbury’s development. An ordinance from 1825 was passed that allowed improvement works to be carried out to pave over the roads leading up to the Archbishop’s Palace.

This enabling act for the commissioners of the pavement of the city of Canterbury may have included the removal of the water pump as the roads of Palace Street, Northgate and the borough of Staplegate (Orange street up to Westgate) were realigned.

It was not until 1870 when it was documented that the Red pump was presumably removed as it was discovered that this pump was sitting on top of a small piece of ancient history.

Citing an entry from village pumps.org “and in April, 1870, a well, no doubt the "Old Red Pump Well," was discovered in the middle of Palace Street, opposite Mr. Mummery's. (1no. Palace Street) It was 4 feet wide, and compactly made of flint work - a very ancient well.”

This was an interesting piece of history, especially due to the rarity of surviving wells dating back to this time. Additionally red pump ties into the context of the Stour catchment area and documentation of the old roman baths at Northgate. This goes to show that the red pump is but one of the many facets of Canterbury’s inherited infrastructure and gives an amazing glimpse into how this city is shaped into the place that we see today.

Although no longer in use, the Red Pump remains as a subtle reminder to this city’s long standing relationship to its natural environment and how water has played a pivotal part in shaping the physical development of the city and its people.

Hasted, E. (1800) "Canterbury: The borough of Stablegate." The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 11. Canterbury: W Bristow, 1800. 292-294. British History Online. Web. 26 April 2023. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol11/pp292-294.

Canterbury: The borough of Stablegate | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk)

HOLLYWELL, (2006), St Thomas's Well (Canterbury) - Holy Well or Sacred Spring in England in Kent, [online] At: St Thomas's Well (Canterbury) Holy Well or Sacred Spring : The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map:, (Accessed 26/04/2023).

Machado, T. (2014) Palace Street, [online] At: Palace Street, Canterbury (machadoink.com), (Accessed 26/04/2023).

Machado, T. (2014) St. Radigund’s Bath, [online] At:St. Radigund's Bath, Canterbury (machadoink.com) (Accessed 26/04/2023).

Pixyledpublications, (2019) The Ancient Water supplies of Canterbury, [online] At:The Ancient Water supplies of Canterbury | holyandhealingwells, (insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.com), (Accessed 26/04/2023).

Williams, R, K. (2006) Kent, [online] At: canterbury red pump well history (villagepumps.org.uk), (Accessed 26/04/2023).

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