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Is there Much Wenlock?

Is there Much Wenlock?

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Is there Much Wenlock? There is actually Little Wenlock!

Confused? I'll explain. Little Wenlock is a village, a little south of the town of Wellington in Shropshire, and Much Wenlock is a small market town also in Shropshire. The 'Much' part indicates that it is larger than Little Wenlock. We stayed in Much Wenlock for three nights at the Talbot Inn in High Street. High Street is only one vehicle wide which may give you an idea of the size of the place.

It is a nice little inn with a courtyard accessed through the arch.



The accommodation was basic but comfortable with the bedroom and bathroom ensuite and the food was good.

Immediately opposite the Talbot Inn was Raynald's Mansion dating from the early 1400s. A very impressive building but privately owned and not open to the public.

Near the end of High Street is The George pub and next to that is an alley.

An alley in the Shropshire dialect is a 'shut'. The name, apparently, comes from old english.

Opposite the far end of High Street in Wilmore Street is the 16th century Guildhall another impressive timber-framed building with an interesting interior. The Guildhall is open to the public between April and October on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.



A little further along Wilmore Street is the church built in 1150 by the Cluniac monks of Wenlock Priory.

A little further along the same road we found this rather interesting old police station. Victorian I imagine.

The following day we drove to Church Stretton and into Carding Mill Valley owned by the National Trust. This valley forms part of the Long Mynd which is a heath and moorland plateau and is, itself, part of the Shropshire Hills. The Long Mynd geology is mostly Pre-Cambrian and the high ground is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

I realised at this point that I had left my camera back at the inn. Bother! (or something like that). So for this walk I had to use my smartphone camera.

We set off walking up the valley alongside the small stream.



You may have noticed that there is plenty of heather about. We reached the Lightspout Waterfall which may be  only 12 feet high but attractive nevertheless.

I'm sorry about the strange lady but she just wouldn't get out of the way. At this point we decided that we'd had enough and went back the same way to the car. Driving back to Much Wenlock we stopped en-route to try and get a view from Wenlock Edge.

It was tricky finding a place where trees were not completely obscuring the view and that was the best that we could do.

The following day we went to Ludlow where we've been twice before and there are plenty of pictures of that town already on the web site so I didn't take any more especially as it was dull and cloudy.

From Ludlow we went to Bishops Castle; a little town near the Welsh border and this time I remembered to take my camera.




It was a nice little town but we felt that it had an odd atmosphere. We later decided it was because there were so few people around. I don't know why that would have been as there were plenty of shops and it was only late afternoon. Perhaps they had wind of our visit.

The following, and last, day we went to Shrewsbury on the bus. This is Shropshire's county town and I had been here once before about 60 years ago but could remember nothing about it and Amanda had not been here before.

We both liked Shrewsbury and it had plenty of interesting buildings, many of them timber-framed, and many interesting streets. We got off the bus in the Square right near the Old Market Hall (Elizabethan); the stone building on the left in the next photograph.

This next view is a short way from the bus stop.

Shrewsbury has plenty of narrow alleyways or 'shuts' as they are known in the local dialect although in the last of these three pictures the alley is labelled 'Compasses Passage'. I suppose that alley may have been built or renamed at a date when the term 'shut' had fallen into disuse.



Those steps in the corner of the next picture are Bear Steps named supposedly after a pub called The Bear which no longer exists. These steps take you through the 15th century building, part of which is visible to the left of the steps, and into St Alkmund's Place shown in the second picture below.


The next photograph is Henry Tudor House, in Barracks Passage, built in the early 15th century.

We walked to Shrewsbury Castle and had a brief look from the outside. The original castle was Norman but very little of that remains and the current building, in red sandstone, looks much more modern so we didn't go in.

However we did see this lovely timber-framed building by the castle entrance but I haven't been able to find out anything about it.

Shrewsbury was our last day so after returning to Much Wenlock for the night we travelled back home, without incident, the next day.

 

mTicket to Ride

mTicket to Ride

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No, it isn't a typographic error it's meant to be 'mticket'.

