St Leonard's Church at Linley

Hello!  Thank you for dropping in, you are very welcome here.  Summer has gently slid into autumn since my last post, the flowers in my garden are fading and while last week I sat out in the sunshine and watched small white butterflies feeding on the last of the buddleia flowers and bees foraging in the jasmine, cosmos, hardy geraniums and ivy, this week I have donned a cardigan.  It's been raining and I almost put my boots on too, but I really can't bear to do that yet because once they're on, they stay on until the spring and I'm not quite ready for winter thoughts.  I want to savour autumn. 

Every year since 1994, September has seen Heritage Open Days in England and where possible, I have tried to use the opportunities to visit places which are not usually open to the public or to visit free of charge places which usually charge an entry fee.  I knew that it would have to be different this year because of Covid-19 and when I looked online to find out what was happening in Shropshire I found an online lecture and a few churches.  Now, you probably know that I like visiting an interesting church and as I haven't visited one since 23rd February, I got quite excited at the thought.  I read through the list and chose St Leonard's Church at Linley, a redundant church which is now in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust and is described as a "secluded medieval delight".  So, on Sunday 20th September the Best Beloved, his camera and I set off under a blue sky.  It was the perfect day to be driving through the Shropshire countryside as the sun made the hedges glow like emeralds and the trees filtered the light to dappled shadows.  We bowled along the B4373 and once we were in the vicinity I started looking out for an unmetalled track on the left - I needn't have worried, a very clear sign said, "St Leonard's Church, Linley" so we took the turning with confidence and drove along the track until it widened on both sides into an informal parking place.  I got out of the car with my trusty 1968 Shropshire guidebook and walked up the slope to the church.  I noticed that there was no graveyard and that the land in front of the church has become very overgrown, although some clearance work has been started.  I hope it gets finished, it will make a great difference to the approach to the church.  I also noticed a large yew tree which is probably hundreds of years old and I found some comfort in that:  the world may have changed a lot since February but wherever there's an old church, there's usually an old yew tree.  Plus ca change, as my mother says.

It is almost nine hundred years since this simple church was built.  The tower was added a few decades later, at the end of the twelfth century, and as I looked up, I wondered who was in the stonemason's mind as he carved those grotesques.  That made me smile.  The pyramid roof which tops the tower was added in the first half of the nineteenth century and the east wall of the church was rebuilt in the second half of that century but the rest of the stones of this building sit where they were laid in the twelfth century.  The arched doorway with its carved tympanum is typically Norman and I told the Best Beloved to mind his head as he entered the church as those typical Normans were shorter than we twenty-first century Elizabethans and that doorway is less than six feet high.

This is what we found inside. - 

As usual, there was a Victorian "restoration".  Those bloomin' Victorians!  They enlarged the windows in the nave, rebuilt the east wall (I can forgive them that) and gave it a triple window, added a piscina in the sanctuary (in a Norman style - cheeky!), took out the old pews and refashioned them into panelling for the chancel, installed new pews, fitted new iron candleholders to the walls and tiled the floor.  The stained glass in the new east windows was designed by William Warrington, who also designed windows for the cathedrals in Norwich and Ely, and the triptych behind the altar was installed in about 1870.  The pulpit was brought to the church in 1948 from another church.  This "restoration" work was begun in 1858 and I was intrigued to discover that the architect was London-based Arthur Blomfield, for whom Thomas Hardy later worked, and that Blomfield paid for the work himself.  I wonder how that came about?  I'm still working on it and I'll let you know if I find out.  I do like the fact that Blomfield tiled the sanctuary floor with encaustic tiles made a few miles away in Ironbridge Gorge by Maw & Co.  I can't help but feel that they would look even lovelier if somebody occasionally ran a mop over them!

                                                                           

However, the Victorian alterations didn't ruin the church and there is still some Norman loveliness to be found inside, including the arches which lead from the nave to the tower and the chancel and the huge font, lined with metal and big enough to dunk a baby in the water.  Its outer surface is covered in intricate carving (apparently of the Herefordshire school) and these carvings are one of the features which make this church a "destination".  The roundels on the north side apparently emerge from the mouths of demons, but I couldn't make that out.  

Outside, we walked round to the north side of the church and found the other feature which makes this church a destination.  Here is another Norman doorway, this one blocked up centuries ago, and over it is a tympanum which is clearly carved with a rather naughty figure which I have seen described as a grotesque animal with a human face, a demon, a Green Man and a sheela-na-gig.  I shall leave it to you to decide for yourselves.  Whatever it is, it's almost nine hundred years old and very well-preserved in this sheltered spot.

