Shropshire Holiday 2014 Part 2
Monday 23/6/14 was another fine warm
day. We went to Ironbridge and had a very interesting time. Tesco vouchers covered £40 out of the £42 for
over 60s museum Passports! The Museum of Iron had a lot about Abraham Darby and his descendants.
D was a Quaker (of course! They started many industries – Cadburys, Frys,
Clarks, Fox bros...) and moved up from Bristol early in the 18C. There were
examples of items for the 1851 Great Exhibition etc. Then we went on to the Darby
houses via the blast furnace remains. From there we drove on through the
Ironbridge Gorge to the Tile museum which was very interesting too. There were
all sorts of designs which are found in all sorts of locations; toilets, pubs,
churches, great civic buildings... There were craft workshops nearby and we saw
beautiful glass work and chatted with an artist about her mainly
representational work. Then we stopped at the Tar Tunnel which was originally intended
to be a connection between different parts of the iron mines but turned out to
be a source of bitumen. An inclined plane rail link up the hillside was made
instead to take items from the canal above to the river Severn below. We walked
from the Tar Tunnel on to the Coaldale China Museum which had, as well as the
wonderful china, several other workshops and outside displays. A lady was
working to catalogue and record the old moulds in one workshop. Another had her
own little workshop and was making Saggers which were at one time very
important in the kilns where pottery was being fired. She thinks she is the
only sagger maker in Britain. After that we went to see and walk on the Iron
Bridge which has been there for 200+ years.
Kild and canal at the Coaldale China Museum
The Iron Bridge
River Severn from the Iron Bridge
Hilary on the Iron Bridge
After an ice cream we went to the Museum
of the Gorge which had a very useful film that pulls everything together very
well indeed. It also has a Captain Webb (the Dawley man) display. He was the first
to swim the English Channel without aid and gave lots of swimming exhibitions
until he perished swimming below Niagara Falls in 1883.
Tuesday 24/6/14 was another fine day but
a bit cooler.
We went to Church Stretton via the road
over the Long Mynd. There were stunning views to SW from near the glider club
then a steady drive across the top before views to the NE.
From the Long Mynd looking E
There
were great views too over Cardingmill Valley as we came down into Church Stretton.
Or so Hilary said because I had to keep my eyes on the narrow road. Apparently some caravaners, in spite of strong advice to the contrary, had followed their satnavs to come over the Long Mynd. We walked around and had some lunch in a park, found the Meth Church and went for
a walk in the Rectory Woods. Then we had a look around St Laurence's Church
which has been very creatively adapted with chairs, excellent 'I am' banners
and a copperwork flame feature in the roof. They are making exciting plans to build an
annexe. We also went by the Sylvester Horne Institute (he wrote the hymn ‘Sing
we the king’ and was the father of Kenneth Horne) near the URC church. After
some shopping we went on to Cardingmill Valley which is very scenic.
Looking up Cardingmill Valley
Reservoir at the top of Cardingmill Valley
We
parked and had a welcome cuppa at the tearooms then walked up to the
top car park and on to the reservoir where some lads were jumping in from a
high platform.
It had been dry for a couple of weeks
but rain was expected from Friday on (it turned out to be on Friday and
Saturday only).
Wednesday 25/6/14 was another dry, fine
day. We went on a substantial walk. This took
us across the fields behind the campsite for 1.2 km and then onto a road for 1 km
before turning NNW across fields until we joined another path by a beech copse
where we had lunch with sheep nearby (~400m high). As usual there were stunning
views all round.
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| This the view looking back at the often mentioned Long Mynd which is about 6-7 miles long and 1400-1600 ft high though the valley below where we camped was at 650 ft. |
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| Coming down from Norbury Hill on the Shropshire Way - avenue of trees ahead. |
Soon
after we joined the Shropshire Way and that brought us down by Norbury hill and
through a beech avenue. We joined a narrow road and entered a lane which led to Norbury and there we sat
down on a seat in the churchyard, had a drink and chatted to the church warden (David) who
was the first person we had met to talk to on the whole journey. He
mentioned the unusual decorated roof of the church and the ancient and huge yew
tree, said to be 2700 years old.
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| There are possibly two churches with decorated ceilings in Shropshire |
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| The great old Yew Tree - possibly 2700 years old. |
Almost back to the campsite we stopped
by a bridge to let traffic by and chatted with a woman who was opening a gate.
She lives in Wentnor and was looking after the place for her friend for whom
she opened the gate (and who turned up then) but not before we found that she was
really Welsh and exchanged a few words in Welsh.
Back at the campsite we rested and
showered then went to the Crown in Wentnor which was highly recommended and
lived up to its reputation for fine food – we each had one of their justly
famous pies and I followed up with trifle. Afterwards we strolled up and down
the road and met a couple who had walked 3-4 miles from Bridges and were returning on
foot after their meal. They actually came from Church Stretton and we enquired
about Sunday lunches there. They thought there wasn't much on offer (in CS they
have plenty of tearooms for walkers and tourists) except for 2 pubs in Little
Stretton.
