Winter – spring – winter: we have been sorely teased over the past weeks, though it’s true that February may often prove contrary, breaking out in fleeting intervals of unexpected warmth. This year, after hard-frost beginnings, we had several days of sudden spring, and he who is old enough to be more weather-wise started casting clouts and layers with abandon. Too soon, I told him. Winter’s not done. And besides, March can be cruel. Hang on, good sir, to fleecy vests and quilted combinations.
And so here we are, the first days of the new month with much sky-gloom and creeping dankness, again the pressing need for woolly gloves and hats, and that’s just indoors. I joke. Well almost. But in spite of the cold, there are signs of spring: the blackbird singing its heart out just now in the Station Road holly tree, doves on the church tower in close-canoodling-cooing huddles, daffodils fast opening. Reasons to be cheerful. Absolutely!
A couple of winters ago we tried pinning fat balls to the garden fence for passing birds to peck at. Then along came this big old rook from the nearby rookery. You can see what will happen next. And it did. No sharing here.
Walk out of Much Wenlock in any direction and you will almost instantly find yourself amongst crop fields or pasture. Our town is quite literally ‘on the farm’. The field name behind our house on Sheinton Street says it all: Townsend Meadow. In the nineteenth century it really did mark the town’s end. I also remember when there was still a working farm, Brook House Farm, in the town centre, one of the last of its kind. These days the farmyard buildings have been barn-converted and gentrified. I recall glancing through a newly installed window in the roadside barn and seeing a small grand piano standing where once winter-housed cattle huffed in their straw filled stalls. Odd to say, but when the farm went, it seemed the town had lost its heart.
There are also small fields within the town boundary. Our scenic route to the shops features the path beside the Cutlins, the meadow where various members of the Highland Cattle clan, aka the MacMoos, are often installed. And then, when you reach the kissing gate at the bottom of the path, and after all decide not to go shopping, you can turn up the lane by the Priory ruins and be eyed up by sheep in the Priory Park. Baaaaah!
Apologies for the swift change in temperatures after yesterday’s balmy temperatures on the Zambezi. Here in Wenlock we have been suffering frigid twirls and swirls of Polar Vortex: snow, sleet, wind, frost and in between, torrential rain. But we’ve had some sun too with china blue skies. Here’s the month’s round-up:
Snowy landscapes: Windmill Hill (including the above with this mysterious snow tree), Linden Walk and Linden Field, over the garden fence…
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Birds and beasties…
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Frost art including some very fancy ice works created by my allotment water butt…
One of the extraordinary things that happened last March, along with advent-lockdown, was the appearance of this red-legged partridge on top of the old privy roof. Well! Never had this kind of thing happened in the garden before. In my experience partridges are rather covert birds. You’re lucky to have a fleeting glimpse if you happen to startle one along a farm-field hedgerow. This one, however, stood in full view for ages. Not only that, it began to further advertise its presence with some very loud and rasping calls. It was all rather thrilling. Who knew that partridge plumage was so very magnificent. I certainly didn’t.
But it’s always cheering to spot one. Even more so if they burst into song and brighten up a wintery twilight. But they can be fractious, being fiercely territorial when it comes to seeing off competitors. They are also very demanding. For much of last year I had one appear as soon as I started work on my allotment plot. If I went near any of my compost heaps, it was there at my feet, demanding that I instantly turn over the heap so it could stuff itself with worms. Obviously I had been labouring under a misapprehension thinking I was the allotment holder. Silly me. As I said: robins rule. I was just there as the field hand.
The small town of Much Wenlock has been continuously occupied for at least a millennium. It grew up to serve the demands of Wenlock Priory. In Saxon times there would doubtless have been a smallish population of servants and slaves to do the menial tasks around the monastic domain. There were also local providers of goods and services with weekly fairs pre-dating the Norman Conquest.
St. Milburga was the first prioress whose name we know. Her father, the Mercian king, Merewald, sent her to France to be educated for the role. From around 670 CE she returned to preside over a double house of monks and nuns who lived and worshipped in separate quarters. She also commanded large estates – from the Severn Gorge to the Corve valley. This was very much a pattern for Saxon princesses – ruling over human souls and securing physical territory.
