Ramblings

Sunday 1^st May – Birmingham – I step out of the hotel and am surprised that it is raining, the first rain I have seen for several weeks. Down Granville Street. Modern buildings stand on both sides of the street, all at least three storeys to over thirty storeys high. The Arts Council however is in an old foundry building. Over the Worcester and Birmingham canal. On past modern buildings with the occasional Victorian or early 20^th century commercial building still standing. The old OS maps shows leather works, S^t Thomas’s Works (Brass Casting), Electro-plating works, File works and many other industrial sites – all now housing. A colonnade in the Peace Garden was constructed in 1925 in Broad Street is a garden of remembrance and re-erected here in Granville Street in 1990. Following victory in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Parliament set up a Commission that was given £1 million to build so called “Waterloo Churches” in an act of national thanksgiving in 1818. Two of the Commissioners’ churches in Birmingham were designed in a neo-classical style by Thomas Rickman, S^t Thomas’ and S^t Peter’s, Dale End in 1825 (now demolished). On the night of 11^th December 1940, all but the fine tower of S^t Thomas’ and classical west portico was destroyed by German bombs. Opposite stood a school, now apartments and a small supermarket.

Across Bath Row towards Park Central on Gregoe Street. The whole area is almost completely modern because unwanted industrial buildings, slum housing and considerable bomb damage required rebuilding. There is a small development of mid 20^th century bungalows now all fitted with solar panels on the roof. On one side of the street is a terrace of modern rented homes and the apartment block on the other a very large care home. Here there was a six-way crossroads. The streets were lined by terraces and courtyard housing – all gone. The street descends gently and reaches Moonlit Park which has sinuous stainless steel feature running across it on curved concrete plinths. Mosedale Way runs around the edge of the park. Again, roads and crossroads have disappeared. Large terraces and courtyards and the Ryland Arms pub are all gone. However, the modern housing has enough design and variation to make it a pleasant environment.

At the bottom of the hill is the A4540. New houses on a development across three road look far more like the current trend for cheap, boring housing. Instead of going down to the large noisy dual carriageway I turn into Rickman Drive. Over the houses one can see the circular tower of the Bullring and a tall crane towering over the core of another skyscraper. The back of the Ibis Hotel is an appalling monolith with slabs of white concrete abutted with rows of tiny windows. The Bell Inn stood here. Into Great Colmore Street. Past a Catholic school where my sense of smell is blasted by the sweet scent of flowering blackcurrant.

Onto Bristol Road the A38. S^t Catherine’s Catholic Church is circular with a vast copper dome. A square tower stands next to it connected to the church by a concrete entrance. The present church building dates from 1964. It replaced an earlier building, which was begun in 1875 and which was demolished to make way for a road improvement scheme, a short distance away along Bristol Road. Up Irving Street which ends with a youth centre and a football pitch on the site of houses, a saddlery, brass foundry and a button manufacturer. Sutton Street leads into Holloway Head which becomes Bath Row. A five storey building in yellow and green cladding is the Attwood Green Health Centre, a GP practise, dentists, community nursing counselling, physiotherapy and pharmacy, all on one site. Opposite is the old Queen’s Hospital, now apartments.

Into Bishopsgate Street and over the canal again. Pay-to-ride electric scooters are abandoned around the city. Birmingham Progressive Synagogue is in a modern building of 2009. The Bull’s Head is a fine ornate Victorian pub built in 1901, designed by James and Lister Lea for Ansells Brewery. It is faced in terracotta, with glazed red brick. Into Broad Street, still closed off in many places to traffic presumably more works on the trams although these are no longer running because of problems with body panels. A number of older buildings still stand amongst all the modern towers. A large house stands one side of Sheepcote Street. It was built 1814 as Islington House for Rice Harris and became the main block to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. On the other is a Victorian bank, built in 1898, by C E Bateman is being towered over by a huge glass and cladding thirty three storey skyscraper. Opposite the early 20^th century Transport House of the TGWU. A short distance along the road is a very fine Art Deco building with large windows. It was built in 1932 for Lee Longlands, furnishers, who still occupy the building.

Later we head along Sheepcote Street to The Roundhouse, built in 1874, a large, circular brick building between the London North Western Railway line and the Birmingham Canal. It was part of an extensive city improvement act and the building was commissioned by the Corporation of Birmingham through an architectural competition, which was won by local architect W H Ward. The Roundhouse was used as a stables and stores for the Birmingham Corporation’s Public Works Department. It is a horseshoe shaped building raised above street level with a slope down underneath to the canal. They consist of 10 single storeyed bays, a central 152 storeyed bays and another 10 single storeyed bays.

Along the canal to Gas Street Basin. A large Lego giraffe stands by the Lego Centre. We have a pint, then back through the centre. The areas around Victoria Square and across to the Town Hall is finally free of hoardings and fences. The site is very impressive. High on a ledge of the museum, two Magpies and a Carrion Crow are engaged in a furious fight. It seems the Magpies have a nest in a corner, held in by netting, and the Carrion Crow is raiding it. The fight continues for some time until the crow is driven off. On through streets of monumental architecture to S^t Philip’s Cathedral to admire again the wonderful Burne-Jones glass. After a pint in a Weatherspoons where every surface is covered in piles of dirty crockery and glass, we retreat to The Craven Arms, possibly the best pub in the city.

Wednesday 4^th May – Bodenham Lake – At last, proper rain! It started around 4 o’clock in the morning and has continued as showers with bright sunshine in between. Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Dunnocks, Blue Tits all are in song or calling around the car park. On down the track. Forget-me-nots are flowering on the verge. A Wren and Blackcap are in song. A female Bullfinch flits from tree to tree. Then her much more brightly coloured mate appears.

Three Mute Swans are on the islands and a couple of Mallard are in the water otherwise the lake seems empty. Into the meadow. Garden Warbler is singing from a thick hawthorn and is, of course, completely hidden as usual but then suddenly it flies out into a dead tree and gives good views.

Into the hide. Canada Geese are relatively quiet. A couple of Mute Swans, Mallard and Great Crested Grebe are on the water. On the far side is a Coot, which seems a rarity here these days. Three Cormorants are together high in the island trees. Nearby another is even higher in a tree. A couple of Moorhens and a pair of Tufted Duck are at the western end. The Moorhen is still on the nest at the base of the Willow sapling by the scrape. A couple of sleeping Mallard are on the scrape and a pair of Canada Geese preen and wash beside it. A Kingfisher flies into one of the Willow saplings and then across to the sapling with the Moorhen nest finally it departs and flies across to the island. A pair of Oystercatchers are on the island in front of the southern hide. A pair of Canada Geese emerge from the western reed beds with a gaggle of goslings in tow. A Mandarin Duck flies in. A Little Egret appears on one of the small islands. A few minutes later a Ringed Plover flies in and lands close to the Little Egret who goes to investigate and scares it off. The Ringed Plover returns to a larger island close by, which is now also occupied by three Cormorants.

Back to the orchards. Some of the cider apple blossom is beginning to go over whilst others look like they are several weeks off blossoming. The same applies in the dessert apple orchard although several trees including a Lord Hindlip seem to be having a year off.

Friday 6^th May – Crossgates, Y Groes – A grey overcast morning. Crossgates has grown up around an important junction of the A483 and the A44. The former a north-south route through the Welsh side of The Marches and the A44, the major route to West Wales. I start near Fron, a short distance north of Crossgates. Red Kites circle overhead. Blackbirds and a Chaffinch are in song. On the west side of the road is a large milestone “Builth 11 miles Newtown 23”. On the east side of the road the village of Fron. Houses on the A483 are solid late 19^th or early 20^th century. Ffordd Y Creigau, Rock Road, rises through the village. The houses here are mainly relatively modern, although the Rectory looks interwar.

The road continues to rise steeply. Pastures dropping down the hill have bright chrome yellow borders of flowering Gorse. At the top of the hill is Rock English Baptist Chapel, built in 1770 (making it the oldest Baptist Chapel in Radnorshire) and rebuilt in 1806, 1820 and again in 1867. The present chapel is built in the Simple Round-Headed style with a gable-entry plan. The manse was added in 1867. On a steep slope to the west of the chapel is the old graveyard. To the south is the modern graveyard although a few graves date back to the early 20^th century. The walls of the chapel have been rendered in grey painted pebble-dash making it somewhat austere. The Elan Valley to Birmingham Aqueduct runs under the chapel through Fron Tunnel.

Over the hill to a junction. A Garden Warbler sings. My route lays south east. The banks of the lane are brightly coloured with yellow Celandines, deep blue Bluebells, white Garlic Mustard and Greater Stitchwort. Further on last of the Primroses and the first Common Vetch and Cow Parsley. Red Campion and Dog Violets are also in flower. A Whitethroat disappears into the hedge. The hedge is old with a good number of species of bush and tree in it. The lane begins to descend. A dark green fern, Common Polypody, Polypodium vulgare, is growing out of the bank. A White-tailed Bumblebee flies along the bank. At Lower Cefn Penarth, an old farmhouse with attached animal barn has been replaced by an early 20^th century red brick house. Ahead are the gentle rolling hills above the Radnor forest and the craggy hills of Llandeglau Rhos. A Swallow flies over buffeted by the increasingly strong wind.

The lane descends more steeply now. There is constant bird song – Robin, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, another Garden Warbler and Blue Tit. Past Crossway, a much extended house. Hidden in a wood is an air shaft, the only indication that a tunnel is passing underneath the lane carrying the Heart of Wales line. On a junction a Friends Meeting House is 1891 is now a residence. A large Victorian house stands opposite. A Red Kite calls as it glides over. Swallow sweep through the sky.

A public footpath across a field is completely missing so I head eastwards along the A44, passing a garden centre, Cae Hela, on the site of an old saw pit, turning off southwards down a lane, which passes the western side of Pen-y-Bont Hall. The lane heads west vaguely parallel with the A49. Bluebells grow on the banks beside the lane; they are a particularly intense blue in this area. The fields contain sheep and lambs, several appear to be triplets. Passed a lane that goes up to A44 and Pen-y-Bont station. The lane drops steeply down to the Llandrindod Wells Road, the A483.

Across the main road is the church of S^t Padarn. S^t Padarn was a 6^th century bishop and head of a monastery near Aberystwyth. He also seems to be S^t Paternus of Avranches in Normandy and that was the old name for the church. A wooden church here was replaced by a stone church, possibly by Ralph de Mortimer around 1100-1150. The church was said to have been visited by Giraldus Cambrensis in 1176. It was completely rebuilt in 1878-9 by Stephen Williams, architect of Rhayader. A Norman window remains in the south wall and the doorway is a magnificent example of the Herefordshire School from the 12^th century. The tympanum shows the tree of life growing out of an animal head with two leaping lions either side. One of the lions is resting its feet on a sun-disc. Below on one doorway column are human figures, possibly Adam and Eve and another animal head. The other doorway column has a beast, possibly a dragon, swallowing another animal. High in the east wall of the porch are two Norman corbels, probably from a corbel table, comprising a double-headed Janus and a Sheila-na-gig. In the west wall is a small stone with the Roman inscription VAL FLAVINI. It is said to have been found in the dismantled masonry of the previous church and may have been salvaged from nearby Castell Collen Roman fort. There are two fonts, a plain octagonal 15^th century bowl is mounted on reconstructed masonry, and has a wooden cover inscribed “IDV 1679”, the other a 19^th century octagonal font with a shaped bowl and stem. Among a number of tablets on the walls is a monument to Evan Williams Davies (died 1838) which has a panel flanked by inverted torches, surmounted by a broken Ionic column and weeping willow. In the chancel are four brass plaques to the Chesment Severn family (died in the period 1873-1907), all signed by Frank Smith & Co of London.

North towards Crossgates crossroads. Pied Wagtails seek insects around a rusting cattle feeder. A mid 20^th century former council estate stands this side of the junction. Under a cast iron railway bridge. A number of Victorian houses stand on the junction. The former village shop and Post Office is now a tattoo parlour. Opposite, the former Llanbadarn Hotel is a private residence. A short distance down the A44 is a supermarket and garage which would have been the death of the shop. Across the junction is the large Georgian Guidfa House. Along the road towards Fron. The modern school is across a field. A 1930s bungalow stands on the edge of a later estate. Route

Sunday 8^th May – Leominster – A dull, grey morning with rain in the air. There is a complete absence of birdsong in the street just a few chirrups from House Sparrows and the odd squeak from a Blue Tit. Over the railway to Butts Bridge. The water level in the River Lugg has fallen further exposing more of the gravel bar downstream from the bridge. Two Dippers are on stones below the bridge. One remains on a large boulder beneath the water monitoring block whilst the other flies up to stand on one of the measuring sticks. Bird song is still intermittent here, a couple of Wrens singing loudly, a few bursts from a Blackcap and a Blackbird in song further down Lammas Meadow. Garlic Mustard is flowering profusely beside the railway. Rabbits hop down the track where the old line ran.

Back over the railway. A Lesser Black-backed Gull stands on the roof. It has a very black back, indicating it is the Baltic subspecies, fuscus. A Dunnock sings beside the White Lion. Into Pinsley Mill. Tiny balls of flower buds have appeared on Elder. Robin, Blackcap and Chiffchaff all sing on the far side of the railway. Three male Blackbirds chase across from the railway to the gardens in Pinsley Road. Into the Millennium Park. The White Comfrey on the corner of the churchyard is now completely swamped by Stinging Nettles, Cleavers and Cow Parsley. One vast nettle bed runs all along the foot of the churchyard. A Red Kite flies over. The River Kenwater is running shallow and clear.

Through the churchyard. A Blackbird sings melodiously. A Greenfinch wheezes near the western gate.

Home – The compost bin job is undertaken again, one bin empty, so the other turned into it. The three plastic bins are emptied into the now vacant large wooden bin. One plastic bin has a fairly extensive ants’ nest in it which will be badly damaged by the transfer. Annoyingly the kale plants are badly infested with aphids so need to be removed. At least infested tops are given to the chickens but the rest are bagged for disposal. The tomato plants in the greenhouse have their side shoots pinched out.

Monday 9^th May – Bromyard Downs – I park opposite Brockhampton school on the Bromyard Downs. The sky is covered by a thin layer of cloud with the sun glaring behind it. There is a breeze. Grass is growing rapidly now there are large clumps of Timothy, Cock’s Foot and Rough Meadow-grass among others. Across the open common land are numerous Ribwort Plantains and Dandelion clocks. A Blackcap sings from near the school playing field. A Yellowhammer calls from down the hillside. Another flies up the hillside into the hedge running along the top of the common and starts to call. An orange Marsh Slug slides across the path.

A toposcope stands at the entrance to Warren Wood. Sites indicated in the distance such as Skirrid, Sugarloaf, Hay Bluff and the Brecon Beacons are all hazy. Into the woods. Surprisingly there are a couple of hoots from a Tawny Owl. A large underground reservoir stands to the east of the wood. Chiffchaff and Chaffinch call. To the north east is the Woolhope Dome. Beyond in the mist are the Cotswolds. Blue Tits chatter in a young Oak tree whose delicate leaves are just opening. Two Auxiliary Unit Operational Bases – bunkers to be used by stay-behind resistance forces in the Second World War if the Germans had invaded – are in these woods. The woods have a wide range of trees both in terms of species and ages. There are are Beech trees probably 200 years old, similarly aged conifers and numerous younger trees, Field Maples, Oaks, Hollies, Elder etc.

The wood tapers and the path is back out on the open downland. The Clee Hills lie in the distance to the north. A ruined house stands to the east. A National Trust plaque nearby states Shepherd’s Cottage 1895. A path runs past the cottage. In front of the porch is a small plinth with a raised painted figure on it and the letters “CH”. The path leads to the Shepherds Pool, one of a network of ponds created during the Ice Age across the downs. It drains through a concrete pipe and runs down the hill towards Brockhampton. The water can be heard but barely seen through the thick growth of brambles. A Hogweed has a rosette of white florets around a purple centre.

