In An Equatorial Light

In another life-time I ran away to Africa and fell in love with light. I must have noticed light before, but I do not remember this kind of rapture. There’s the land too: the visceral, eviscerating redness of the earth. It strikes the eye, fires every neuron in the cerebral cortex, then jabs you in the solar plexus. The hue of life and death then; no wonder traditional peoples make so much use of this pigment. There were times when I felt I could eat it.

The place I ran from is very near the town of Broseley where we have recently come to live. There’s an odd sense of ‘full circle’ and a musing of: should I be worried about this unexpected retracing of steps; is there a reason I’m back here; some unfinished business to be dealt with now that I’m ‘older and wiser’? Etc. etc. I decide this line of thinking is a distraction, although it has me looking back through thirty years.

The place I ran (or rather flew) to was Nairobi, Kenya and so to a nine month stint of roaming up and down the Mombasa highway, accompanying a plant pathologist who worked both at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in the city and at the Kiboko field station, a KARI outpost, a hundred miles south in Ukambani, homeland of the Akamba people.

Mombasa highway, looking north from Kiboko

Said plant pathologist, aka Graham, was working on a British government funded project to eradicate a maize-gobbling beetle known as LGB, the larger grain borer. (Everything you need to know about the science is at this link).

The pest had no known predators in Africa, having been introduced from South/Central America in consignments of US food aid in 1980s. And so finding itself free to infest the granaries of people who subsisted on grains, and on maize in particular, it quickly established itself across the southern and eastern continent, then in West Africa, travelling along major railway routes.

The aim of the project was to breed up stocks of a (safely) introduced predator beetle as a biological control and then release it in LGB infected areas. Meanwhile, the habits and destructive capacity of LGB were being monitored in various store experiments at Kiboko and at the coast near Mombasa.

On days when Graham was working at Kiboko, we stayed at Hunter’s Lodge. In our time it was an eccentric hostelry that seemed to survive for the benefit of its staff; there were rarely other guests there. Once it had been the home of John Hunter, Great White Hunter and doyen of the colonial grand safari era, friend of Baron Bror Blixen and Denys Finch Hatton, guide to sultans and European princes.

He had chosen the spot to build the house near the Kiboko River, at a place where elephant once came to drink at sundown. He also made a pool by diverting the river, and so created a marvellous haven for birdlife (some 3-400 species recorded there). I spent hours watching night herons, grey herons, weavers, pied, giant, brown headed kingfishers, ibis, white eyes, and storks. I took few photos: it was beyond my Olympus Trip’s capacity.

There are no elephant photos here either. They no longer came, nor would be welcome. Anyway, Hunter did a thorough job of official game clearance in Ukambani, where the colonial authorities deemed elephants a nuisance to settler farmers’ plantations. The nearest herds these days are an hour’s drive south in the vast national parks, Tsavo East and Tsavo West.

The bridge led to the hotel’s fruit and vegetable shamba

Rain and sunshine together: ‘a monkey’s wedding’

And speaking of monkeys, the garden was home to a troop of vervets, who soon learned we had a stash of food in our room. They were quick to relieve us of anything they could grab:

While I was staying at Hunter’s Lodge I met Esther, a young Akamba woman who had a stall selling wood carvings out on the highway. She also dealt in second-hand clothes and, an astute business woman, soon had me exchanging some of mine for her carvings. I think she had the best of the deal. I was useless at bargaining. She also had a notion that I would like to take a photo of her with young son Thomas. She knew exactly where she would pose, and took me along to the nearby petrol station where there was a cafe with a zebra mural. So please meet Esther and Thomas:

And here’s lovely Joyce who, on our return to Kenya a year later, used to keep our room tidy:

There were times, usually in the early morning, when we were leaving Kiboko that we’d catch sight of Kilimanjaro. There it rose on the horizon like a mirage. In seconds it would be gone, like a snuffed flame but without the tell-tale drift of smoke. You’d be left wondering if you dreamed it.

I fell in love with fever trees too, the graceful acacias that, incidentally, have no disease-bearing capacity, although the watery places where they live may well do so. The bark and foliage has a warm spicy scent that is unforgettable, and as for their looks in sundowner light, well, what is there to say…

When, at the end of our nomadic nine months, we went to live in Zambia (a very fresh-airy state) I truly missed the scent of fever trees. I couldn’t believe our luck when Graham was posted back to Kenya. It was then he had the rather dismal job of winding up the LGB project at the Kiboko field station. He threw a long, loud party for the lab staff at Hunter’s Lodge, and the next day everyone lined up to have their photo taken.

