Shropshire

Bunting, Banners, A Zip-Up House…?

Display is this week’s theme from Ann-Christine at Lens-Artists, so I thought I’d show you a few more views of Bishop’s Castle. It seems like a town that wants to party, or it might do, if it could stop feeling so sleepy. But then somnalent or not, it puts on a bright face.

And yes, the Six Bells inn truly is that vibrant shade of coral. It’s the first building you see as you enter the town.

There’s also a welcoming sign on the wall to any passing elephant who might fancy a pint of this hostelry’s best brew:

Across the street the houses cut quite a dash, colour-wise. This pair comes joined at the zip, so to speak:

And then next door is a bit of a puzzle:

Back up the hill into town there’s another coral-fronted tavern…

And three doors up, opposite the Town Hall, is Bishop’s Castle’s very own Poetry Pharmacy, an independent bookshop emporium wherein a carefully curated selection of poetry and fine prose works are on sale to heal whatever ails. It has a cafe too, and a physic garden with a writing cabin that may be reserved at no cost. The poetry pharmacist also offers personal consultations, with suitable verses prescribed. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this nourishing alternative health service.

And one last image: this from a cottage at the bottom of our street. I’ve posted it before, but it gives me a lift whenever I pass it. Up, up and away…

Lens-Artists: On display Please go and view Ann-Christine’s lovely images for this challenge. They’re a real treat.

The Man From Africa ~ I.D. Unknown

Last week I went to pay my respects to I.D. He is one of Bishop’s Castle’s mysteries – the man from Africa, who was laid to rest in the parish churchyard of St John the Baptist on the 9th September 1801. Origins and life story unknown.

Here lieth the Body of I.D.

A Native of Africa who died in this Town Sept 9th 1801

God hath made of one Blood all nations of Men Acts 17 verse 26

I’ve written about him before, but the mystery continues to niggle, and especially now that I’ve come to live in the town. Who was this man? Where did he come from, and how had he arrived in the isolated small farming town of Bishop’s Castle? What led to his death? Was he slave, originally from West Africa or the Congo, and a possession of some Shropshire plantation-owning grandee. Or was he a free man; or employed as a servant?

The headstone, if sparse in details, is a fine one; it suggests a certain status; someone must have paid for it. There’s also a presumption that the deceased was a baptised Christian since the grave is sited in a prominent spot beside a well used path.

If the man had been a well regarded servant, then one might expect more personal details; a name at least; the years of his service and the name of his employer. (Slaves were usually given their owner’s names.) If he were merely a passing traveller who happened to die in the town, then who took it upon themselves to give him a decent burial? The parish records throw no light on the matter, and only repeat the text on the stone.

But there is a clue in the biblical quotation: God hath made of one blood all nations of men. This was a trademark text used by campaigners for the abolition of slavery.

At the time, Shropshire had its own fierce anti-slavery movement, driven by the dogged determination of one Archdeacon Joseph Plymley who lived not far away at Longnor. From 1791 until abolition in 1807 he worked tirelessly, alongside his sister, Katherine Plymley, travelling the county, raising petitions, urging Salopians to boycott sugar. So perhaps a local abolitionist sympathiser paid for the funeral. And perhaps, too, that well-wisher had the sensibility not to bury the man with his full slave name, but not knowing his birth name, chose to identify him solely by the initials I.D.

So many questions about a man, identity unknown, cut off from family, culture and community, lying in this quiet, but alien burial ground at the foot of the town, late summer cyclamen under the trees, the drift of cool air in from the hills and fields. Africa far far away.

September Harvest

Warm winds this afternoon, and a flurry of Red Admiral butterflies about the garden. Also out on the lawn, the alcoholic waft of gently fermenting apples – windfalls from our gnarly trees. The trees are in need of serious remedial work – if reclaiming them is even possible. Most of the fruit is spoiled before it falls – lots of pests and diseases, and some very spotty articles. But that said, there’s been enough good fruit to make a few pots of cinnamon and honey poached apple. And more to come.

As for this Red Admiral, it was spending a lot of time supping from a very rotten apple. I wonder if butterflies get squiffy. It might account for all the whirling about that was going on as I hacked away on project-liberation-greenhouse. It’s almost free from the overbearing hedge, but a lot of broken panes where hawthorn and ivy branches have leaned too heavily. For now, though, it’s good enough to shelter two bucket-planted tomato plants brought from Broseley. They’re still fruiting, if sporadically.

