Wednesday, 11 September 2024

Oh my goodness!


Yes, my goodness I really need to work on this blogging.    I've forgotten how many posts I've started  then scrapped because they're out of date. Well, this time, I won't scrap what I wrote in early August, I'll just update it...

And sooo, we went to Shrewsbury in Shropshire a few weeks ago, a nice old city full of half timbered buildings of all sizes and with plenty of interesting things to see.  We liked the huge medieval church of St. Mary in the centre of town, open to all to explore,  and busy with exhibitions and special events.   It has a big shady churchyard  excellent cafe, and all its fixtures and fittings are being preserved.  Of all those fine fittings, it was this huge yellow clock from 1747 that appealed to me most.  It was probably intended for use in the service quarters of the church, (now the cafe), but I think it is so elegant and simple.  I think I might like to decorate one of my rooms in this appealing colour scheme of yellow and gold.


 

Shropshire adjoins several different counties, and since we are not often in that part of the world it seemed like a good idea to explore the area a bit.  In a drive that took us into neighbouring Worcestershire, we passed a sort of castle by the side of the road.  It looked to be a  gatehouse and lodge of some old mansion, likely built in the same castle-like style. 

I couldn't find any castles on the satellite map, but since a little sign stood nearby indicating that a public right of way went through the gate, we parked and walked right in to explore.



 After a couple of hundred feet it felt as if we'd entered another realm. It was wonderful.  Acres of crops full of wild flowers stretched out on either side, and no sound but the distant lowing of cattle and hundreds of birds.  It was like a nature reserve, with every hedge and field full of variety and different from the last one.  We couldn't believe it. 





   But, as the cynics say, there is a worm in every bud, and as we got back to the car I noticed a house opposite had a big sign in its window proclaiming "NO QUARRY!"  So when we returned to our Airbnb, I checked up and learned that the land'had once been the grounds of a stately home known as Lea Castle..   Here's a photograph of Lea Castle taken about 100 years ago. 


It seems that so many of Britain's country houses, it fell on hard times and was demolished, and after a while a villagey little care centre for people with learning difficulties was built in one bit of the land .  That has now gone, and there's also a small private housing estate on another bit of the land, though we didn't see it.  All we saw was a riding stables and the farm - all that unspoiled and curiously old fashioned farmland full of heartsease and St. Johns Wort and poppies and broom,  skylarks and a huge colony of rooks. 

Anyway, the quarry.   It seems the farm's owner (opposed by his environmentalist son, apparently) is determined to turn the whole place into a huge quarry which would tear up the whole lot up to extract  sand and gravel for construction. That would mean noise, pollution and constant heavy traffic transporting the sand and gravel.   Many local people think it will be far too near schools and residential buildings to be safe, and earlier this year they  took the developers to court to stop the scheme.   They won, but, predictably, the developer appealed.  When you consider how much money is to be made, the cost of prolonging a court battle must be negligible to a big company, I guess. .

It isn't fair, but the local people have to muster again for another fight.  Read about their campaign  here,  They're fundraising like crazy, seeking volunteer advisors with planning and legal expertise and organising public events. It's like David against Goliath, but I've contributed to their appeal.    I wondered if they could try and get the place designated as a nature reserve, but I don't know if that would be possible. . 

Another day I went from Shrewsbury into South Staffordshire to see the extraordinary rock houses at Kinver Edge, now in the care of the National Trust.  With views over the surrounding wooded hills, these unusual cottages were created a long time ago (nobody knows exactly when) when people burrowed into a bluff of red sandstone called Holy Austen Rock, near the interesting village of Kinver. Some of the dwellings were inhabited until well into the 20th century, and it is said that they were considered rather desirable by many people - at least, tcompared with the draughty ramshackle old cottages where most poor people lived a century and more ago.   But times change, and the houses had been abandoned for years when the Trust took them over. 

  Here's the path from the rock houses down to the village. 


Below, the large tree conceals quite a lot of the site, which is bigger than it looks here. It is built on  three levels, although only a few of the dwellings have been restored or re-purposed so far. 


Something is known of the residents and a few were photographed going about their lives. I snapped one print that I specially liked. It reminded me of the Hobbits, and I love the tin chimney sticking out of the rock! 

One of the cottages is now colonised by bats (it is a cave, after all). Not sure how they get in and out but obviously not through the front door... 


A couple of rooms in the restored cottages have been furnished to look as they did in the early 1900s.  Quite a snug home it must have been - well insulated by all the rock I think.  And that coal range would have been delightful on a lonely winter night. 


A teashop and a respectable Victorian villa are built into the rock face on the top level of the settlement so we bought some tea and sat in a delightful garden amidst the red rocks and looked at the view while we had it. 

And at that point in August, I stopped writing the post, so there it is.....    But I did go to other places and one that I look back on fondly was taking our second oldest grandson, A, to  a Museum of Science Fiction in a lovely little town. 

It's  Bromyard, in Herefordshire, not so very far from Shrewsbury in fact. The museum's housed in an ancient house-turned-shop plus a network of underground cellars at one end of the High Street.  


Bromyard is the sort of large village or small town where cosy British murder mysteries tend to be set .   It is peaceful and well kept, and with baskets of flowers everywhere including the porch of this old pub I snapped in the evening.


Young A. really likes the long running British TV series  "Dr. Who. "   So do his brother and his parents.  In fact, if you're British, you have likely grown up with this iconic programme - I certainly did.   

It revolves around a traveller in space and time called "Dr. Who" and his companion who is generally the opposite sex to the Doctor, though they don't have a romantic relationship.   Both Doctor and companion regenerate into completely different people from time to time and every new Doctor and companion have very distinct styles and personalities.   Their vehicle through time and space is a vintage police phone box called the Tardis, whose main characteristic is being  infinitely larger inside than it appears outside.  

As you've probably guessed, the programme ranges very widely through different adventure scenarios.   Various Doctors  have, for instance,  been captured by stone age people trying to rediscover the secret of fire,  and hung out with Vincent Van Gogh in 19th century France. They have been embroiled in a future war created by a sinister algorithm, met thriller-writer Agatha Christie at a murderous 1926 dinner party, and got mixed up in a war between the Rutans and Sontaran clone species.  Or hundreds of other things.    They encounter other time-and-space travellers regularly (few of them pleasant) and many ohers highly inventive and often creepy monsters and aliens. 

 Of all the aliens in the show, by far the best known are the  Daleks which appeared at the beginning of the first ever series.  You will spot a couple of Daleks in the 18th century bow windows of the museum, and here are some more.


The Daleks are a bit worrying if you're four years old but after being around for about sixty years  they've now acquired a place in British society like the Doctor's familiar old friends who just happen to enjoy acting tough.  Their gravelly  monotone voices and catchword "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" are even more distinctive  than their appendages made out of sink plungers. In fact, they've become so familiar they sometimes make welcome appearances at village fetes, and are sometimes even seen participating in  morris dances.  (And if you can find more unthreatening things than morris dancing, I'd like to know).    But that's good.    At least it is as far as I am concerned. 

The museum has a wonderful collection of props and memorabilia, relying heavier on the earlier episodes than the later ones.  And there's a full sized Tardis in the front office which was used for filming. 


And was pleased  see that K-9, the lovable robot dog, was there in the flesh, so to speak. Here is a poster of K-9  at school. 


For me the museum was all about the atmosphere: very immersive with lighting and sound effects, and a  rambling layout thats' almost entirely underground.   It is so wonderfully idiosyncratic because it all belongs to just one family, I was told.


We all loved it and also liked Bromyard, which has a nice bakery, some old pubs, and lots of individually run, interesting shops.   Original paintings were displayed in the windows of many of the shops as part of an town art trail and when I wandered into Bromyard art studios and gallery I could see why. It is a lively place which runs low cost professionally taught art classes which were clearly very popular and some people were producing some amazing work. Some was on commission, some was for sale.  This picture particularly caught my eye. It is a large canvas of "Leda and the Swan"  and I really liked its feeling of movement and mystery. 


So those were my two most recent trips away from home. Unfortunately I've now done something to my right leg and now staying at home resting it and hoping that I'll be okay to go to Austria in a couple of weeks time. Fingers crossed! 