I am quite fascinated by these carvings, that such intricate work could be done with tools and technology which we would consider to be "basic".  I wonder about the men who made them and how and why they designed them.  I placed my index finger onto the side of the font and traced the groove of the carving, following the track made so long ago by a mason's chisel and imagining that I could feel the vibrations of the stone just as he did.  St Leonard's is indeed a secluded medieval delight and a lovely place, perhaps because those ancient carvings have kept the nasty spirits away?

See you soon.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

A Fake Holiday During Lockdown

Hello!  Thank you for still being here, and special thanks to those of you who left comments on my last post, I really wasn't sure whether or not anyone would have waited.  It's been hot here this week, too hot for me to be outside (unless I am having a water fight with the Best Beloved and Tom Kitten) but I have a shady nook inside where I can hide out when I need to. 

After the first few days of lockdown, with lazy mornings and late nights and no end in sight, the Best Beloved and I decided that we needed to have a daily routine if we were to retain our sanity.  The only concession we made to the situation was that the alarm was set for 8am rather than 6.20am - we were usually awake well before 8am, but just in case.  There was a mug of tea first and then breakfast, then another mug of tea (I have often said that I am not human until I've drunk two mugs of tea) before we pottered about doing whatever chores needed to be done.  I should admit that my "chores" often included an hour or so of crochet but I justified this by the fact that I was working on a large project and had a deadline.  What a delicious position to be in!  We had lunch together and then at 2.30pm every afternoon we went outside and worked in the garden.  As is typical of Victorian terraced houses, our garden is narrow but very long so we were able to work quite separately because, much as we love each other, being together in a tiny house for 24 hours each day meant that we could very easily have stretched each other's patience.  Those couple of hours of separation each day may well have saved our relationship!  Another benefit for me was that I was able to work in an area from which I couldn't see the house, so I really felt that I had loosed the chains and was unrestrictedly "out".  Sometimes our neighbours were in their gardens too and we would chat across the fences.  At 4.30pm we sat down in the garden and reviewed our labours over a cuppa and just before 5pm we went indoors to watch the daily coronavirus government briefing and I made a start on cooking dinner.  Every weekday followed this routine and I can honestly day that physically, I haven't felt better for a long time.  We ate healthily and well, three square meals a day but no snacks or treats, and I had so much more energy that I seriously wonder if I was deprived of Vitamin D before we began this regime.  On Saturdays and Sundays we let the routine go and so marked the difference between the "working week" and the weekend.  We did this for nine weeks.  

We had booked a camping holiday in Cornwall during the last week of May but campsites were closed due to the dreaded virus.  I was very disappointed, we held on and held on to the hope that we might be able to go but of course, we couldn't.  However, we decided that we would have a holiday at home instead, a staycation.  (I get very cross when journalists refer to holidays in this country as "staycations".  They are HOLIDAYS.  A staycation is when you stay at home and take day trips.)  No chores were to be done apart from bedmaking, cooking and washing up - no laundry, no cleaning and definitely no gardening.  We would relax, loaf around outdoors and have a few outings which were permissible now that we were allowed out of our homes. And that's exactly what we did.  We set up our daughter's little camping stove in the summerhouse and as soon as we woke up, we went outside and brewed a pot of tea, just as we do when we are really camping.  All our meals were eaten in the garden or, if the weather was unkind, in the summerhouse (with the doors open).  I left aside my crochet projects and took a new, holiday project with me wherever I went.  For the first time in over nine weeks we ate a dinner that we hadn't cooked from scratch ourselves and bought fish and chips because that's what you have for dinner when you're by the seaside!  

Facebook told me that our local beauty spots were overwhelmed with visitors that week and cars were being turned away at The Wrekin, Cardingmill Valley and Ironbridge so we thought very carefully about where we would go and our first outing was to Clun, a small village in South Shropshire where there is a river and a ruined castle.  The drive there is picturesque, in fact most of Shropshire is picturesque in May, and having been within my own boundaries for over nine weeks it felt wonderful to be out.  Just out.  We came across very few people in Clun and I felt safe.  I was reminded that it is a lovely village and that when things settle down I should visit again and show you the old bridge, the Norman church and the seventeenth century almshouses with their chapel.  This time I pootled about in the empty meadow by the river while the Best Beloved explored the castle above and then we both settled down in our chairs, him to nap and me to read.  It was blissful.

The next day the weather was even better and we went to Titterstone Clee, a hill in South Shropshire which we visited last year and I wrote about here.  There were more people there but there is so much space that it was easy to keep away from them.  