Most had other jobs to go to and were heading back to Nairobi and beyond. Only Paddy, then a young researcher, remained to carry on monitoring LGB movements and checking the insect traps on the nearby Range Station. He lived on the station in a remote staff house, up a long, long dirt road. These days he is Doctor of Agricultural Entomology at a research institute in Nairobi:

The road to the Range Station. I think this land was once a colonial (failed) sisal plantation. We heard that the thorny wilderness it had later become was the haunt of buffalo, an animal you definitely do not want to meet at close quarters.

After our return to Kenya in late 1993, we stayed on a further six years. This time Graham was involved with on-farm crop protection experiments, engaging the smallholder farmers in the process. As for LGB eradication, it seems attempts to use a biological control have not been especially successful, although the predator has naturalized and does have some limited effect on LGB numbers. Scrupulous cleaning of granaries between harvests plus chemical applications, e.g. dusting the stored crop with a pyrethroid insecticide does work, but otherwise it can be a sorry tale for subsistence farmers, who may not be able to afford the stuff. In the worst infestations up to 40% of stored grain can be lost, and up to 80% of dried cassava, a staple crop in West Africa.

So: some dark clouds on these horizons. It’s a lot to mull over. All these years on, I’m still trying to process it.

Graham at Emali market, buying maize for the Kiboko grain store experiments.

Lens-Artists: Glowing moments Siobhan at Bend Branches blog asks us to show her our best moments.

Spring Comes Softly at Hergest Croft

The second day of April, and the last day of our Presteigne cottage holiday, we set off to nearby Hergest Croft Gardens. The 70 acre gardens, part of the Hergest Estate, lie on the England-Wales border in Herefordshire, not far from Kington. From the first moment you set foot in the place you know it will be a gardener’s treat at every turn. And how could it not be? Not only does it hold the national collections of maple and birch trees, it is also six gardens in one, created from the late 19th century, and home to over 5,000 rare trees and shrubs; every specimen mindfully placed and nurtured over the years by members of the Banks family, a dynasty of local lawyers-bankers-plants-men-and-women.

We’d hoped for sunshine, but the weather forecast lied. The day of our visit was overcast and, while the profusion of daffodils and magnolia cascades through the trees said ‘spring’, to this human it felt more like winter, the Arctic edge to the breeze lingering on and on, fingering into every exposed cranny. I was glad of my quilt-lined waterproof and woolly hat.

Here and there were signs of winter hanging on. In fact most of the deciduous shrubs and trees seemed to think so too; there was a general air of arboreal slumber, their hint-of-green looks (on closer inspection) often down to profuse colonies of lichens, which tells you something about the quality of the clear, fresh air up on Hergest Ridge.

In the end it didn’t matter if spring was slow to happen. The gardens were beautiful, and it somehow added to the pleasure of small finds: a clump of violets, some snake’s fritillaries, primroses, more daffodil and magnolia vistas, a maple just unfurling:

Of course all such visits to English gardens must include a tea room, and Hergest Croft has a very fine one with a suitably gracious terrace overlooking the lawns and parkland. The cakes were so delicious I forgot to take their photo (apologies cake lovers). I was anyway distracted by a burst of sunshine. That didn’t last long either.

But by four o’clock even pots of tea and slabs of coffee and lemon cakes could not fend off the gathering chill, and there was one final spot to visit before heading back to the car and the warmth of our Presteigne cottage.

The kitchen garden.

At first sight it was definitely still in winter mode, although the rhubarb was putting on a good spurt, the terracotta covers set out for forcing.

Then we found the orchard, an avenue of ancient apple trees, and beneath them an exuberant (if slightly mad) planting of bulbs and hellebores. I forgot about shivering and laughed. We’d been looking in the wrong place. Who said it wasn’t spring yet?

Over The Hills And Into Wales

My sister Jo is a whizz at finding lovely spots for family gatherings, and so it was last Thursday we found ourselves in the Radnorshire hills, staying at Wild Meadow eco-cottage just outside Presteigne. We were only an hour or so’s drive from home, having crossed from Shropshire into Herefordshire, and thence into Wales, although only just inside the border (red arrow marks the spot):

And we all agreed how very pleasing it was to arrive on holiday so quickly i.e. without the stress of planes, motorways and hours of tedious driving. In fact the entire journey from home was mostly through rolling farm land. It also included our first ever sighting of a terrestrial rainbow. It was lying across the fields below Walton Hills as we drove through Much Wenlock. Most extraordinary. After a brief, sharp drizzle it seemed to have fallen flat out of the sky.