I discovered something rather useful recently. It is that we can buy railway tickets on our railway line via a mobile phone and after paying for them they are then downloaded and stored on the mobile 'phone. These tickets can then be shown on the phone's screen to anyone who may need to see them. We then don't need to visit the ticket office or get tickets from a machine. So I decided to try it.

It has been a long time since we have been on any sort of trip which was because either the weather was bad or because domestic commitments got in the way. For example we have just had the outside of our house painted which was quite a long job but we now seem to be clear of domestic tasks so we were just waiting for a sunny day.

The weather forecasts don't help. A few days ago the weather forecast for Saturday was sunny all day. Then it changed to some sun and some sunny spells. Then it changed again to mainly sunny spells plus the chance of some showers in the afternoon. Then on Friday the forecast for Saturday was mostly sun so we took the chance.

We don't like generally travelling on a weekend because that's when everybody else does but this time the weather dictated when we travelled so on Friday I bought two mtickets and on Saturday 22nd August we caught a train to Norwich for the day.

It cost us less to travel to Norwich than it does to London even though Norwich is a bit further. We boarded a train at our one horse local station, where we have never had to show our tickets, and got off two stops later at Colchester where we caught the London to Norwich train. We were doing quite well until we were just south of Diss where the train slowed down and stopped. Signals I thought but then an announcement was made to the effect that there was a fault on the locomotive. It said that the driver was in contact with the service department and they were hoping to fix the fault within 15 minutes.

About 12 minutes later the train began to move – phew – and we eventually arrived in Norwich about 12 minutes late. I was expecting to show our mtickets on the train at some stage but, no, nobody wanted to see them. I did, however have to show them at the station barrier.

We caught a No. 26 bus in the station forecourt which took us to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. I bet you didn't know that Norwich has two cathedrals did you? This cathedral is no where near as old as the Anglican Cathedral, having been built in the late 1800s, but it is still a very impressive cathedral. When we were in Norwich last, 9 years ago, I did take one photograph of the outside but didn't have time to do any more.

This is another outside view that I took this time from the Cathedral Garden.

We went into their visitor centre, called the Narthex, where we encountered our first dragon. From 21st June until 5th September there are 184 dragons scattered around Norwich which they call an 'Art Sculpture trail'.

We were very kindly given a cathedral tour by one of the Deacons who retired a short while ago but who still obviously loves 'his' cathedral. It was a very interesting tour and we learned a lot that we would not have otherwise known about.

This shows the view along the Nave towards the East End.

There are lots of individual stone sculptures at the base of the pillars, at the top of the pillars and above them showing a great variety of forms and shapes. This is one on the base of a pillar.

This next photograph was taken from the East End looking under the crossing and along the Nave and the one after shows the Crossing.


We finished up having a cup of tea/coffee and a sausage roll in the cathedral refectory and, I must say, their sausage rolls are particularly nice; cooked that day I was told. They do have other food here which I suspect is just as good so if you want a light lunch this is the place to go.

We left the cathedral and decided a quick visit to the Plantation Garden was in order. We photographed it thoroughly last time but the weather was decidedly better this trip and I took another couple of photographs.


If you look, in the second picture, just above the steps on the left you will see Amanda sitting behind the bench under the tree playing her part as an 'extra'.

We made our way back onto the streets of Norwich and headed for the river. In doing so we crossed Pottergate.

Norwich really does have some nice streets. We wound our way through numerous narrow back streets to the river bridge which took us north of the river; an area which we hadn't visited before. Our first point of interest was the 16th century Church of St. Michael Coslany at the junction of Oak Street and Colegate.

It was locked so we weren't able to go inside but it was yet another building with some fine flushwork.

We saw a number of churches which I won't picture or describe here but we finished at St. Georges back in Colegate where we found another dragon.

The view of the church from the eastern part of Colgate was rather nice together with that very attractive timber-framed building which was built by Henry Bacon who became sheriff of Norwich in 1548.


We continued along Colegate and turned right into Fye Bridge Street and along to the River Wensum. Over the bridge we found two more dragons.


We then turned left along Quay Side and thence onto the riverside walk. From there we went a short distance to the church of St. Martin at Palace Plain where I left Amanda to rest whilst I crossed back over the river and found yet another dragon.