Our third outing of the week was to the ruined abbey by the River Severn at Buildwas, a place which holds a special place in our affections.  We arrived late in the afternoon and there was one other person there, but he soon left and there we were, alone in one of the most serene and tranquil places you could find.  Two miles along the road, Ironbridge was heaving.

All of these outings were free, the only cost was the petrol we used in the car.  It was the cheapest holiday I've ever had but at the end of the week I felt as rested and refreshed as if I had been away in some luxury resort.  I know that I've learned something from this and I've been mulling it over, trying to grasp what it is.  Apart from the obvious, that you don't have to spend a lot of money to have a good time, it's something about "holiday" being largely down to frame of mind, and possibly expectations.  If you can capture these threads and tie them together for me, I'd be grateful.

The little camping stove has remained in the summerhouse.  We don't use it in the mornings but in the afternoons and after dinner in the evenings we sometimes like to go out there and make what the Best Beloved calls "a wild cup of tea".  It's a holiday habit we have brought home with us.  It won't last forever but it's funny how a small change to routine can feel such fun.

See you soon.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

St James' Church, Stirchley

Hello, thank you for popping in to my Shropshire patch.  We are definitely heading towards autumn here, as we turned into our street yesterday I noticed that the leaves on the trees are changing colour.  However, it is still summer until next Saturday, the weather has been sunny and unseasonably warm for the last few days and on Friday I saw four small tortoiseshell butterflies and a comma on the small buddleia in the garden.  I was pleased to see so many small tortoiseshells as their numbers declined by 75% between 1976 and 2018. 

Telford is an interesting place - or group of places.  Created as a New Town in 1968, it appears that the planners actually took a group of much older communities, plonked a large shopping centre in the middle, made a good road network to join it all up and built lots of housing estates in the gaps.  Parts of it are very old, some places being recorded in the Domesday Book, and parts of it are very beautiful, although nobody seems to talk about those places.

 

Stirchley is one of the old places, originally a farming community whose church dates from the twelfth century.  It is a church I had wanted to visit for many years and last September, I finally made it. 

 



 

We parked outside the churchyard and entered through the wrought iron gate.  This is the view which confronted us: a lot of brickwork.  However, as we walked all around the building, this is what we saw. -

 

 

 

Intriguing, isn't it?  The chancel, at the east end of the church, shows the original Norman stonework.  In about 1740 the nave and the tower were remodelled: the windows were enlarged, the whole thing was encased in bricks, the roof was replaced and an extra storey was built onto the tower.  Why they didn't also encase the chancel in bricks I don't know because it all looks quite odd.  Moving forward it time to 1838, a family of wealthy local employers, the Botfield brothers, paid for a brick extension to be added to the north side of the church, which is the block with large windows which you can see in the photo above.  This extension added seating for an additional 120 people, including a gallery for the brothers' employees.

 

Inside, the church is typical eighteenth century with high-sided box pews, pulpit and reading desk which probably date from that 1740 remodelling.  I do love box pews, that whole thing about closing the door and being in your own little space is very cosy.  However, I have to report that the seats inside these particular little spaces are very narrow and quite high; I couldn't put my feet flat on the floor, which was tricky as my well-padded bottom was sliding off the perch!  I really found them very uncomfortable.

 

 

I sat there for quite a while because this church has a lovely, serene feel, perhaps because of the plain white walls which are free of memorials and other "clutter".  Looking from the chancel towards the west end of the nave, there is a rather lovely clock.

 

 

However, the real jewel of this church is the twelfth century carving which decorates the arch between the chancel and the nave and which looks so crisp and fresh that it's hard to believe that it's nine hundred years old.  I sat and looked at it for a long time.

 





 

In the picture above you can clearly see that the chancel arch was once very much bigger.  This was revealed when the plaster was removed from this wall in 1979.

 

The stained glass windows date from the nineteenth century and were bought from another church in the 1970s and installed here.  On the day we visited they were simply and sweetly decorated ready for Harvest Festival.

 

 

The church was declared redundant in 1975 and later sold to Telford Development Corporation who restored it for use as a museum.  It now belongs to The Churches Conservation Trust and is kept locked but you can borrow the key from the people who live in The Old Rectory next door, which is now a guest house.  However, if you visit next weekend, 21st and 22nd September, the church will be open between midday and 4pm and friendly volunteers from a local historical society will be there.  You could even stay for the Harvest Festival at 4pm on Sunday.

 

 

 

See you soon.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

Hopton Castle

Hello!  Thank you for dropping in to my little patch and special thanks to those of you who left comments on my last post, your good wishes were much appreciated by me and the rest of my family.  I haven't been here for three weeks because I've been spending a lot of time cuddling Cottontail and playing with Tom Kitten, both very important grandmotherly tasks, as I'm sure you understand.  Everybody is doing very well and the Best Beloved and I have taken a step back now.  Yesterday we went out for the day by ourselves for the first time this school holiday and we had the best of days.
 

