Shrewsbury

 We spent a lovely day in Shrewsbury on Tuesday.  It's not too far from here probably about fifty minutes drive to the park and ride at Harlescott and then a ten minute bus ride into the centre.

It's a place I'm quite familiar with. I often used to get the bus there and back for shopping when we lived near Market Drayton.  I also used to meet a friend at the station and we would travel on the train to Llandrindod Wells (Llandod as it was known locally) to visit a retired work colleague.

 I love the old streets, quaint alleyways and old buildings.  The names of the streets like Wyle Cop and Dogpole that conjure up times gone by. We'd decided we wanted to visit the Museum to see how it had changed since our last visit and also walk along the riverside to The Dingle, Percy Thrower's garden.

Above The Bear Steps

The Old Market Hall

The Museum and Art Gallery

Wyle Cop

The English Bridge, the Welsh Bridge is on the other side of the town.

The walk through The Quarry towards The Dingle.

Along the Riverside.

Shrewsbury School Boat Club near the Kingsland Bridge.

In The Dingle

I loved the water features in the middle of the lake.

I liked the steel sculpture of a Heron below.  Apparently it is 8ft tall.

Below the more formal gardens.

After our walk we had a lovely lunch at the Museum café and a good look around the displays before catching the bus and heading home.  I did take a few photos in the Museum but it was difficult due to the lighting and reflections

All for now.

Whitby Abbey - Early History

 The Abbey ruin we see now is not the first religious building on this site.  In the 7th and 8th centuries the headland it stands on was known as Streaneshalch and was the site of  an Anglian settlement and Minster church established  in the 5th and 6th centuries by the peoples who had settled on this side of Britain - the Angli or Anglians.

The Minster was founded some time after the battle of Winwaed in 655 when the forces of Oswiu of Northumberland beat the pagan forces of Penda of Mercia. Oswiu married King Edwin's daughter Eanflaed.  Oswiu gave his infant daughter Aelfflaed into the care of Hild the Abbess of Hartlepool.   In 657 Hild founded a new Minster for both men and women at Whitby.  It is assumed that the first settlement and minster was destroyed sometime in the 10th century by Viking raiders who burned and sacked many of the Christian establishments along the North East coast.  The name of Streaneshalch all but disappeared from the records and the Danish name of Whitby appeared.

The foundation of the second monastery at Whitby came in the aftermath of the Norman invasion of 1066.  A second Romanesque church was built in the early 12th century and this in turn was replaced by the Gothic buildings, the remains of which we see today.

Although the weather looks sunny and calm it really wasn't.

The wind up on the headland was so strong and was buffeting us about, it must have been quite bleak living up in the settlement in those early days.  Through the arch you can see St Mary's church.  I'll write about this in a later post.

The building below was the home of the Cholmley family who leased the site of the abbey after the suppression or dissolution of Whitby Abbey in 1539.  At this time Henry Davell was the last abbot of the abbey and at the time it was handed over to King Henry VIII's commissioners there were twenty two members of the community and the estates were worth £437 2s 9d.  Whitby was one of the poorest Benedictine Monasteries in England.

It now houses the museum, gift shop and cafe.

All for now, more to come over the next week or two.

Croxden Abbey

Croxden Abbey is one of our nearest English Heritage sites.  I've written a couple of posts about it over the years but I thought it could be featured again as it is a beautiful and atmospheric place.

We visited on Wednesday after a visit to Uttoxeter and then a walk around the JCB Lake at Rocester.  We saw some wonderful water birds at the lake so I'll write about those in a later post.

Croxden Abbey was founded in 1179 on land granted by local nobleman Bertram de Verdun, Lord of the Manor of Alton.  By the 13th century it housed about seventy Cistercian monks.  In 1538 after the Dissolution it became a farm and farmland.  In 1539 the site was leased to Francis Bassett a servant of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

The ruins comprise remains of the Abbey Church, Infirmary and Abbot's lodging.

 

Above and below show remains of the Warming House, Refrectory and Kitchen.

West Range

 

Latrines

 

West Door

 

Above what is left of the site of the bookroom and Sacristy.

Remains of the church.

 

It's said that some of the burials close to the high altar in the church are those of Bertram III de Verdun the founder of the Abbey and his wife Rohese.   Theobald de Verdun, 2nd Baron Verdun and his first wife Matilda or Maud Mortimer daughter of Edmund Mortimer, 2nd Baron Mortimer.

As you can see from the photos it was a bright, sunny day. It wasn't cold either.  Rain came later as the sky darkened in the late afternoon and evening. 

Thimble Hall and All Saints' Parish Church, Youlgreave, Derbyshire

There is a small car park at the top of the hill as you enter the village of Youlgreave in Derbyshire and we decided to park there and walk down the hill into the centre as the road is quite narrow and traffic is sometimes heavy as drivers weave their way around parked cars and other obstructions.  Locals were waiting at bus stops along the way for the bus to Bakewell.  The people we passed had a ready smile and a 'Good Morning' for visitors.

We could see the tower of All Saints' Parish Church as we walked down into the village.  We did eventually walk as far as the church but first we had a smaller building to find.

 Opposite the old Co-operative Grocery shop which is now a Youth Hostel stands The Conduit or Water Fountain.

Almost hidden by the Conduit Head or water fountain was the building we were looking for....

Thimble Hall

Thimble Hall was built in the 18th Century.  It was a one up one down home with a ladder to the upper room.  It was thought that a family of eight lived there at one time.  It was last lived in as a family home in the 1930s and has been used since then as an Antiques shop, a Butcher's shop and also as a Cobbler's shop.  It is a Grade II listed building.

 Apparently, according to one source I read on line, Thimble Hall is in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the smallest detached house at 11ft 10ins by 10ft 3ins and 12ft 2ins high.  It was sold at auction in 1999 with a guide price of £15,000 but it sold for £39,500 apparently bought by an ice cream maker from Chesterfield.  Sadly it seems to stand empty at the moment although a lady was watering the plants on the side.

The Conduit Head is also a Grade II listed building made of  grit stone ashlar and erected in 1829 by the Youlgreave Friendly Society of Women.  Before this water reservoir was built families had to draw water from the nearby River Bradford.

From Thimble Hall and Conduit Head we walked along Church Street, past The Old Bakery, now a B&B establishment towards the church.

The Parish Church of All Saints' is, according to their guide book, one of the oldest and largest medieval churches in the Peak District.  We had visited the churchyard before, a few years ago, looking for some of Paul's ancestors but hadn't been inside.  Luckily we found the building open.

The interior is mostly Norman with the oldest parts in the nave dating from between 1150 and 1170. There is a Tudor roof and the usual Victorian restoration done between 1869 and 1871,  the stained glass in the east window dates from this time. The Gothic style chancel dates from the 14th century with 15th century additions. 

The glass in the east window was designed by Edward Burne Jones and made in the William Morris workshops.  The table tomb in the centre of the chancel is a memorial to Thomas Cockayne a member of a prominent local family of the time.

 He died in 1488 in a fight with Thomas Burdett of Pooley Park in Warwickshire  as they were one their way to Polesworth church.  The fight was apparently about a family marriage settlement.  It is quite a small effigy, even though he was a grown man,  done this way because he predeceased his father.

Above is the effigy from the 14th century which is thought to be of Sir John Rossington, he lies with his head on a pillow with a dog at his feet. He holds a heart in his hands.

Looking back from the chancel to the nave.

In the north aisle is a Jacobean memorial to Roger Rooe of nearby Alport who died in 1613 and also to his wife and their eight children.

The Norman font which belonged originally to Elton church and was moved to its present place in the 19th century.

Thought to be a 17th century burial slab this figure was moved inside the church for safe keeping.

 A little part of the village school at the edge of the churchyard.

We liked the look of this old shop front opposite the church.  The property is up for sale by auction, just like Thimble Hall was.  I wonder who will buy it and what they will do with the building perhaps a family home, an art and craft gallery or a tea shop?  Who knows.