I walked along the north bank of the river on the riverside path to try and get a photograph of Cow Tower across the river. When we were last in Norwich I took some photographs of Cow Tower from the same side of the river as the tower and now I have it surrounded.

I walked back to the churchyard to find Amanda and there she was with a 'friend'. It was a Sparrow Hawk which had killed a pigeon and was eating it on the grass a short distance away. When I arrived it stopped eating and glared at me but didn't move away.

After watching it for a while we both moved slowly away and it remained, apparently, undisturbed. We headed back to Quay Side along to Wensum Street then right into Elm Hill. This is Elm Hill.

A well preserved medieval street. Looking in the opposite direction we can see the Britons Arms, the white building, where we are hoping to get afternoon tea.

Amanda had Darjeeling Tea, I had coffee and we both had Raspberry, Cream and Hazelnut Meringue Roulades which were the size of tea plates. On our last visit to Norwich we had lunch here and we both had their home-made pork pie. You just cannot get better anywhere.

After our late afternoon blowout we caught a bus nearby down to the railway station and caught the train home.

A good day.

P.S. Apparently the temperature around our tea time was in the low eighties – too hot. smilies

Dial-a-ferry

Dial-a-ferry

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Six weeks ago to the day we were going to do this very trip but I had a heart attack instead so it had to be cancelled. However no heart attack this time so we left home to do the short drive (10 miles) to East Mersea. You have probably not heard of East Mersea which is not surprising as it is in the middle of nowhere and there is very little there except Salt Marsh, sand and water.

So why are we bothering? Well we don't intend to spend the day at East Mersea as we are going to call the foot ferry which will take us across the water to Brightlingsea. You've probably not heard of Brightlingsea either but never mind.

We parked our car and walked down the footpath to the river wall and this is the view from that river wall.

Across the other side of the River Colne is Brightlingsea. We need to get onto that sandy spit this side because that is where the foot ferry lands. We had, by this time, telephoned  from my mobile phone for the ferry to come over from Brightlingsea to pick us up. The ferry runs a scheduled service from the middle of July to the end of August but outside of those times there is a scheduled service at weekends and bank holidays but during the week it has to be requested by telephone. It's rather novel really and something we have not done before so we had to give it a try.

We reached the beach easily enough although some of it was hard work in the very soft dry sand. One step forwards, half a step back, but we got there. Having reached the pick-up point we could see, in the distance, the ferry making its way toward us.

As it got nearer we could see that there were passengers on board who were obviously coming to East Mersea.

The bow of the ferry grounds on the beach and a small ramp is lowered to afford easy access. That funny woman in the red coat is apparently keen to get on board.

Well she did get on board and so did I and off we set. Warm, sunny and calm – just right. On the way across the boatman and I were discussing our heart attacks, as you do, and in a fairly short time we were nearing Brightlingsea Harbour.

It wasn't long before we were moored at the end of the harbour pontoon and we set off along the pontoon to reach land.


The first rather obvious building we noticed is this one. It used to be the Anchor Hotel but has now been converted to appartments. Dating from around 1901 it is a listed building although only just over a hundred years old. A very attractive building.

A little further along the street is this Cinque Ports Wreck House built around 1811. Interestingly there is another building in Sydney Street in Brightlingsea which is labelled "Cinque Ports Wreck Warehouse". I haven't been able to discover why there are two similarly named buildings.

Having walked from the harbour area into the centre of the town we found Jacobes Hall, reputedly the oldest timber-framed building in England, built during the fourteenth century. The people that lived in this house paid for the church to be built so they must have been pretty wealthy.


 A little further along the same road was another timber-framed hall house.

We wanted to visit the parish church next but it was on the outer edge of the town, about 1.5 miles from the centre, so we decided to go by bus. Built around 1250 this church is not easily missed with a tower not far short of 100 feet high and most of the building covered in flushwork which is extraordinary. In the recent blog post "Following the Stones" I mentioned the flushwork on Hall Place but this church puts it to shame. We have not seen so much flushwork on one building.



There is an unusual feature inside the church in the form of memorial tiles in a strip all round the church. There is one for each parishioner who lost their life at sea – 213 in all.