And so here we are (some of us) at Wild Meadow cottage:

Nearby Presteigne was once the county town of the ancient shire of Radnor, but these days is part of Powys, the largest administrative region in Wales. It is fine sheep farming country, and mostly looks like this for miles and miles and miles:

And this is the town. Not much was happening when we stopped there mid afternoon last Thursday, although we were pleased to find coffee was being served in the the bar of the 17th century Radnorshire Arms along with a welcoming smile from the publican.

Back at Wild Meadow, Jo tried out the old oak tree swing:

And after a few squalls of rain, we watched the sun set across the hills.

Broseley: A Town Of Many Views

Well they say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do ~ and it was, and for more than a year, but here we are in a new small town, scarcely a crow’s flight from our old home in Much Wenlock.

Broseley as a town isn’t as ancient as Much Wenlock. There were only 9 residents recorded in 1086. Much Wenlock, by contrast, had its Priory which saw much growth from the Norman period onwards, the new cult of St. Milburga (who was abbess of the first religious house there in the 7th century) attracting pilgrims, and thus spurring demand for local trades and services throughout the Middle Ages.

Broseley, with its once well wooded and agricultural lands, was part of Wenlock Priory’s domain, providing prime territory for deer-hunting monks. The Priory also exacted various rents from Broseley manor tenants, including the lord himself, who held his land according particular obligations to the Prior.

In the 1200s the Lord of Broseley kept his possessions on the basis that on St. Milburga’s day he was to dine at the Priory and carve the principal dish. His immediate neighbour, the Lord of Willey was obliged to bear the Prior’s robes to Parliament. Rents were charged for pannage (grazing of pigs in the woods) and also for operating coal pits in the area.

In 1570 Broseley was a small (mostly) agricultural village of around 125 individuals. But this changed when the lord of the manor, James Clifford encouraged the immigration of miners to work the local coal deposits. He let the newcomers build cottages on irregular plots of the uninclosed commons and wastes to the north of the village above the River Severn, a part of the town now known as Broseley Wood.

Soon the mining households outnumbered the locals’ homes more than 2:1, their presence leading to riots during the early 1600s, as Broseley villagers grew increasingly angry over their loss of common rights. Nonetheless, the hugger-mugger building of cottages in Broseley Wood continued as the mining enterprises(ironstone and clay as well as coal) thrived. As might be imagined, there was a proliferation of taverns to serve the workforce, and by 1690 Broseley Wood apparently had the looks of ‘a country town’. Miners were the main inhabitants, but there were also watermen (handling the export of coal down the River Severn), potters (making tavern mugs) and clay-pipe makers. Interestingly too, the hillsides down to the River Severn wharves were, from 1605, laid with a network of railways, the earliest ones made of wood, the haulage of trucks provided by humankind, often children.

New builds in the town emulate traditional local idioms and continue the habit of filling every available space, no matter how awkward to reach.

The cottages cling to the sides of precipitous ridges, access only by winding narrow lanes and cross-paths known as jitties.

I still have much to discover about the jitties, but on my short walk from the house yesterday, I revisited Maypole Jitty. It hives off Woodlands Green where the new maypole stands (reinstated in 1985), also the locale of the 1600s riots between villagers and miners.

Standing here, you can just see the top of the Severn Gorge above Ironbridge.

And here’s the maypole:

A nearby information board tells me that maypole dancing was part of an age-old fertility rite:

And now in case you’re wondering where the header image comes into this, well it was an unexpected discovery. After passing the maypole I found myself at the end of a cul de sac on Maypole Road where a discreet footpath sign caught my eye. It took me down a narrow bosky bridleway of celandines and wild garlic…

And in no time brought me to this spot at the top of the Gorge, and thence to the wood on Ball’s Lane and the maypole.

And so back into town:

With a here and there burst of spring colour if not spring warmth:

More Broseley views to follow.

Lens-Artists: New experiences This week the theme is set be Anne at Slow Shutter Speed

A Blooming Fanfare ~ Installed, If Not Quite ship-Shape

I ‘activated’ the Amaryllis bulb in February, as soon as I knew our house sale was settled and our moving date fixed. It was a Christmas gift from our best chum, Lesley, and I’d dithered over planting it up precisely because of the (sometime) imminent move.