46 comments:

  1. I hope you get to feeling better so you can do more of your wandering!
    Loved the castle and all the wildflowers. It would be such a shame to see a quarry come up there.
    I am one of the few people who has never watched Dr. Who. I think a lot of Americans have watched it and are great fans, too. I'd want to start at the beginning with the first Dr. Who.
    It is always so nice to see a post from you!! :)

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    1. Thank you Rita, I certainly hope so too. Watching every Dr. Who from the very first one would probably take up a few solid weeks, but some people have done it - not me, though. One of the nicest things about these two trips was getting to see new places. The large country town of Shrewsbury deserves its own blog post some day!

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  2. I must have a visit to Shrewsbury sometime soon...or Amwythig as it is in Welsh..looking at the name the wy but could be water ( as in both places called Wye)....so it could mean surrounded by water.....which it is even when the river isn't flooding.
    I haven't been there for too many years!!

    Weren't a few old houses demolished because then they didn't have to pay rates?

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    1. Yes, although I have found the river surrounding Shrewsbury isn't always that accessible. It can be found looking rather tame in the town centre, but we stayed in a very nice AirBnb within the town boundaries that (according to the OS map) was just alongside the river. And so it was..... but the river was a very very long way down indeed! We were sort of on a cliff and it was so heavily wooded we only caught an occasional twinkle of water below. Determined to see the river, we persevered and finally found a footpath which ran down to river level but ... inside a field with a high hedge and lots of trees between us and the river again. So we STILL didn't see it. I don't remember the story about the old houses which didn't have to pay rates, but will look it up!

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  3. Yes, I do hope you can make the trip to Austria.

    I agree it would be wonderful if the quarry idea was quashed. Leave the pretty places be, for heaven's sake!

    The homes in the rock look like they would have been much better than simple huts and I'm glad they are careful of the bats. Bats are fabulous.

    The museum looks like such fun, thank you for sharing your wonderful finds with us, it doesn't matter how "late" you get them done and published.

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    1. Thank you so much for your nice comment. Yes, it was all a lot of fun, and I'm glad that you enjoyed reading despite the lateness!

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    2. And I was so thrilled to learn you have become a grandma! You have fun in store!

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  4. I'm very glad to see you back, and thank you for the travelogue. Also for explaining Dr Who to this completely unaware reader.

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    1. My daughter just sent me a picture of a "Tardis" on the street in Glasgow. I don't think she had read this blog post

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  5. How did I miss your earlier post... but what fun you have been having, Best wishes for a swift recovery

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    1. Thank you. Unfortunately I can't enable a "follow" button any more , or whatever it is called these days , so I think many people will miss the post because they've given up on me . Which reminds me, I haven't been getting notifications from yours . I'll take a look after I've done this.

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  6. My siblings were avid fans of Dr. Who. I never could get interested. I'm down to one sibling now, and think I'll see if she still finds it on the TV. That little rock room is quite cozy; I could live there comfortably. It cannot be smaller than my current apartment. Turning that property into a gravel quarry would be a complete travesty, for all the reasons the locals have cited.

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    1. I didn't eralise it was so widespread in the US. So it is interesting to see how far it has reached. I know it is now something to do with Disney as well as the BBC so not sure where the new episodes will be screened. Actually the rock house was quite spacious. I think the residents were quite happy there, but the outfit where they worked closed down and they found themselves a bit too far out of town.

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  7. Hopefully, your leg will be fine in time for your Austria trip! O.K. and I are off to the mountains (Southern Tyrolia) Saturday next week, for our annual September hiking holiday.
    Thank you for another superb mix of lovely places to see, intriguing background stories and good pictures.
    The houses in the rock are very special and definitely something I'd like to see. The large window in the restored cottage surprises me; most cottages had small windows in order to keep the warmth in (and of course also because glass was expensive).
    My cousin in Yorkshire has built his own Dalek a few years ago, he's been a Dr. Who fan since he was a little boy in the 1970s. He'd love that museum!

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    1. I hope you and O.K. have a great time on your trip and that the weather is good for you! Yes, I also noted the large window in the restored cottage, so I went back and found that the windows were based on a painting done in about 1900. By then, cottages could have had more modern windows than we associate with the old places of hundreds of years earlier. Here is a link to a very good article, far more comprehensive than mine, about the rock houses by someone who knew them in childhood. https://anneguygardendesigns.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/life-on-the-edge/ Your cousin must be quite a fan to build a Dalek, but I do admit I find them rather lovable myself!

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  8. Two wonderful and informative trips away from home, what a treat. I hope your leg improves quickly, and you enjoy a trip to Austria. Shrewsbury sounds nice (I have seen it a bit on Bargain Hunt), and the Castle gate so picturesque. What a treat to find all those gorgeous flowers, plus birds and cattle. I would love it! It is appalling that Lea Castle has been lost, and a Quarry is proposed. Unfortunately, such things happen over here too. The rock houses are intriguing, and the restored cottage looks pretty and fit for living. I remember seeing an episode of Grand Designs where someone restored a rock house. I wonder if it was at the same location. Our family watched Dr Who while they were growing up, and I spotted those Daleks in the window immediately, and love they had a real Tardis, and good old K-9. Ah, memories. Thanks for a great post. I am getting back into blogging after a big too long of an absence.

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    1. Thanks for your comment, Patricia. Yes, I saw the Grand Designs episode too. That is in the Wyre Forest, and actually fairly near to Kidderminster, so not too far from Kinver,. I was a bit disappointed that it was not for the builder to live in himself, but I think it makes a lovely rental home and as I think he had a chronic illness, it probably provides a decent income too. Looks like a beautiful setting. It's nice to know that Dr. Who has reached all round the world (as some of the comments I've had about it show).

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  9. PS: I meant to say, the yellow-golden clock is fabulous! I don't think I have ever seen one like this before.

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    1. Yes, and it is just in the cafe in what I think was once the vestry. Not one of the grand things in the main part of the church!

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  10. Clearly your August post reveals that you should never scrap them! I loved the old castle grounds, soon to be a wasteland. The Daleks would have taken over the world but someone put a staircase in front of them. Those wee towns look good. Glad you had a good time, and enjoy Austria.

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    1. Yes, whoever invented Daleks never thought about staircases, of such oversights is defeat made! It's one reason they have problems with morris dancing, too!

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  11. Hi Jenny -- So glad to see more photos from your travels. It looks like both were good trips. I think I would have donated to their cause, too. And the Dr. Who thing would be such fun. I really do love that building. That field looks especially beautiful and so unexpected. Much more to come but thank for sharing these terrific photos and stories.

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    1. Such a nice corner of England, and one I haven't been to much in the past. If I'd got my act together then and finished the post I could have written about far more things! But I do plan to return before too long.

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  12. I would much prefer visiting the huge mediaeval church of St Mary than the Museum of Science Fiction, but I bet your grandson had a great time. The links to St Mary show it was beautifully designed and preserved

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    1. It is really a splendid church. I am rather surprised that it is redundant, since it seems to be so very much the centre of the city and is clearly well loved. A similar situation in Marlborough where the marvellous parish church of St Peters in the High Street, where Thomas Wolsey was ordained, was made redundant in favour of a lesser church. Unfortunately in Marlborough a much loved craft market in St Peters has been closed so the church has faded away recently as a place to pop into when in town - at least for now. But they seem to have avoided that in Shrewsbury.

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  13. Thank you Rita, I certainly hope so too. Watching every Dr. Who from the very first one would probably take up a few solid weeks, but some people have done it - not me, though. One of the nicest things about these two trips was getting to see new places. The large country town of Shrewsbury deserves its own blog post some day!

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  14. I was never into Dr Who, but Jenny is a great fan and watches a lot of the repeats. I also like the yellow clock. As you say, elegant and simple. I hope the campaign against the quarry succeeds. And I hope the lesser horseshoe bats remain undisturbed in their cottage.

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    1. Yes, I hope so too - I have an impression that they were not really meant to be there, since I understand the NT actually restored that cottage too! If so it will probably be ankle deep in bat droppings by now!

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  15. Welcome back to blog land, Jenny, and what an informative and interesting post about your adventures. I too will confess to never having seen an episode of Dr Who but can appreciate that the show has a large following. How nice to just found what looked like a castle by the roadside.

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    1. It was a thrill to see it! I felt as if I was walking into a fairy tale going through the gates!

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  16. Jenny, thanks for your comment on my Friday Funnies post about the SUV that crashed into a downtown eatery in recent weeks. The driver was charged with reckless intent with a dangerous weapon and the weapon was not one per se, but the vehicle.

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    1. I suppose a car can be classed as a vehicle. I hadn't thought of that!!

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  17. Well that was a very enjoyable. Shrewsbury used to be a favourite stomping ground but I don't recall many of the nearby towns.

    Of course I watched Dr Who in its inception but after a few series I lost interest. I'm not really a sci fi fan. I always remember wondering why people didn't just go upstairs to get away from the Daleks. I was told recently, though, that they managed to overcome that disability in later iterations.

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    1. Ah, that is the very thing about far fetched stories, Graham..... people inevitably don't think about really obvious things, do they ? !!!!

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  18. Dear Jenny - I’m so interested in the rock houses at Kinver Edge – nice and unique with special ambience. I’m not sure which adjective is suitable to describe them, “quirky” or “quaint”. Houses curved out of stones would be no-no in this humid country of mine. The path from the rock houses down to the village is also lovely.
    Excuse me for not having visited this blog sooner. I’m catching up after too long summer break. Our summer was miserably too hot and too long. I wore no sleeves almost through September. I feel Japan is getting another world as our spring and autumn have gotten shorter year by year.
    Yoko

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    1. I'm glad you find the rock houses interesting - so do I. As a child I always had a small fantasy about one day living in a rock house. I just liked the idea! I think if one can deal with the dampness, then they would be very insulated from both heat and cold. I was surprised to find that the ones at Kinver weren't at all damp. I heard that the summer this year in Japan was awful. I have started to really dislike the heat after a very hot summer here 2 years ago made us miserable for weeks. This year there was welcome coolness.

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  19. It's nice to visit the place where they usually film series, Jenny. I liked the village where they film Midsummer Murder. I don't watch the aliens, I think what happens there is funny.

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    1. I think that Dr. Who has a great deal of humour in it. It is impossible to take seriously and sometimes it is full of jokes. It is the episodes about battles with aliens, etc that I find dull.

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  20. Gorgeous post. I've always wanted to go to Shropshire. Kinver looks brilliant! I love that bat cave. I also think I'd love the Time Machine museum. I went to the Doctor Who exhibitions several times (including the now-closed permanent site in Cardiff)

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    1. Ah yes, we went there too. In fact, we took A. when he was about 7 years old. It helped to fuel his interest in the subject, I think.

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  21. Oh, I like that clock, too. "His Gift"--since it hangs in a church, I assume that has some religious meaning.

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  22. A very enjoyable post.
    Lots to see and enjoy around Shrewsbury.
    I do hope your leg is better now.

    All the best Jan

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  23. Hoping my comment came through okay, blogger does sometimes have glitches, and put them in spam folder!!!

    All the best Jan
    https://thelowcarbdiabetic.blogspot.com/

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  24. Hello Jenny, I checked to see if se are still connected, and it seems so. This post was shortly after I returned to Taiwan, so with the jet lag, I might have missed it. It's too bad the Lea Castle is no more. It was a handsome building, but at least those are wonderful exploring grounds--I wonder how many vestiges of the old estate one could find if one looked hard.

    Incidentally, I posted the mystery-quiz answers, in case you are curious what any of the items were, and which you got correct:
    https://roadtoparnassus.blogspot.com/2024/10/2024-edition-mystery-objects-revealed.html

    --Jim

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  25. Hi again, I forgot to comment on the potential quarry. I know that everyone wants money and needs gravel, but there is a cultural value to sites, and some quarrying methods are environmentally (and also for people) dangerous. --Jim

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  26. I like the field with flowers. I hope you enjoy autumn.
    Thanks for your comments on my blog.

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