We drove south between the hedges, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the hills were green and the fields were golden.  The farmers were busy, some of the fields were dotted with large, cylindrical bales and some with rectangular bales which were being stacked into towering walls.  It was a drive which lifted our spirits up and up until they were soaring - I never tire of the beauty of this county.  We drove to Craven Arms and turned west and a few miles later, down very narrow lanes, found ourselves at Hopton Castle in the picturesque village of... Hopton Castle!  I have known about this place for more than twenty years but never visited before.

 

Hopton Castle isn't really a castle at all; looking like a small medieval keep, it was built in about 1300 as a high status tower house for the de Hopton family, probably on the site of an earlier motte-and-bailey.  Sir Walter de Hopton was an important man, the Sheriff of Shropshire and Staffordshire, and the house was designed for comfort rather than defence.  In the 16th century, ownership of the estate passed to the Wallop family and by the time of the Civil War the owner was Robert Wallop, a staunch Parliamentarian who was a judge at the trial of King Charles I in 1649.  If anyone knows about Hopton Castle it's because of an incident which happened here during the Civil War.
 

Robert and his family were not in residence at the time of the incident in 1644 and a small garrison of less than twenty Parliamentarian soldiers under the command of Samuel More was installed there to prevent the Royalists taking control while the family was away.  When the Royalist forces attacked, they demanded that the Parliamentarians surrender and Samuel More refused to acknowledge them.  The Royalists left, leaving a few guards, and several hundred of them returned a few days later, by which time the garrison had been increased to about thirty men.  Again Samuel More was asked to surrender and again he refused, so the Royalists attacked and breached the curtain wall before retreating, having lost perhaps two hundred men.  By the time they returned, the garrison had been under siege for weeks.  For a third time, Samuel More was asked to surrender and the Royalist commander warned him that if he refused again, the Parliamentarians should expect no mercy ("no quarter") but the threat had no effect.  The Royalists attacked, this time with heavy cannons, and when it became obvious that their victory was inevitable, Samuel More surrendered the castle.  He was marched away and, unbeknown to him, the rest of his men were executed.  Apparently, for years afterwards, Parliamentarian troops would offer their opponents "Hopton Quarter" in revenge.
 

The details of this event survive because Samuel More wrote them down in a diary, but not until twenty years later, which is why they are taken with a pinch of salt.  When the castle was the subject of a Time Team dig in 2010, they hoped to unearth the skeletons of the massacred Parliamentarians beneath the moat, but they didn't find them.  Robert Wallop was compensated for the damage done after the Civil War but he never returned there and sold the castle in 1655.  The damaged tower was patched up but probably never inhabited again and it is now owned by the Hopton Castle Preservation Trust who have done some conservation work, including digging out several metres of rubble from inside the tower to reveal the floor and making a small car park.

The castle is like a reverse TARDIS and seems much smaller inside than it appears from the outside.  We climbed the stairs and sat inside to eat our picnic in the shade.  I think the Trust has done an excellent job, retaining the integrity of the existing walls while making them safe.  The new work is obvious but sympathetic. 

 

Outside, the views are beautiful.  This is an idyllic spot.  The Best Beloved wandered around with his camera while I circumnavigated the tower, drinking in the views, before sitting down on a bench to quietly read my book.  You could see all that there is to see here in less than half an hour or you could spend a longer time and lose yourself in the landscape and the history, especially on a warm, sunny day.  We were there for an hour and a half before our reveries were loudly interrupted by the sound of a nearby and incessant lawnmower.
 

Our visit cost us the petrol for the car and nothing else.  Car parking and admission are both free, as is a very nice leaflet about the castle, but there are donation boxes if you would like to support the work of the Hopton Castle Preservation Trust, which needs a few thousand pounds each year to maintain the site.  They have a good website here, although some of the information is out of date.

We drove back towards home, back through the beautiful countryside, I SO wanted to stop the car and take photographs but that wasn't feasible.  Unexpectedly, the Best Beloved turned the car and drove us along the River Severn to a pub at Coalport in Ironbridge Gorge where we sat on a terrace in the sunshine, drank long, cold drinks and ordered some food.  We rarely eat dinner out so it was a real treat, a relaxing way to end our adventure.  When we arrived home, we still didn't want the day to end so we opened up the summerhouse, lit the lanterns and drank a bottle of wine as night fell on a very special day.

See you soon.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x