Our other tomatoes are an outdoor container variety, Tumbling Tom. They ripened very nicely on the terrace wall during our week of hot September weather. Here they are doing just what it says on the packet: cascading from their pots in profusion – out of summer and into fall.

Enter The Dragon

We’ve been ‘moving in’ to our new Bishops Castle home for a month now; more an ongoing state of flux than a settling in. There’s a lot to do and for months ahead, including work on roof and chimneys. And so not a little frazzled, it was a relief to abandon the house and head for the streets.

Yesterday was Michaelmas Fair day. Time to find out what kind of a town we’d moved to. Time to mingle with our new community and connect. After all, it’s what humans most need beyond basic sustenance – connection. And when we think we don’t (because there’s just too much to do), it’s probably when we need it most.

Proceedings kicked off at noon with street stalls and roaming performers, bands on the Town Hall stage; classic cars lined up on the High Street – primped and prepped; fleet of steam traction engines huffing coaly steam in the cattle market, waiting on the 3 o’ clock grand parade.

But as you can see, it was a dull old day – autumnal mist and drizzle plus intermittent showers, so we dipped in and out of the afternoon’s programme, met some new neighbours, reprised earlier introductions (yes, I do remember your name), bought a very fine rudbeckia, caught the Shropshire Bedlams Morris Dancers, but then listened to Jane the town’s singing florist (much amplified) while installing the new plant in the front garden. It was the evening’s events we wanted to go to.

The Lantern Procession began at 7.45. We stood at the top of the town to welcome it, wondering why the street was so sparse in humanity. (Was everyone in the pub? It surely looked like it. The nearby Vaults inn was full to bursting). And then down the hill the drumming began. Then out of the gloaming, the sinuous twists and twirls of the Hung Gar Light Dragon. And strung out behind him, the town’s lantern-bearing children and all their friends and relations.

Now we understood. Most of Bishops Castle had been busy making lanterns in the Church Barn. They were all in the procession. What a throng.

And so as the dragon and Chinese drummers climbed the hill, so the Broseley Beats Samba Band struck up at the top. (I wish we’d discovered them when were living Broseley). A drumming play off then, the beats ripping from toe to crown. No choice. The body says, DANCE!

Then just when we thought the show over, the dragon came whiffling back round the Town Hall, heading off down the hill. Followed by the samba band. Followed by us and everyone else, the descent choreographed by the drummers, stopping at intervals to give a bravado performance.

When we reached the King’s Head at the bottom of the town, we (somewhat astonished) came on a line-up of several steaming traction engines outside the pub door. What a hoot, and literally too. One owner was a tad whistle-happy. I trust he wasn’t driving home.

So there you have it, a fine finale to the Michaelmas Fair. All good spirits restored. And a taste of good things to come? I should think so.

Lens-Artists: recharge This week Egidio sets the theme as he hikes Colorado’s fabulous trails.

Old As The Hills: That Would Be 570,000,000 years

I recall being told by my geography teacher (aeons ago) that the Shropshire uplands comprised some of the world’s most venerable rocks i.e from the Precambrian era. The hills in question lie either side the Church Stretton fault, just across the Long Mynd from where we live now in Bishop’s Castle. On the east of the Stretton Valley are Lawley, Caer Caradoc and Ragleth, all formed from volcanic lava and ash around 570 million years ago. The Long Mynd lies to the west and began forming a little later with the build up of mud- and sandstone sediments in shallow seas.

Most astonishing of all, this whole process began when the earth’s crust beneath the land on which I now live was sited south of the Antarctic Circle. I’ll say that again: South Shropshire once lay south of the Antarctic Circle. Which obviously means this part of the British Isles has travelled from one end of the globe to the other.

On that journey, over millions of years, sea levels rose and fell; tectonic plates collided as continents shifted and shunted; uplifted landmasses were compressed, folded, tilted.

Then a succession of Ice Ages knocked the hills into shape. The Long Mynd is probably the most dramatic example – seen here in the the next photos taken in Carding Mill Valley, near Church Stretton. From 2.4 million years ago to 20,000 years ago glaciers shifted around the Mynd. When the ice sheets melted during interglacial periods, streams fed by melt water and rain carved out deep valleys, locally known as ‘batches’.

How mind-bogglingly amazing is this for a piece of landscape sculpting: water power plus the passage of time.