On Facebook we see that Bev is doing a new book
and David has some more illustrations for Pat Posner who bases her stories
around prefabs. The latest picture features one of their friends and her children.
On
Thursday 26/6/14 we had a day trip to Shrewsbury, an interesting town with lots
of churches, 2 art exhibitions on. The Park and Ride was the best way in and
dropped us very conveniently in the town centre near the old market hall which has had
the upper storey made into a cinema and restaurant. We had coffee there and
then wandered around. There are lots of old half-timbered buildings in
Shrewsbury and the river Severn loops around most of the town.
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| The Old Market Hall |
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| One of many half timbered buildings |
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| River Severn at Shrewsbury |
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| Darwin Gate |
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| Hilary at the top of the Bear Steps - art exhibition to the right and popular cafe to the left |
There
was an art exhibition at St Mary’s Church (there are many churches in Shrewsbury) and another at the top of the Bear
Steps. We chatted with the artist at the Bear Steps gallery (Jonathan Kennedy).
He studied at Loughbrough and was interested to hear about our family artists.
Brambles sandwich bar did us splendid snacks and otherwise we had an interesting time wandering around. We had afternoon tea at the Bear Steps which was very
popular little cafe. We looked at other shops and bought a couple of books at Waterstones.
Back at the campsite we chatted with a
couple who have a VW campervan named Absinthe and coloured
accordingly. They have a blog on Absinthe's travels (googling Absinthe and VW
gets it quickly). They are heading for the Larmer Tree festival in July. We
were so impressed that we took some pics and enjoyed conversations with them over the
next few days.
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| Absinthe and company including Boris |
Friday 27/6/14
There was rain overnight and there was a
creature in the tent (and last night a rat!!) possibly a shrew and the rustling
kept us awake but we had no further trouble during our stay.
As it was damp we went to Enginuity at
Ironbridge which has lots of fun things. Pulling a train along, water model to
show how power was distributed through the gorge and many mechanical things to
explore. There were school parties with kids enjoying the working models. On a display about bridges I
spotted that the Jackfield bridge (just up the road) was said to be 30 metres or 984 feet high. I pointed this out the error and they thought that nobody had spotted it since the exhibit
was put there about 10 years ago so it was fixed with a felt tip dot in the right place!
We went on to the Victorian Village and as we
sat in the Refreshment Pavilion a thunderstorm broke out with heavy rain that kept us sitting there for a while. The Victorian
Village is a bit like St Fagans or Beamish with all sorts of shops, businesses and industries. A candle
maker showed us how his job was done, a printer demonstrated his work and there was the
old bank, drapery, baker, butcher, wood turner... The rain eased off so that we
could walk around but the delay limited our time there because we wanted to go
back to look again at the Tile Museum. We now take more notice of tiles! The
ones in St Mary's church in Shrewsbury were featured in one section. There was
more work going on in the actual tile factory than on Monday.
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| Fine example in the Tile Museum |
On the way back
we booked in for Sunday lunch at 1245 at the Green Dragon in Little Stretton one of the pubs the couple recommended earlier.
Saturday
28/6/14. It was a dull morning though there was no rain by 0715. The big family
group next door were up early though we all had a good night. One lad had a
very noisy remote controlled car!
We went to the Bog Visitor Centre in the hope of
joining a nature walk but had the time wrong - it was 10 not 1030 as we had
thought. So after a fruitless search for the people down a bumpy lane we went
on the shuttle bus for a very scenic and enjoyable ride round the villages to
Church Stretton where we stayed for an hour. We had a pot of tea in the
Antiques market and ate our sandwiches near the Co-op. Then we waited for the
bus after a quick browse in the nearby bookshop. It was very misty in the morning
but cleared somewhat for the return trip across the north end of Long Mynd with good
views into Cardingmill Valley. |
| The Shuttle Bus |
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| Looking down from the Burway into Cardingmill Valley |
It was a very entertaining ride with a lady who
can speak Welsh and the driver who came from Wrexham and stopped from time to
time for photographs. Back at the Bog Visitor Centre we had tea and chatted
with people - a lady from Wellington NZ who lives in Miramar not far from
Broadway where my mum’s family lived. And the flower/nature walk people turned
up at the end of their trip so Hilary had a chat with them.
It was raining too hard to go for a walk but we
eventually hurried back to the car and drove around the lanes. We stopped at one
hamlet (Scarfe) and looked at the nice simple church then farther on went up a
lane to a car park then walked to a stone circle. |
| Mitchell's Fold Stone Circle |
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| Inevitable Tiles in Church Stoke Church |
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| St Nicholas Church Stoke Church - we were just in Wales |
Further driving took us to Church Stoke and a
much bigger church which we looked around (and the tiles!). It was drier but
in the evening there was light rain and heavy showers. We chatted when we came
back with the Absinthe people who had been to interesting places (Shrewsbury,
Welshpool...)
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