I have to say when I finally opened its package, it did not look too promising: as in more dead than dormant. Still, I followed the instructions, installing the bulb’s bottom two-thirds into moist compost. The reaction was almost instantaneous. By the following day fresh leaf shoots were peeping out the top. Monitoring progress then became an amusing diversion from packing-up stress.

And come the snowy moving day, five leaves had emerged along with a fat budded stem. I transported it in the car and popped the pot on the kitchen cupboard by the new-house French doors where it had the best light. A few days later the flower stem was off on it own trajectory, clearly prompted by the Lance Penny work on the wall behind it.

And now, a week later, and moved to the dining table, all four flowers have opened, stealing the show from John Scarland’s Cafe Women:

So: the Farrells have landed; and most important of all, the kitchen is up and running. I’m getting the gist of the gas cooker that comes with the place, this after years of electric cooking. Several batches of soda bread have turned out well, and today’s first attempt at rye and almond shortbread proved passable:

We like the kitchen with the French doors that catch all the morning sun and open onto the small walled garden. Most of our stuff seems to have fitted in. Well, almost. He who no longer has a shed is busy trying to rein in the chaos of surplus possessions in the garage, this after setting up music and viewing systems in kitchen and living room. My writing den is pretty much set up; the too many books on new shelves. We even know where most things are, which has to be a first.

Next stop: Operation Explore Broseley. We’ve already located the old clay pipe works, the ancient Quaker Burial Ground and the town’s handsome striped maypole on the green near Maypole Jitty. More of which anon.

For now, it’s A Big Thank You, Lesley! So much entertainment from this extraordinary life form.

Farewell Townsend Meadow

Oh, how the weather gods teased. Well, they thought, why not bestow snow storms in March just when humankind are expecting spring and the Farrells in particular are booked (within a very narrow window of opportunity) to up sticks. We’ll show them, the deities said, taking us for granted, thinking they’ve got everything planned to the nth degree

And so it was that our first attempt to move house (two weeks today) failed, the main roads blocked with car accidents and jack-knifed artics, and the removal vans unable to reach us.

And then once the mover crew did manage to extract their vehicles from a two-hour jam, they decided to cut their losses and go and move someone whose house they could reach, meanwhile rescheduling us for the following Friday morning.

We felt stranded; misplaced; displaced. It was all very weird. We wandered round a cottage full of boxes, bereft of ‘home’, trying to locate the kettle and emergency tea-making kit. As the day wore on it began to rain, and spirits lifted; there were signs of a thaw. When we went into town later to find some supper, the roads were clear and the pavements slushy, we were sure that the snow would be gone by morning. We were still thinking this when we bunked down for the night on the mattress, the bed having been dismantled.

So it was a very bad moment when I opened the bedroom blinds at 7 a.m. on Friday to find the world white again and more snow falling. I had visions of our buyer trying to move in with us.

I needn’t have panicked. The movers were on the phone early, saying that although the main road was still closed, they would come the long way round and be with us at 9 am. And so they were. They had us away in 2 hours, the loading much helped, (surprise surprise) by the snow. The bad weather reports and the ongoing road blockage beyond Wenlock meant we missed out on the the usual morning traffic mayhem. There were no big container trucks squeezing by the house.

So: all there was left to do was to say goodbye to no. 31…

It’s a tad hard to process just yet – the moving on, but we seem (physically at least), to be settling into the rental house. And, besides, there’s so much to learn about our new home town of Broseley. Of which more anon, although I can report in advance that the locals are proving most welcoming. The snow is long gone too, although the weather gods are still teasing and giving us wintery gales instead of spring.

Moving Day Snowed Off!

The snow that was supposed to stop yesterday (according to the weather oracle) didn’t. There was a good six inches this morning – the slushy, slippery stuff that causes havoc on untreated roads. And havoc there was. The removal trucks did try valiantly to reach us this morning, but found themselves caught up for two hours in traffic jams of accidents and breakdowns on the highway down the Severn Gorge. And even if they had managed to reach Wenlock, the bottom of our street was blocked by two huge lorries that strangely, and within minutes of each other, had broken down; there was no way out to Broseley.

Now at lunch time, it’s raining not snowing; the road is almost slush-free and the broken down trucks vanished. Graham, after reinstating the internet connection, has retreated for a nap (on the mattress on the bedroom floor), having been awake half the night, and I’m pondering on what bare minimum needs to be unpacked for an unanticipated camp-over. (My last ditch packing up session early this morning saw stuff popped wildly into nearest bags and boxes, thus leaving some items untrackable). The movers are rescheduling jobs and plan to be with us tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have the trusty wood burner and a stash of logs. Our lovely neighbour, Josie has brought us chocolate cake and a bottle of wine. And later we may well treat ourselves to dinner out at one of Wenlock’s hostelries.

