Daniels Flour Mill, Bridgnorth Shropshire.

While we were in Shropshire, we visited Daniels Mill, just outside Bridgnorth.

It turned out to be another of those casual visits which became a highlight of the stay.  The current miller gives an interesting and entertaining tour and actually sets the wheel turning and grinds flour while visitors watch.

Alan has written about the technical details here so I’ll leave them out.

To give you an idea of the scale, the wheel is 38 ft (11.6m) and is the largest cast iron waterwheel in England driving a corn mill.

The earliest reference to the mill is in the late 15th century, though it would have been much smaller and the wheel was probably made of wood.  The present wheel was cast in Coalbrookdale in 1854 and installed soon after.  The mill ground all kinds of grain for animal feed but, in common with many other small industrial enterprises, the mill closed when the last miller died in 1957.

Now, thanks to money from Grantscape, the wheel turns again and wheat is being ground for sale in Health food and speciality shops and, of course, it can be bought at the mill.

And very tasty bread it makes, too.

Tong Church – in search of Little Nell

Tong is a little village not far from Wolverhampton.  The only thing we knew about it was that, in its churchyard is the ‘reputed’ grave of Little Nell. As it is on the way to Whitwick Manor, we stopped off expecting to spend ten minutes in the graveyard.

It’s not often that you find a grave for a fictional character but here is one.

The key is in the word ‘reputed’, of course.  Charles Dickens did visit Tong where his Grandmother had been housekeeper at Tong Castle before marrying William Dickens in 1781.  It is believed that he set the scene of the death of Little Nell in Tong.

The Old Curiosity Shop was a big hit in America and tourists started arriving looking for the grave so, in about 1910, a verger and village postmaster, George Bowden forged an entry in the church register of burials and set up the ‘grave’, charging people to see it.

Poor Little Nell!  Her grave plaque has been moved several times to make room for ‘real’ burials.

We thought this was quite fun and were unprepared to be impressed by the church itself – perhaps we should do more research!  Built 600 years ago on the site of an older church, it was founded by Dame Isabel Pembrugge, seen below carved on her monument.

The wreath of roses round her head is placed there on MidSummer’s day.  Before the Reformation, it would have been placed on a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus but a little thing like the reformation can’t keep down a tradition..

Part of our good luck was to be met by a local man who is interested in the Church and tends the churchyard as a volunteer so we got a private tour.

The most exciting thing about these monuments is that they show traces of the paint which once covered most of the interior of our churches.

The book, ‘Discovering Tong’ tells us that 

“The whole Chantry is remarkable with its fan vaulting ceiling, which was originally painted in green, red and gold. The vaulting is very like that in the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey. The size of the Tong Chapel is much smaller, what could be achieved is restricted. It is the only surviving piece of medieval fan vaulting in Shropshire. On the east wall are the remains of a rood painting. Some of the colour is still quite bright.”

Our guide showed us another lovely detail.  The roundels above are repeated many times and a wood carver got bored.

That gave us quite a chuckle and made the workmen of 1406 seem real.

 

 

 

 

 

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Fossils and Wine in A Courtyard

An unlikely combination brought about by a very hot day, a search for some Olympic history and a close encounter of the paleontological kind.

We went to hunt for The Raven Hotel in Much Wenlock, the scene of meetings between William Penny Brookes who started the Much Wenlock Olympian Games in 1850 and Baron Pierre de Coubertain who is often credited with the modern revival of the Olympic Games.

It was hot, we were thirsty and the rather smart hotel didn’t really take in passing trade for drinks.  The Manager (owner?) kindly offered to serve us in the courtyard and out we went into the shade.

A couple walked through, obviously going to their room and my eye was caught by a large piece of rock in the man’s hand.  Well, you know me!  I’ll talk to anyone – after all, the worst they can do is ignore me.  So I called out “that looks like an interesting piece of rock.”

It certainly was and the three of us spent some time in discussions of ‘fossils we have known’.  Our new friend’s wife disappeared very quickly so I assume she was not so interested!

The rock was mudstone and absolutely filled with brachiopods from 400 million years ago when a warm sea covered the area around Wenlock Edge. A geology hammer were wielded and we were presented with a section of the rock.

