That should read 'one-finger' for American readers. But here's welcoming the return of England's only tourist attraction with a cafe where you couldn't drink tea
There's a very welcome ceremony in Rotherham today which sheds light on one of the most interesting episodes of the north's long-standing and entirely justified truculence against centralised power.
The Mayor of Rotherham, Coun Shaun Wright, will preside over a topping-out ceremony at Boston Castle, a little fortified folly with overlooks the Don Valley and can just be glimpsed from the M1.
Its name derives from the USA's Boston and it was built to commemorate the famous Boston Tea Party, not in any spirit of revenge but entirely in support of the American rebels. The man who commissioned it in 1773, the third Earl of Effingham, was one of many northerners who backed George Washington & Co in what was in effect the UK's second civil war. The Northerner's colleague Jonathan Freedland has written a very good book about this: Bring Home the Revolution.
Effingham had a sense of humour and forbade tea-drinking in the folly, which is one of a series which make an excellent northern tour if you have a few days spare this summer. Three similar sites are the Greystoke folly-farms in Cumbria – Fort Putnam and Bunker Hill, named after a rebel general and an embarrassing (for us English) battle; the remains of the American Garden at Meanwoodside in Leeds; and the triumphal arch erected by the Gascoigne family at Parlington Park, also near Leeds, which has the splendidly treasonable inscription: Liberty in N. America Triumphant MDCCLXXXIII (1783).
Last time I visited Boston Castle it was in a terrible state, but that was ten years ago and the local council and Heritage Lottery Fund have since intervened. The unsightly Victorian extension has gone, fabric has been carefully repaired and all sorts of useful amenities are being installed for a new visitor centre and cafe including a lift to the turrets to let everyone admire the view.
The work is part of Rotherham and HLF's wider restoration of Clifton Park which was opened in 1876 to mark the centenary of the American declaration of independence. More on that happy occasion here.
The next happy occasion, the castle's reopening, should come later this year - and here's one thing: the ban on tea must surely remain. What a fantastic tourist attraction for Welcome to Yorkshire, especially for Americans and others from overseas: a place in England where you aren't allowed the national drink. Or at least have to pay a healthy fine.