At this point we realised that we were only about half a mile from the Thorrington Tide Mill, built around 1831, so we decided to walk there. We followed the footpath on the side of the road and soon found the mill entrance. The public have access to the mill only in the afternoon of the last Sunday of each month and also bank holidays so we weren't able to go inside but we did have a good look around the outside.


A tide mill works from a large mill pond, shown in the first of the two pictures above, which is filled at high tide then closed off. After the tide level has dropped the sluice can be opened to let the water back out via the water wheel, shown in the second photograph above, which then drives the mill. Clever eh? We would like to see inside so perhaps we'll have to try and arrange a re-visit when it's open.

We now crossed the road to the bus stop and got the bus back to Brightlingsea but got off one stop before the town centre. This takes us a little closer to Bateman's Tower which we were planning to see next and after a short walk there it was.

That sandy point across the water is where we started this trip from.

Built in 1883 by John Bateman the tower was used as a folly for his daughter to recuperate from consumption; however it may have been intended as a lighthouse as part of a failed plan to expand the port.

You may notice that the horizon in the picture is level but that the tower is leaning so it's not the photographer's fault. It is said that its foundations were laid on bundles of faggots (brushwood) so the fact that it leans shouldn't come as a surprise.

We walked back, on the little promenade, to the harbour where we asked to be taken back to East Mersey on the ferry and thence home.

 

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Following the stones

Following the stones

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We started today with a little trepidation because 4 weeks ago to the day we were also going on a day trip, although to a different destination, and immediately after finishing breakfast I had a heart attack and was carted off to hospital where I spent the next 4 days. It turned out to be a minor heart attack but it is, apparently, going to take 6 weeks to get back to normal (another 2 weeks to go from now).

We were not really expecting any problems today, and there weren't any, so we set off for the railway station.

We were headed for London, change at Stratford onto the DLR for Woolwich Arsenal then just two more stops on South-Eastern Trains to Abbey Wood Station. A short walk and here we are. But where exactly?

This is Lesnes Abbey Woods in the London Borough of Bexley just two miles south of the River Thames at Cross Ness or two and a half miles east of Woolwich Ferry. In the picture above the pointed skyscraper of Canary Wharf is visible near the centre line of the image with the top of the Shard showing more to the left.

The ruins at the bottom of the picture above is one of the features we've come to see. The abbey was built during the 12th century and  the first inmates probably came from the Holy Trinity Priory in Aldgate.

Although there is not a lot of structure left above ground the ruins are quite extensive. The area below was obviously the abbey church showing the bases of the columns in the church nave and the second picture shows its position relative to the other parts.


There are some parts with a significant amount showing above ground as shown here.


The inhabitants were known as Augustinians or Black Cannons and they used to meet every day in the Chapter House to discuss the business of the day and here Amanda is trying to pretend to be one of the  Cannons sitting on the bench. She doesn't seem to have much of an audience (perhaps they were warned that we were coming). smilies

It is interesting to speculate how they aquired, and organised the delivery of, all the stone needed for such a large building especially as there is no stone like it locally. The River Thames, as I said previously, is 2 miles away so the stone could have been delivered by sea – but from where? How would they have contacted the people who could supply the stone.

The abbey ruins are situated next to a wood which we wanted to explore next. Just bear in mind that it isn't flat around here and you will, like us, be going up and down some hills but the wood is really lovely and covers some 217 acres.


We were also looking for some geological deposits known as the Blackheath beds which are very fossiliferous and which I visited about 55 years ago. They were easy to find then, I have the fossils to prove it, but we couldn't find them this time. That was a little disappointing but I'd like to try again sometime.

The abbey was demolished around 1525, partly because of the dissolution of the monastaries by Henry VIII and partly because it was then already in a rather neglected state, and some of the stone was used to build Hall Place (Tudor) about 3 miles away measured in a straight line. We decided to follow the stones to Hall Place and so jumped on a number 229 bus which would take us very near Hall Place. The journey took around 50 minutes because the bus goes a rather long way round but it does make the journey simple.

The walk from the bus stop to Hall Place, which is still in the London Borough of Bexley, was quite short and we had our first glimpse of Hall Place from the road.