The Manager looked on mystified at the antics but then became enthused when he discovered why we were visiting. He had a lot of information on the history of the Much Wenlock Games and we spent a fascinating half hour looking at pictures and mementoes.

Wenlock, one of the two mascots, is named after the village because of the history.  If you think Wenlock and Mandeville are a little weird, you are not alone.  Have a look at this site and be sure to scroll down to previous mascots.  Perhaps ours aren’t so way out after all.

By the way, the wine was excellent.

Shropshire–The Devil is in the Detail

We’re back on Haughmond Farm near Shrewsbury for two weeks.  The weather is glorious with a temperature of 26C or 79F for those who haven’t been converted yet.

On our way across Shropshire in search of other things, we detoured to Hughley, made famous by A.E. Housman in A Shropshire Lad.

He wrote :

‘The vane on Hughley steeple
Veers bright, a far-known sign,
And there lie Hughley people,
And there lie friends of mine.
Tall in their midst the tower
Divides the shade and sun,
And the clock strikes the hour
And tells the time to none.’

Oops!  No steeple and never has been. A.E. Housman had never visited the place.

The church was well worth a visit though, founded in either 12c or 13c, depending on which authority you consult, it has a beautiful rood screen.

After discovering the Three Hares window in Long Melford Church, I was peering at what little stained glass remains and saw this.

I can’t find anything about the history of the church or this devil – if that is what he is?

Sand and Sea–Caister

Rain threatened the day we went to Caister on Sea, near Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast.

I vaguely recalled it as place of sand dunes and wind.  I had remembered it accurately and, with the clouds scudding across the sky, it is as wild as I remembered with a stark beauty which borders on desolation.  Why would anyone settle here?

Photo by A.R.Yeo

But settle they did and a small part of the evidence can still be seen in the middle of a modern housing estate. This Roman Fort dates back to the 1st century AD and there was, later, a Saxon Fort.

The attraction, as it was all the way down the East Coast of Scotland and England, was fishing. Herring was the major catch and, where the fishermen landed, smokehouses, warehouses, and net chambers were built and people settled. By the late 18th Century Caister was thriving.

The sea off Caister is a  treacherous place with shifting sand banks offshore and, when a wind from the North coincides with a high tide, ships can be driven onto the sands and wrecked.

So another industry grew up alongside fishing  – The Beachmen – who watched for any vessel in danger and set out to sea to salvage the ship and, hopefully, save the crew.

In 1794, The Caister Beachmen formed a Beach Company and built a 60ft watch tower to keep a 24 hour watch for shipwrecks.

By the early 19th century, dedicated lifeboats were being established and Caister had its first one in in 1845, manned by the Beachmen.  The RNLI took over in 1857 and provided a second boat.  It was certainly needed.  Records show that on 28th May, 1860, no less that 8 ships were lost on the sands off Caister and a couple of miles down the coast, off Yarmouth, 14 fishing vessels with their crews of 156 men and boys were lost.

Perhaps I should point out that these ‘lifeboats’ were powered by oars and sails and the crews were by now volunteers – as they are today.

In 1901, nine crew were lost while attempting a rescue during heavy seas. At the time it was said, "If they had to keep at it 'til now, they would have sailed about until daylight to help her. Going back is against the rules when we see distress signals like that".

This response was translated by journalists to become the famous phrase "Caister men never turn back".

By the time we had taken a few photos of the threatening sky, the rain was falling so we retreated to the Lifeboat Visitor Centre and were very glad we did. For £2, we were taken round by the two gentlemen shown in the picture above – ex-lifeboat men themselves and treated to a cup of coffee and a sit down while they enthralled us with their tales of the sea.

We came away with a Souvenir Guide at no extra cost, having spent two hours in one of the best Visitor Centres we have ever visited.

We walked to the building housing the current lifeboat and found a volunteer just closing down but she let us in and we got a quick look at the modern boats and this tracked beast of a machine which hauls the lifeboat to the sea.

The most heartening thing she told us was that they have 6 young men training to be lifeboat men and carry on the work.  That puts the tales of lazy youth that we hear so often into perspective.