The original monastic house was greatly expanded in the years preceding the Norman invasion of 1066. Saxon Earl Leofric and his consort, Lady Godgifu (Godiva) footed the bill. But their considerable improvements were not good enough for the new Norman earl, Roger de Montgomery. From 1091 the place was taken over by incomer French monks from Cluny and it was they who, over succeeding centuries, undertook the work on the buildings whose ruins survive today. (See last week’s post for a tour of some of the ruins).
The town’s big break came in 1101 with the apparent discovery of St. Milburga’s bones in the ruins of Saxon women’s chapel. This convenient fortunate find put Much Wenlock on the pilgrims’ map, kick-starting a thriving service industry to cater for the many visitors. So were sown the seeds of the busy market and manufacturing town, and though still under monastic authority, the early Middle Ages saw the rise of freemen and burgesses and the growth of an urban elite.
With the Dissolution, the Prior’s dictate and ecclesiastical court rulings were exchanged for secular management by bailiff and burgesses – tanners, weavers, wool merchants, the new owners of monastic lands. In 1540 they built the town’s Guild Hall and later added the debating chamber where the Town Council still holds its meetings. They also set about building grand homes for themselves, enhancing and expanding earlier structures.
The header photo is Ashfield Hall, rebuilt in the 1550s by local worthy, Thomas Lawley, who extended an earlier stone building with the eye-catching timber-framed wing. In 1642 it was better known as the Blue Bridge Inn, and it was here that Charles I apparently spent the night during Civil War manoeuvres.
Here’s another view of Ashfield Hall. It is said to have been built on the site of St. John’s Hospital which was run by monks in the 1280s for the benefit of ‘lost and naked beggars.’ It had gone by the 15th century though evidence of its existence lived on in the street name of Spittle (hospital) Street, later renamed the High Street.
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Much Wenlock’s Tudor Guild Hall is still used as a market hall (downstairs) and a museum and council chamber above. Sitting in the heart of the town beside the parish church t is absolutely the town’s ‘signature’ landmark.
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The Bastard Hall up the street from the Guild Hall has seen many phases; its stonework certainly suggests some repurposing of priory ruins. It and its attached neighbour were the subject of an early Time Team television programme, the latter found to be housing the remnants of an early medieval hall. See link at the foot of this post for the full programme and insider views.
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Reynald’s Mansion is perhaps the most singularly impressive building on the town’s High Street. The striking timber facade was built onto an existing medieval house in 1682. For a time it was the town’s butcher’s. The post with cross-bar by the front door was used to make hefting heavy loads easier.
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This small architectural round-up was inspired by Ann-Christine at Lens-Artists. Striped and checked is her challenge this week.
Today we have blue skies and brilliant sunshine and last night’s snow has been rapidly melting. But the big question is: will enough of it melt before it starts freezing again, turning byways into ice rinks.
This morning, though, it was all very picturesque over the garden fence and about the town. The MacMoos were my first port of call for a photo-op. There were only two in the Cutlins meadow today. They do come and go. And what imperturbable souls they are, seemingly un-moo-ved by their snowy world so long as there’s plenty of hay.
Autumn somehow seems a fitting season for visiting thousand-year old ruins. These particular ones are practically on my doorstep, but I usually only glimpse them over the perimeter wall. They have anyway been out-of-bounds this last year. As a non-believer, I am never quite sure what to make of such places, though it is a wonderfully tranquil spot and I do like the play of light on the stonework and through the archways. I also like the ruinous shapes, and the sense of antiquity, and the glimpses of the priory parkland. And I especially love the Corsican pines that must have been planted by the Milnes-Gaskells who once lived in the Prior’s House (also known as The Abbey) and had these ruins as their personal garden features. (You can see the gable end of the house just right of centre in the first photo.) And finally there is some personal history, for I have been coming here, on and off, for well over half a century. Gracious, how time flies.
Life in Colour This month Jude at Travel Words is asking us to consider shades of brown in our photos. This set is from a couple of years ago, but I came across them again recently and thought they fitted the bill.
Fresh from the garden an hour ago, and more snow to come. Nor are we alone. Temperatures in the northern hemisphere, and especially parts of North America have been plunging to record lows due to a shift of the polar vortex, the icy wind system that usually spends winter over the Arctic. It’s even been snowing in the Algerian Sahara – the fourth time this has happened in 42 years. My computer tells me it’s zero degrees celsius here in the UK, positively tropical compared to Chicago’s –26C with an added wind-chill factor of –53C. Stay warm, everyone.