It certainly looked interesting so we hurried round to the entrance. Entry to the grounds is free and there is a lot to see but to go into the house requires an entrance fee of £8 per adult, £6 pounds for oldies (us) and a further discount of 50% for National Trust members (also us) so we paid £3 each for the house. If you have a National Art Pass from the ArtFund then entry to the house is free.

However it was now lunchtime so before we got to the house we found their cafe by the River Cray and had some lunch. I had seen some reviews of the cafe on the internet and they tended to be rather disappointing so we were not expecting much. However things must have improved as my soup and bread roll was really tasty and Amanda's bacon sandwich, she said, was exceptionally good. We also had no complaints about our coffee and tea. We sat outside on the river terrace and could watch the ducks and geese swiming about including Mrs Canada Goose and family.


After lunch we crossed the river over the bridge next to the cafe to see the Rock Gardens and it was certainly worth the short walk. You can see the house, with the cafe this side of it, in the second picture which will give an idea of distance.

There was a great variety of plants including some that were of particular interest to Amanda and lots of different colours which made a really attractive display.



Back across the river we turned away from the house towards the greenhouses where we found a large conservatory which was free entry so we went in. There was a rectangular path with the centre taken up with a pond surrounded by lush vegetaion and around the outside of the path were benches covered in various plants, flowers and cactuses.



We then made our way towards the western end of the grounds which had some beautiful areas of parkland together with lots of colour from numerous Azaleas which are in bloom at this time of year.


Walking towards the colour we were soon to realise just how many Azalea blossoms and colours there were and these pictures show just a few.


There was another bridge here over the river which was partly festooned with Wisteria.

The only downside to this part of the grounds is the traffic noise from a very busy road nearby. We turned round here and started to head back towards the house passing through the 'Really Useful Garden' on the way. Yes, that really is the name. It appears to be a herb garden with, yes, really useful herbs and I must say the Box hedges look really neat.

Next we went into this garden with flower beds divided into compartments by rather neatly trimmed wavy hedges. We expected to walk out the far end but discovered that the way in was the only way out.

As we neared the house we encountered the Queen's Beasts – a set of ten brilliantly executed topiary heraldic animals which were planted to celebrate our current queen's coronation. They've grown into big beasts.

At the far end of the Queen's Beasts is this turret on the house demonstrating some pretty impressive flushwork.

In architecture  flushwork is the decorative combination of flint and stone on the same flat plane. Flushwork begins in the early 14th century, but the peak period was during the wool boom between about 1450 and the English Reformation of the 1520s. Flushwork, and flint architecture in general, is usually found in areas with no good local building stone. Although the labour cost of creating flushwork was high, it was still cheaper than importing the large quantity of stone necessary to build or face the entire structure. The dark squares are flint and the light squares are stone.

The same technique has been used on the front of the house to good effect.

We finally went in to this Tudor house built in 1537 although the brick part was added in the 17th century and started our visit in the Great Hall with the Minstrel's Gallery.

Just off the Great Hall is the Kitchen.

One of the other rooms has this ornate ceiling.

Hall Place is one of London's hidden gems and, in our opinion, one that shouldn't be missed. I'm surprised that it isn't better known but I'm glad it isn't. smilies

I am supposed to be taking things easily but I don't think that I did that today. Consequently by this time I was feeling tired and so was Amanda so we decided to call it a day. We caught a bus, from the same stop from which we alighted when we arrived, to Bexley Station and then a train to London Cannon Street and thence to Liverpool Street Station and home.

 

Today I was at Liberty to do as I liked.

Today I was at Liberty to do as I liked.

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Amanda had a lunch appointment today with her sister and, at the moment, it's not easy to find a day where the sun is out for a good part of the day but today was one of those days so I just had to go. Amanda really didn't mind.

I started, as usual, at Liverpool Street Station and caught the number 23 bus which starts here and goes past a number of interesting locations such as the Bank of England and Mansion House:

Then on to St. Paul's Cathedral and Ludgate Hill which seems to have cornered the market in buses. I counted at least twelve.

Going along the Strand I took this photograph which I thought would interest Marie and anyone else who has stayed there.

The funny colour in the top right hand corner is on the window of the bus. Next, Trafalgar Square. Well, Nelson's Column at least. The rest of the square is obscured by traffic.

On the other side of the square is Admiralty Arch which, as you know, leads into The Mall and thence to Buckingham Palace.

Then up Regent Street

to Oxford Street. No I didn't take a photograph of Oxford Street.

At Bond Street Station in Oxford Street I got off the bus  – into mayhem. smilies That's how Oxford Street always strikes me on a normal weekday. God knows what it's like on a Saturday. Perhaps 4:00 AM on a Sunday would be a good time.

Having crossed to the north side of the road, a short walk from the bus stop in the same direction as the bus was travelling, there is a very narrow entrance to Gee's Court which is easy to miss and, to prove it, I managed to miss it but went up James Street instead and the open area on the right into St. Christopher's Place is very easy to spot.

This is Gee's Court looking towards Oxford Street:

and it narrows significantly where it joins Oxford Street. Gee's Court runs into St. Christopher's Place which is tucked behind Oxford Street and would be very easy to miss.



The network of narrow paved streets or alleys harbours an eclectic mix of shops and restaurants with a very pleasant atmosphere.

After looking around St. Christopher's Place I turned south, crossed Oxford Street and turned down Duke Street passing through Grosvenor Square along Carlos Place (keep going straight where the road curves left) past the Connaught Hotel to here:

This gateway could easily be regarded as the entrance to a churchyard especially with the end of a church showing at the back but that assumption would be wrong. This is one ot the entrances to Mount Street Gardens a small public garden/park also known as St. George's Gardens. Because it is so sheltered there are plants growing here that you might not expect. For example there is a Canary Islands Date Palm.


You wouldn't find it worth while to make a special trip to see it however it is worth a vist  if you are in the area.

I now headed east along Grosvenor Street and Maddox Street and on my way passed this impressive church on the corner of Maddox Street and St. George's Street.

It is St. George's Church built in the early part of the 18th century and Mount Street Gardens used to be the burial ground for this church but that usage ceased in the middle of the 19th century.

Continuing across St. George's Street to the other part of Maddox Street I soon arrive in Regent Street with Great Marlborough Street opposite and that is where I go to find this:

Although it looks like an ancient timber-framed building it is actually Victorian. The perfectly straight timbers should give it away. Have you been there? Do you recognise it? There is a name above the door on the angled part but it isn't easy to read. Does this view give you a clue?

Yes, it's Liberty's of London. They give their address as Regent Street but the majority of the building is in Great Marlborough Street shown here. In 1924 this building was constructed, in the Tudor style, from the timbers of two ships: HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan and the frontage on Great Marlborough Street is the same length as the Hindustan. It is a Grade II listed building.

Liberty sells a wide range of luxury goods including women's, men's and children's fashion, cosmetics and fragrances, jewellery, accessories, homeware, furniture, stationery and gifts. Liberty is known for its floral and graphic prints. Let me give you some advice. If you go into Liberty's with your credit cards you could come out bankrupt so don't say you weren't warned.

The inside of the building is a delight and is worth visiting even if you don't intend to buy anything. There are light wells like these which run from the ground floor to the roof.


Even the stairs are nice (there are also lifts).

It is a veritable Aladdins Cave in here. You know you can't afford it.

Time to move on – but not very far. Travelling east along Great Marlborough Street, away from Regent Street, to the end of the Liberty building where I immediately turned right to enter Carnaby Street and I'm in Soho.


Carnaby Street does seem popular and it's certainly busy but I pass through and out the far end. There are plenty of interesting streets in Soho as evidenced by Great Windmill Street, Rupert Street and others.



I eventually turned south down Wardour Street and crossed Shaftesbury Avenue to Chinatown. This really consists of just a few streets – the southern end of Wardour Street together with Gerrard Street, Lisle Street etc.



Colourful init? Even the street names are in English and Chinese.

All I have to do now is find my way through the maze of back streets to the western end of Long Acre via Leicester Square.

Well it's simple enough as far as the junction of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road but then, when I reach Charing Cross Road, I expect to see Long Acre on the other side. But no! On the other side is the continuation of Cranbourn Street. The bit on my map shows Cranbourn Street that I'm in, then a short length of un-named road before Long Acre. I take a chance and go along Cranbourn Street and it does lead into Long Acre.

Why Long Acre? I'm looking for Stanford's the map and guide book shop. Stanford's moved into the shop in 1873 so it must have been built before that.

They have just about every map and guide book that there is and I want to try and find the London AZ Super Scale Street Map (scale: 9 inches to 1 mile) which has every little alleyway marked on it but covers only the central portion of London.

One thing that you can't fail to notice is the floor.


A map of the world on the Ground Floor and a street map of London in the Basement. Fascinating!

I did find my map so that was a worthwhile visit but I'm getting tired so it's once again time to go home. I walk down to the Strand and get an 11 bus to Liverpool Street Station.

I expect we'll be back – both of us next time.
 

 

I went 220 miles to Devon for 30 minutes – Wednesday.

I went 220 miles to Devon for 30 minutes – Wednesday.

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This is my last breakfast at the Royal Lion and my last morning in Lyme Regis. After breakfast, having re-packed my case, I wander up to the bus stop, catch the bus to Axminster Station where I wait for the London train.

So am I homeward bound? Well, yes, but it has occurred to me that one of the stops on route is Sherborne, still in Dorset, and my ticket permits me to break my journey if I so choose. I decide to get off at Sherborne and see if the Tourist Information Centre can find me a bed for the night.

It is only a five minute walk to the TIC, and just before I go in, I can hardly fail to notice Sherborne Abbey in front of me; the stone glowing golden in the sunlight – can't wait. The ladies who run the TIC are very nice and soon fix me up with B&B for one night. I go straight to the B&B so that I can leave my case but the room is ready and I'm soon settled in.

I walk back to the town centre heading for the abbey along Long Street so called because it's, well, long. Near the end of Long Street I can see the tower of the abbey church and, just across the road, another interesting little structure.


This little structure, I discover, is called the Conduit; a 16th century building once used as a washing area by the monks of Sherborne Abbey and after the dissolution of the monastry in 1539 was moved to its present position at the lower end of Cheap Street.

I walked past the Conduit under the 15th century Bow Arch

and soon arrived at the abbey church. Now that is a church and a half!

Next to the abbey is the St. John Almshouse built in 1437 and its Foundation Deed provided for 'Twelve pore feeble and ympotent old men and four old women' the inhabitants to be cared for by a housewife whose duty was to 'feeche in and dyght to the victaill wash wrying make beddys and al other things do'. Got that?

The Almshouse is open to the public between 2 PM and 4 PM but not on Wednesdays (today) so I couldn't go in but I can go in the abbey.



Now that's what I call a nave ceiling. What a lovely bit of fan vaulting.

There are numerous tombs and monuments and there are two Saxon kings buried here. I also saw this broken tomb in the floor complete with bones but I don't know who it was. There is a sheet of glass across the top so there are some reflections.

I left the abbey and walked up Cheap Street and saw this obvoiusly ancient building.

I dicovered that, in 1994, the 19th century facade was removed to expose and conserve the original 15th century structure. This shop has been used as both a candle makers and a shoemakers.

At the top of Cheap Street I found Greenhill with its high pavements. It reminded me a little of Old Hastings.

In The Green itself was this rather nice thatched house and further down is the stone-built Hospice of St. Julian next to the timber-framed building.

There are two castles in Sherborne – Sherborne Old Castle, which is medieval, and the new Sherborne Castle built by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1594. I shall not have time to see both so I'm going to look at the medieval ruins of the old castle.



That was the end of my final day. Whew! What a lot of walking.

Tomorrow I go to the station to catch my train to London and thence to home. It turned out to be straight forward, no more cancelled trains, and Amanda met me at our local station. We both arrived home around 4:00 PM.

There will, of course, be more pictures and detail on the main web site in due course.

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugley

The Good, the Bad and the Ugley

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Yesterday we were thinking of going on a day trip but in the end we decided not to. Why did we not go? Because we had worn ourselves out the day before on another day trip.