I’ve written about the treacherous sands but now they are being put to use.  On Scroby Sands, just off shore, now stand 30 wind turbines.  They are 60 metres  (200 ft) high and each blade is 40 metres (130ft) long.  It gives you an idea of the size if I tell you that they are over 1.5 miles (2.5 Km) out to sea.

We left Caister in the rain, pondering the attraction the sea has for so many people, including us.  This quote from John F Kennedy sums it up for me.

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.”

Long Melford Church, Alice, and the 3 Hares

Long Melford is a small village on the Suffolk/Essex border. It has a population of 3,675 at latest count, but it has a church which should, by its size, be a cathedral.

Completed in 1484, it is one of the richest ‘wool churches’ in East Anglia.  The wool merchants were becoming rich at this time and building a church worthy of their lofty status was a common way of showing just how rich they were. An ecclesiastical building boom saw competition for building the biggest and grandest church.

Empty niches and blank panes of glass show where Cromwell’s soldiers passed this way.

But some stained glass survived and it is claimed that the figure in this window, The Duchess of Norfolk, was the inspiration for the Ugly Duchess in Alice in Wonderland.

The other quirky thing we found is this tiny roundel set in the window over the North Door.

Three hares and, if you look closely, they each appear to have two ears, but . . there are only three ears.  You can see that it has been repaired since it was damaged during the time of Cromwell.

Of course, to Christians, this represents the Holy Trinity, ’three in one and one in three’, and it appears in many churches.  If we hadn’t been so focussed on The Hounds of The Baskervilles last year, we might have heard of the 30 or so around Dartmoor.

I’ve discovered sine then that the three hares have a much older and more distant origin, the earliest example known is in a Buddhist cave temple in China and dates back to around 600 AD.  It is now believed that it travelled the silk road, appearing in India, then from there up to Europe.  It was on 13th century Mongol metal work, and on a copper coin, found in Iran, dated to 1281, in Synagogues and Churches all over Northern Europe

 

and has even been adopted as the Coat of Arms of Hasloch in Bavaria.

Why three hares (sometimes believed to be rabbits)?  Well, the experts may rabbit on and on, but the Chinese, Japanese and Mexicans speak of the Hare in the moon, Egyptian myths associated hares with the cycles of the moon.

Who would have thought that a church in the English countryside would yield connections to China and Wonderland.

Sutton Hoo – Myth, Legend and History

 

A visit to Sutton Hoo, on the banks of the River Deben, has been on my wish list for a long time.

After the Roman Emperor withdrew his troops from Britannia in 410 AD, the power vacuum was quickly filled by tribes from the continent – the Anglo-Saxons I wrote about here.  Within a century, Norfolk and Suffolk had become the Kingdom of The East Angles and ‘England’ was becoming a reality.  Kingdoms, of course, need Kings and this is where the lines between myth, legend and history start to blur.

What we do know is that beneath the 20 or so mounds at Sutton Hoo, important people were laid to rest.  When excavations started in the late 1930s, the outline of a ship was revealed and in it were precious items like the helmet above.

Scholars are mostly in agreement that the burial is that of Rædwald, the first king of whom more is known than his name.

Most of what we know comes from “Ecclesiastical History of the English People” , completed by Bede in 731 AD.  I wonder what he would have thought of being able to buy a copy via the internet?  Or of reading it on line?

The site is in the care of The National Trust, working with the British Museum and a great place to wander round with excellent displays in the museum and very friendly staff.  I’ll just whet your appetite with a few more pictures.

What Lovely Weather

We’re still stuck at home by various commitments but it has given us the opportunity to explore more of the local area.  It seems crazy that there are places only two or three miles away which we have never explored properly.

Yesterday we went to the end of the ‘Halifax Arm’ and walked along the towpath. Years ago, the Salter & Hebble Navigation had a spur serving Halifax.  All that is left is a short section from the Watermill Restaurant on Salter Hebble Hill down to the junction with the main canal.

After passing under the Wakefield Road, the complex of locks at the junction appears.

At the end of the series of locks and basins is this Guillotine Lock.

The horses would have been led through this tunnel while the boat was hauled under a road bridge by the men.

This is the next section to Cooper Bridge where the Huddersfield Broad Canal connects.  That is for another day!