So as they say: tomorrow is another day. And hopefully the snow will soon be on its way out.

Primrose Peace In The Midst Of Moving House

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve not been around much in the last few months. And the reason? The Farrells are on the move, out of Much Wenlock and into next-door Broseley (ten minutes drive away), leaving the edge of Wenlock Edge for a new edge atop the Severn Gorge and above the world’s first cast iron bridge (1779).

In fact the Iron Bridge will be in walking distance of the new house, although maybe only on the outward foray. The Gorge is so steep, a bus ride back could well be called for. Anyway, this is what’s been going on – house selling, possessions culling, allotment retreating and finally, in the last three weeks, the hair-raising dash to find a rental property before the new owner moves in. Phew and double-phew. (Who knew that renting anywhere these days is so fraught with difficulties).

We began this whole moving process over a year ago, and it scarcely needs saying that it’s been very stressful. It’s definitely been a matter of snatching peaceful moments as and when. And of course, for gardening types, spotting signs of spring is always a welcome distraction from domestic chaos. I was busy repatriating allotment tools when I first noticed the primroses along the hedge bank beside Townsend Meadow. This was around the end of January, and I was surprised to see them flowering so early (neck and neck with the snowdrops). Clearly, unlike Mrs. Farrell, neither mind the frigid temps we’ve been having.

Some of you may also be wondering why we’re moving when there’s no obvious necessity. On anxiety-ridden days I have been wondering this myself. But then I have long been hankering for a home with a vegetable garden attached as opposed to one a field’s walk away. Not that I won’t miss the walk, or the views above the town, or the raven that flies cronking over my polytunnel in the late afternoon, or the chats with fellow allotmenteers.

But I will be glad to leave the allotment’s dispiritingly claggy Silurian soil, the endemic pests and weeds typical of free-for-all community gardens and the outrageous numbers of snails. And of course, I am getting on a bit! I would like to nurture my soil, not do battle with it. Nor do I really want to dash across the field for the lettuce I forgot to pick earlier.

So the plan: to rent for a time in Broseley while looking for a place to buy – hopefully somewhere over Wenlock Edge into South Shropshire and closer to dear younger sibling, the hill country, and also to better functioning public transport systems.

And yes, I will be sad to leave our upstairs-downstairs garden, and Graham his custom-made, super self-built shed. We’ll also miss our quirky cottage (though not the spiders). I’m sure, too, we’re going to feel more than a touch stranded in a rented house that’s not at all our style, to say nothing of the daunting prospect of moving TWICE.

Summer garden and Graham’s peaceful place freshly built

But then Broseley is a very fascinating old town, whose maze-like streets (jitties) of higgledly-piggledy cottages, reflect the arrival of immigrant miners way back in the 1590s when the town’s population of 5,000 was apparently much the same as today’s. The other key industry was clay pipe making, the products exported around the world, and the pipes themselves referred to as ‘Broseleys’.

Here’s a nice taster of what’s to explore from Broseley Historical Society.

Meanwhile, as the packing cases pile high in the living room, and sixteen years of covert dust alarmingly reveals itself, out in the garden, all is still wintery, the crab apple tree eaten bare and the guerrilla garden over the fence very endy.

But then in the shady corner behind Graham’s shed there’s a small scatter of miniature crocuses. So soothing to spend a few quiet moments with them before the big move at the end of the week (with the added thrill of forecast SNOW!)

Lens-Artists: Finding Peace This week Tina’s theme could not be more apt here on Sheinton Street.

Spanning The Straits: Thomas Telford’s Magnificent Menai Suspension Bridge

“…some of the horses are unsettled by the drop…”

Thomas Telford 1826

I’m not one for heroes, but I make an exception for Thomas Telford (1757-1843), the son of a Dumfriesshire shepherd who became one of Britain’s most outstanding engineers, the first President of the Institute of Civil Engineers and the man who left us with many astonishing structures still in daily use. Not the least of his many achievements are Scotland’s 60-mile Caledonian Canal and the magnificent Pontcysyllte Aqueduct whose still working canal crosses the River Dee near Llangollen in Wales.