Back to the Down and along a track that was the old racecourse. The air is still full of birdsong – Robins, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff, Whitethroat, Wren and the first Willow Warbler I have heard this year. The Down approaches the Bromyard to Great Whitley Road. I head down towards the lane that crosses the downs. A Jubilee Oak planted on 15^th March 1887 has a cast iron curved seating half way around it. A substantially older Oak stands nearby. The cloud has thickened and it has become cooler. A stunted Horse Chestnut has put out dozens of branches around eight feet above the ground which are now covered bright coral pink candles. A yellow composite, Goatsbeard, flowers in the grass. There are numerous different leaves of plants yet to flower. One identifiable one is Common Spotted Orchid.

Onto the lane. The Royal Oak pub appears to have closed down. Another ice age pond, Rod’s Pond is full of vegetation. Up on the common is Orchid Pools, two ponds, the upper containing water. Another pond, Copse Pond, is further on, out on the common. This pond also has water. The lane leads back to the school.

Tuesday 10^th May – Home – Gurgling from a downpipe during the night means rain. Unfortunately, it turns out to have been very little, barely enough to wet the ground. The bean poles are erected and the first two rows of climbing French beans are planted out. A row of beetroot seedlings are also planted out. The directly sown beetroot shows no sign of germination. Six bush tomatoes go into troughs outside the summerhouse. Whilst there was so little rain the grass is too wet to cut, but that can wait. Three Swifts, first of the summer, fly overhead.

Friday 13^th May – Bosbury-Coddington – Dark clouds move overhead in a strong wind. Bosbury is a small village north of Ledbury. The village was most noted in the 19^th and 20^th centuries for hops, being the largest hop farming area outside of Kent. Across the road is the late 16^th century Dog farmhouse. On this side of the road is a listed K6 telephone box with a working telephone in it. Along on the High Street are houses dating from the 15^th to 19^th centuries, including the 15^th century Bell Inn. Across the road and into the churchyard of the church of the Holy Trinity. Nuthatch, Greenfinch and Chaffinch are all calling.

The Saxon Bishops of Hereford had a manor house or palace to the north of the church, now a farm. There was a church on the site of the present one, but the only remains is a large, crudely carved font in the present building. A Norman church was built in the early 12^th century. The side aisles were added around 1200 and a new chancel a little later. A massive stone tower was built some sixty feet from the main building around 1235. Two Templar gravestones are in the south aisle. The windows were replaced in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. The rood screen dates from the late 15^th century. The palace, rebuilt in the late 13^th century was leased to Thomas Morton, Archdeacon of Hereford and his brother Sir Rowland in 1503. They were relatives of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury. A chantry chapel was added in memory of Sir Rowland’s wife who died in 1528. A small barrel with a carved M is on the ceiling. It is a rebus, a picture puzzle, in this case, an M on a tun, Morton. Either side of the altar are two magnificent memorials to John Harford, who died in 1559 and his son Richard, who died in 1578 and Richard’s wife Martha who died in 1601. John Harford’s memorial, in the Renaissance style, was erected in 1573 and signed by John Guldo of Hereford. Richard and Martha’s is later and less refined. The chancel was rebuilt in 1871 and a north transept built to house a new organ. The former door to the tower, many centuries old, stands in the nave. Outside is a churchyard cross, the base 15^th century, the shaft and cross later.

To the east to the church stands a plain white building the Old Grammar School founded by Sir Rowland. A bronze war memorial has been inset into the church wall on the High Street. The Parish Hall is modern. Opposite is the old police house and the old bakery. A short distance down the road is a bridge over the River Leadon which has been canalised. Other houses here used to be a shop and the post office. On the western edge of the village beyond a large apple orchard is Temple Court, a farm that was once a moated preceptory of the Knights Templar. Back through the village past more timber-framed houses, several modern ones and former Meeting Room now a residence. 20^th century housing stands on the eastern edge of the village where the former smithy stood. Southfield Lane heads south. A Skylark sings high overhead. The fields either side of the lane are growing cereal crops, beyond is a hop yard.

A byway passes a relatively new field of cider apples. A Whitethroat flies up and drops back down again in its song display. A Yellowhammer sings nearby. The byway now passes a more mature apple orchard. Along the edge of an open rough pasture. More Whitethroats sing from field boundary hedges. I am surprised to see a small plastic disc on a post declaring this to be a public road. It is a narrow track and a normal car would ground on the ridge in the centre. The floor of an orchard is covered in Dandelion clocks.