Lens-Artists: Time

Stiperstones Trail: Not For The Tender Footed

In the last post you saw the Stiperstones in brooding monochrome. Those photos were taken on a dull and windy summer’s day. It was our first attempt to reach the Devil’s Chair. I had never seen it at close quarters. But in the end, the lack of light and the high wind across the tops put an end to the expedition.

The big problem on this particular trail is the surface. The higher you climb, the worse the path becomes, forming a devilish spread of upended pointy cobbles, designed to turn ankles and gouge soles, even when the walker is shod with sturdy footwear. The wind only made navigation harder: hard to focus with watering eyes. At one point I tried deviating through the heather, but it was a struggle to stride over; and it meant walking twice as far, and the rocks still ambushed me. A retreat was called.

We then made another attempt on a windless sunny day, when these photos were taken, but again were defeated by the terrain; nobbled by the cobbles. Still, despite hazy skies, there were some good views of the South Shropshire Hills as we headed down. And there is no doubting: this is one dramatic landscape, the quartzite rock of the the tors and outcrops laid down 480 million years ago, then fractured and shattered during recurrent freeze and thaw phases of the last Ice Age, 15,000 years ago. Back then, the ice sheet that covered much of Britain lapped against these hills.

It’s quite a thought: the repeated cycles of warming and cooling, cooling and warming that planet earth has gone through over many million years. And here we are in a warmish interglacial (it was apparently warmer in Britain in the Bronze Age, during Roman times and in the Middle Ages), and we’re probably due another cooling, since the geological timetable appears remarkably consistent, or at least it does when one’s dealing in millennia. I’m not sure we’ll like it though, the cooling.

Cee’s Which Way Challenge: walks

Over The Hills And Far Away…

At last. We’ve landed. I’m back. And on a whole new edge; no longer Wenlock, but on the border between Shropshire and Wales. And although we are finally here in body, there’s still a sense of too long in transit; a Rip Van Winkle dislocation in time and space. So just so you and we know where we’ve come to (from Broseley in the east to the county’s south-west corner just north of Clun), here are some maps.

Here we are, then, in the midst of Shropshire’s hill country, not far from the Long Mynd and the Stiperstones. Nor far either from the Welsh uplands. Bishop’s Castle also sits on its own steep hill.

This is the Town Hall, not quite on the summit. The clock chimes the hours and quarter hours, the plangent tones (when one is half asleep) evoking vague notions of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, for although we lack the slow black, crow black fishing boat bobbing sea, I feel sure I will discover some equivalent.

Here’s the downwards view:

This is the High Street. Curiously perhaps, it features tributes to elephants here and there along its length. The most dramatic and near life-size version is just above the Town Hall:

But half way down the hill we find a whole herd:

And on the corner with Union Street, our new-home road:

And why the elephants, you ask?

Well, there are two reasons.

1) In the 18th century, the rapacious Robert Clive aka Clive of India, returned to England with his haul of Subcontinental booty and became Member of Parliament for the rotten borough of Bishop’s Castle. Yes, he bought the votes, folks; married into the Earls of Powys dynasty and included an Indian elephant in his coat of arms (seen here at the top of the town)

2) Across the road from the coat of arms is the Castle Hotel. During World War 2 its stables were used to shelter a number of circus elephants, keeping them safe from bombing raids. When peace resumed and the elephants returned to their owners, it is said that one remained unclaimed and continued to be a familiar sight on the town’s byways.

The Elephant Gate House where the elephants lived has been refurbished and these days is a welcoming holiday retreat for humankind.

And now there’s an elephant I haven’t mentioned, but certainly featured in earlier blog posts on Bishop’s Castle. Please meet Clive, the mascot of the town’s Michaelmas Fair which is due to happen in two weeks time (I shall report back). Meanwhile here’s a photo of him from an earlier fair day:

While I’m here, I’d like to thank all of you who wished us well with second house move since March. Those kind thoughts surely worked, and all went smoothly, and without the snowstorms of the first move. Though on the leaving day I was mightily caught out. Such is the fickleness of the human heart, but I felt more sad about leaving Broseley after a mere six months than ever I did about leaving Wenlock after sixteen years. Goodness! Where did that come from?

But then I probably do know. I fell in love with Broseley’s Jitties, the town’s meandering alleys and pathways that resonated with centuries of people history – of miners and iron workers, potters and clay pipe makers, water carriers and maypole dancers; and all discovered in a place I thought I knew.

It’s a lesson to carry onward. Don’t take things for granted. Look beyond the obvious. And I know very well that Bishop’s Castle has a myriad of tales to tell, from the ancient and antique to the quirkily new. It’s certainly home to many busily creating people.

And on that note, here’s a cheery (elephant-free) artwork from the end of our road. You can’t help but smile:

PS: the header photo is the view from our bedroom window – if I stand on tiptoes.

Bishop’s Castle Here We Come

The flags were flying yesterday in Bishop’s Castle, though not for us. They were marking a recent festival, celebrating the town’s 450 years of self-rule, granted in a royal charter by Elizabeth 1 in July 1573. This fabulous document, bearing the queen’s portrait, freed the town from the bishops’ control and instead gave executive authority to a Bailiff and fifteen Capital Burgesses to administer the community’s affairs; a first bold step towards democracy then.

Photo: Bishop’s Castle Town Council

But if the flags weren’t for us, it felt as if they were. Yesterday we at last picked up the keys to our new home: a small red-bricked villa built by one George Nicholas in 1922 on a corner of land bought back then from a local brewery. The house sits above a narrow lane running parallel to the High Street, and is in walking distance of pretty much everything in the town.

And so begins the next stage: preparing for the actual move, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Phew and double phew. I think the nerves are holding up – just.

So watch this space for some new tales from another ancient Shropshire town.

In the meantime here’s a couple of photos also taken yesterday. As you can see- not the best of days, but proof that our cool and lacklustre July continues. And yes, that is an elephant you see performing on a vacant wall near the Town Hall.

And this is the Town Hall. We can hear the graceful chimes of its clock in our new garden. Yesterday it was hosting a wedding as we walked by. It also provides a regular venue for farmers’ markets and craft fairs, and of course council meetings are also held in its very handsome chamber on the upper floor.

To be continued…

Nice To Meet Ewe…

The sheep eyeing me here is posing so neatly beneath the rocky outcrop of the Devil’s Chair. She is clearly untroubled by that landmark’s eerie and supernatural associations.

This is a stunning landscape, the hills rolling westwards out of Shropshire and into Wales. But it is no easy place to live, the ground marginal, rocky and exposed to all weathers. These days, many farming families struggle and must deploy much ingenuity to keep a viable foothold in the small upland communities, sheep being the primary source of income. Yet, as managed wildernesses go, this is surely priceless terrain; rightly protected and designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

It is also a landscape that has been inhabited across five and more millennia. The prehistoric people who lived here left us many signs of themselves – their cycles of living and dying, their field systems and burial cairns, house circles, standing stones, hillforts and henges. The fields, in particular, appear to be at altitudes too exposed for successful cultivation. But then there is also evidence from various post-glacial times indicating the climate was warmer than today, particularly during in the Bronze Age. So perhaps those prehistoric farmers did enjoy their place in the upland sun and a spell of good growing and grazing.

There are other historical ironies. The whole locality is riven with old lead mine shafts and workings, some dating from Roman times, but most belonging to the lead mining heyday in the 1850s when the nearby Snailbeach Mine employed 500 men and was known as the richest land per acre in Europe. It is hard to comprehend this now. Other valuable minerals were also extracted: barytes (the main source of barium used in the taking of X-rays), zinc, calcite, fluorspar and even some silver.

Now lamb chops are the primary resource along with farmhouse B & Bs catering for holiday hikers and cyclists. But also, we can be glad to hear, after many difficult years, hill farmers are now being given credit and support as they continue to farm environmentally protected landscapes.

Here’s a nice story of smallholder Hare Hill Farm and how its owners are making a living with sheep and vegetable growing.

Corndon Hill, Powys border sheep country.

Photo taken from Mitchells Fold Stone Circle

By contrast, the easterly parts of Shropshire below the hill country, are plain-like. As you can see, it is largely farm fields and scattered habitation. Most production is arable (wheat, barley, hay, oil seed rape, root crops including sugar beet, maize) with some beef, pig and dairy farming.

Photo taken from Shropshire’s most famous hill, the Long Mynd.

And now for a favourite sheep photo. One of a flock of sheep, so I was told, brought from Wales to Much Wenlock for a spot of sheltered winter grazing on the Wenlock Abbey estate.

To find out more about Shropshire’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and all the things that go on in our beautiful uplands, take a look at the AONB site HERE. Lots of stunning photos.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: all things farm related