And then there is the Menai Bridge that bridges the strait between mainland Wales and the island of Anglesey, with arches tall enough to allow ships to pass without lowering their sails. With a span of 580 feet it was, in its day, the longest suspension bridge ever constructed. Work began in 1819 and the bridge was opened to coach traffic in 1826. The project was part of Telford’s major improvements of the road from the Anglesey port Holyhead to London, otherwise known as the A5. One object was to ensure the swift, safe transport of Irish Members of Parliament to Westminster. Before the bridge, they had to risk a perilous ferry crossing between Anglesey and Bangor.

Telford was not only a man of vision in construction terms, but he always looked to the bigger picture, building roads that, though expensive to construct, were well drained and low maintenance, always looking to create integrated transport systems that would bring local and national prosperity. He was fastidious, too, in his project planning, and astute when it came to political lobbying and fund raising. He was also a man who made fast friendships and was a diligent letter writer, and he did much to encourage the young engineers who would succeed him.

In fact he never stopped working. Only death at the age of 77 concluded his prodigious career. There was never time to marry either (though there were near misses) and only in his late years did he bother to buy his London house. Even then he still kept travelling, racketing around in a coach from project to project, the length and breadth of the British Isles. He was certainly a man who knew his own worth, but he was modest too. Here’s a letter he wrote to one of his Menai Bridge contractors, Nye Vaughn, owner of the Castle Iron Works which provided the iron chains.

My Dear Vaughn,

You will be pleased to learn that the bridge at Menai is finished and opened to mail coaches last month. I confess the admiralty demand to hang the road a hundred feet above the sea to allow sailing ships to pass was a daunting requirement. However the bridge is built and, I must say, I am proud of it. It seems I am to be known as the ‘Colossus of Roads’ ** . An odd name don’t you think? Your iron chains were a devil to hang across the straits but they are firm and there is little movement when the coaches pass across although some of the horses are unsettled by the drop. Thank your son for his suggestion to coat the chains in linseed oil to protect them from corrosion. His idea has proved better than the lead paint we planned to use. To be doubly sure we have done both. When he proposed linseed oil I believed he was repaying me for teasing you in the sealing of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. I hope you forgive my jest. Please accept my compliments and thank your foundry men. Tell them we found no flaws in the links we tested. When I am next in need of heavy castings I will call on you.

My very best regards,

Telford

** It was Telford’s close friend and poet Robert Southey who coined this term Colossus of Roads

When we were on Anglesey back in January the bridge had been closed for three months. It was quite an emergency. Some structural upgrading carried out during the war years 1938 and 1941 showed serious signs of failing. Brittle hanging sockets were the problem and “analysis showed there was a credible risk of an unzipping failure of the bridge deck.”

An unzipping suspension bridge of Menai’s scale sounds horrendous. It’s good to know the bridge is now back in business. It opened again at the start of February. All the same, I wonder what Thomas Telford and Nye Vaughn would have had to say about brittle hanging sockets.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Arches, domes and half circles

Passing On The Saxon Past: Some Mystifying Fragments

Here’s a fine thing: Saxon carvings some 1,300 years old, but recycled in the 13th century when Wirksworth’s ancient church was being rebuilt. The curious fragments have been popped into one of the main inside walls, a cobbled assemblage of ram’s head, a wolf (or boar?), a leopard-like creature, a horse, and in their midst, a royal couple (?).

It is thought the carvings came from an early Christian building or Saxon cross. Wirksworth, in Derbyshire’s Peak District (England’s East Midlands) was once part of the great Saxon kingdom of Mercia, whose kings and sub-kings held sway over much of England from CE 600 to 900.

Christianity was established there in the mid 7th century as a condition of a peace treaty between pagan Mercia and neighbouring Christian Northumbria. Northumbrian Princess Elchfrida travelled south into Mercia to marry Peada, son of Penda, the last great pagan king of Mercia. She brought with her an entourage of missionary priests, one of whom, Betti, founded the church at Wirksworth in CE 653.

So could the couple be Elchfrida and Peada? We’ll never know. Though we do know from Bede that the real-life Elchfrida later betrayed Paeda, which led to his death and the reassertion of Mercian supremacy under his brother, King Wulfhere.

The church has another mysterious Saxon treasure, known as The Wirksworth Stone. It is a coffin lid dating to around CE 800, found a thousand years later during building work. The lid covered a large skeleton whose burial position under the floor close to the altar suggests a person of high religious status, an abbot perhaps.

But looking now at these curious works, and pondering, too, on my likely Anglo-Saxon origins, I can’t help but think of the opening line from L.P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

St. Mary’s, Wirksworth

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: statues, sculptures and carvings

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge