Fairfield House News: Prince Ermias visits
The Crown Council President returns to his grandfather's house. Also in this issue: upcoming events, meet the team, meet the community, progress on repairs.
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Upcoming events in 2024
Sat 6 Jan Rastafari Community Gena Sabbath Observance
Th 11 Jan -Sat 27 Jan House closed
Sun 28 Jan Ethiopian Community Gena/ Timket
Sun Feb 4 House reopens to visitors for historical guided tours
Sat 2 Mar Race to Adwa march and celebration
Sat 9 Mar Celebration of Sylvia Pankhurst: workshop and new short film
Prince Ermias visits Fairfield House
HIH Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie, President of the Ethiopian Crown Council, visited Fairfield House with guests in November. Returning to the house his grandfather gifted to Bath he met Elders, community members, volunteers and special guests including the King’s representative in Somerset and the University of Bath vice-chancellor.
The party took a historical guided tour including the Kidane Meheret prayer room, and enjoyed an Ethiopian lunch. Prince Ermias remarked on the huge progress since his last visit over 20 years ago, and gave special thanks and recognition to the work of Bemsca and the Fairfield team.
Council and volunteers work to refurbish Fairfield House
As part of the new lease and partnership agreement Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) Council has fulfilled its commitment to undertake urgent remedial repairs to the building. Fairfield House meets B&NES regularly to plan and co-ordinate these developments.
B&NES Council provided the scaffolding; Fairfield volunteers made it look right.
From March to September 2023 scaffolding surrounded Fairfield House for assessments and first repairs. Fairfield House is almost 200 years old; keeping it wind and watertight after 30 years of neglect will take some time. Also in September Fairfield volunteers redecorated the drawing room and Princess’ room in colours that reflect the Emperor’s Genete Leul palace in Addis Ababa. The redecoration was funded by a generous anonymous donation gifted on the Emperor’s 131st birthday July 23rd 2023.
Meet the team: Fisseha Combley, director
Fisseha Combley is a chartered Principal Electrical Engineer.
Fisseha Combley brings valuable professional and engineering skills to the Fairfield House board. He also convenes events and activities for the Ethiopian community in SW England, such as the annual celebration of the battle of Adwa. This brings hundreds of Ethiopians to Fairfield House and now also raises thousands of pounds for the preservation of HIM’s legacy.
Fisseha has worked with conservation architects to set out a sustainability road map, because improving energy performance and cutting the bills is of existential importance for Fairfield House.
Fisseha speaking at the Race to Adwa celebration.
“As an Ethiopian community we love celebrating in Fairfield House our Ethiopian Christmas (Genna), Easter and Ethiopian new year (Enkutatash) combined with Meskel (the findings of true cross). On these occasions we like to invite people with connections with Ethiopia, such as British families who adopted Ethiopian children. This gives them an opportunity to experience real Ethiopian traditional festival celebrations,” said Fisseha.
Meet the community: Estlyn Mcfarquar
Estlyn Mcfarquar helped found both the Bath Race Equality Council and BEMSCA.
Estlvn Mcfarquar was born in Barbados in 1943. In 1962 she was recruited by the British Government to study nursing and trained in Bath, becoming a qualified midwife in 1972 and retiring in 2007 - a total of 45 years’ working for the NHS.
Estlyn was involved in the founding of the Bath Race Equality Council, served as chairperson of the Black families educational support group, the secretary of the Bath Police liason group and helped to establish BEMSCA in 1993.
Recent happenings:
Bemsca celebrated Diwali with authentic Indian music food and dance in November. All the Elders - Indian, Caribbean and Chinese - joined the team in Bollywood dancing
Eminent explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell was a surprise visitor on our historic tour. A superb raconteur, he had remarkable stories about meeting HIM
The exciting up-and-coming jazz drummer Yussuf Deyes came on an unannounced visit with his family. We’ll try to get him playing for Fairfield in 2024
Other recent distinguished visitors include the actor Naomie Harris, original rap artists Last Poets, civil rights campaigner Dr Julius Garvey, Public Enemy and Josh from The Wailers and Kelvin Swaby from The Heavy. You never know who will turn up next.
We took HIM’s legacy to the heart of the city, celebrating in October the 69th anniversary of HIM Haile Selassie I receiving the Freedom of the City of Bath with events at the National Trust Assembly Rooms. Over 450 people came. We have more ambitious plans for next year.