We had decided to go shopping. We wanted a mower lift, a coiled hose that stretches to 100 feet and a drill bit sharpener plus some other items. Those every day items that everyone needs. smilies

These were to be purchased from a shop in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. It was only 33 miles from us so it didn't take long to get there and we duly purchased our items and stuffed them in the car.

We walked off into Bishop's Stortford to have a look around. As we were walking away from the shop we noticed the unusual roof.

Shops don't normally have what appear to be strange tapering chimney pots. The reason for those is that the building used to be used for malting. Malting is a process that converts the starch in cereal grain, usually barley, to alternative forms of sugar used in brewing. The conical chimneys of these distinctive buildings emitted a rich aroma of roasted malt, a smell not unlike that of roasting coffee, that permeated the air for miles around.

Those days have long gone but the buildings remain and this one has now been converted to a shop.

We were now in Bridge Street with the 16th century Black Lion Inn just ahead and to our left. This looked to be a fine timber-framed building. There were other nice old buildings in this street.


After walking up Bridge Street we found ourselves in the Market Square with the Corn Exchange on the right and the church tower and steeple showing above the buildings in the distance.


 We wanted to see more of the church so headed in that direction. The continuation of Bridge Street westward is High Street and we spotted a very nice timber-framed building.

This local tailors was one of the oldest businesses in the world until 2013 when it closed. Part of the building dates from about 1360, with modern additions around 1545.

A little way up from here, near to where High Street changes to Windhill, we found the church. A rather large, impressive building in a rather small churchyard making photography difficult. It is unusually long at 170 feet with a spire 180 feet high.

Although there was probably a Saxon, and later, a Norman church on the site, the only surviving fragment of those times is the font. The church seems to have been completely rebuilt in the early fifteenth century and it was altered and restored in both the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

Immediately opposite the church is the Boars Head Inn dating from around 1420 (Tudor).

Samuel Pepys frequented this inn and is recorded as having dined here on 26 May 1668.

Just above this point High Street changes to Windhill a wide and attractive street tree-lined on one side.

You can see evidence of the malting industry again in the form of that tapering chimney and the fact that the house is called 'Oast House'.

So, back down Windhill then High Street to this junction where we turned left into Basbow Lane.

We had spotted some colour-washed houses at the far end when we were on our way up the hill and decided to investigate on the way back. This is what we found.

A nice group of old, pretty houses. At the end of the lane there were some steps down to Hadham Road and an interesting building at the bottom of the steps. The building is, apparently, timber-framed covered in plaster and dates from the 17th century with alterations in the 18th and 19th centuries.

We went back down Bridge Street and crossed the road into Castle Gardens where we saw all that's left of Waytemore Castle – the mound on which it was built.

The River Stort runs through the park and the southern part is navigable.

We followed the riverside path for a while and saw yet more evidence of malting in the form of those tapered chimneys.

We had had enough walking by now so headed back to the car having seen most of the interesting parts of Bishop's Stortford and it wasn't until we were headed out of town that we realised we had missed a bit. A group of old buildings on the junction of Dunmow Road and Stansted Road. Oh well, next time perhaps. That was the 'good'.

We headed north into Essex, through Stansted Mountfitchet, and this is when our situation turned Ugley. In fact it was precisely at this point.

Ugley is a very small village just a few miles south of Widdington. It has a lovely little church which unfortunately was locked.

The road to the church was narrow and they don't come much narrower than this. No hope of seeing out to the sides either.

There was a group of attractive thatched cottages and a few modern houses round about and that was 'Ugley'.

We decided to travel the few miles to Widdington. Remember Widdington? We visited that village in July 2010 and wrote a blog report. We saw a medieval barn there but were unable to see inside because it wasn't open but today it was open.

Now is that impressive or is that impressive?

We had come to the end of our day out and so headed home. Most of the journey back is on the A120, a fast dual carrigeway that is rarely busy, but suddenly we found ourselves being diverted off the road near Braintree with no signs to offer an explanation. We had to make our way through Braintree town centre and eventually to home. That was the 'bad'.

The other day trip I mentioned at the top of this post will happen another time. Wait and see. smilies