The byway joins a lane. Across a field is Lower Townend House, a 16^th or 17^th century fragment of larger building incorporating 15^th century truss of an earlier structure. On the other side of the road is Upper Townend Farm, the farmhouse dating to 1600. The lane enters the parish of Coddington. Near Slatch Farm are an 18^th century hop store and two adjoining 19^th century kilns, now a house. The 18^th century farmhouse is not listed. The gardens are extensive with flowering rhododendrons. A grove of Copper Beeches stand dark red. An old broken artesian well stands across a field. The lane meanders this way and that before climbing up to the village of Coddington. It enters the village beside the former schoolhouse of 1868 and the 17^th century Church Cottage, the post office until 1978. Opposite the end of the lane is the church of All Saints.

Coddington was also the property of the See of Hereford. A Saxon church stood here but was replaced between 1148 and 1163 by the present building which had a dedication to S^t Peter. The church was enlarged in the 13^th century. There were then three altars, one dedicated to S^t Peter, one to the Virgin Mary and the other to S^t Milburgh. This probably led to the church being known as All Saints. The church was restored in 1865 by F R Kempson when the tower and broach spire were added. In the east wall are two lancet windows with stained glass in memory of Kathleen Bulkley, who died in 1907. The left is the “Angel’s Message” designed by Burne-Jones and the other “Agony in the Garden” designed by William Morris. Both windows were made by Morris and C^o. An organ chamber was constructed in 1866 and an organ by John Nicholson of Worcester installed in 1872. There is a peal of six bells made by Taylor of Loughborough, replacing three old bells and first rung in 1866. Outside is a Victorian cross on a 14^th century base, damaged by Parliamentarian soldiers in the Civil War.

Nearby is the Old Rectory which dates back to 1585 and is built of local stone. There have been many extensions during the 17^th century and during the 19^th century. From 1921 this was a private school which was founded by Mrs Gladys Marsham primarily to look after children between three and seventeen whose parents were serving in the armed forces in India. This school was originally in Coddington Court, but was moved to the Rectory in 1921. Amongst the pupils were Sarah Churchill, niece of Winston; Michael Bentine, and former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe. Back down the lane to Townend. A lane runs north past Townend. A Chiffchaff calls and a Song Thrush sings. A small pond, possibly a flooded quarry, has a quacking Mallard. Yellow Archangel, Ground Ivy and Herb Robert flower by the roadside. Overhead is a continuous roar of the wind. Past Paddles Farm. Trees in an orchard are covered in apple blossom. The lane joins the Bosbury to Colwall Road. Past woodlands where a Mistle Thrush sings loudly. Large tunnels that were probably for chickens seem to be empty.

The lane joins the Ledbury to Cradley and Malvern Road beside and untidy timber yard. Past the extensive grounds of Bosbury House Farm. The house can be glimpsed over a wall, its roof surrounded by a balustraded parapet. It was a former hunting lodge, substantially altered in 1873 for the R^evd Edward Higgins. An orchard has a warning, Verticillium Wilt (a fungal disease) Precaution, Keep Out. Back into Bosbury as the bells of the church strike midday. Route

Sunday 15^th May – Leominster – Rain started falling in the early hours and continues although lightly now. A Blue Tit moves over the frontage of one of the large Georgian houses in the street searching every nook and cranny for insects. Wood Pigeons and Jackdaws call. Over railway bridge. May, Hawthorn flowers, is already fading from bright white to brown. The water level in the River Lugg continues to fall with more of the shingle bank exposed. A pair of Mallard, strangely unusual here, are beside the bank.

Back over the railway. Swifts feed high above. There are two old fairground dodgem cars in the plant hire yard. The sun emerges and lights up the trees but there is still heavy black cloud to the north-west. Through Pinsley Mill. Several Dunnocks are in song on the far side of the railway. A Rowan tree is in the corner by the fence of the Millennium Park and has numerous clusters of white flowers looking like small cauliflowers. Into the Millennium Park. A Rabbit skips along the edge of a Stinging Nettle bed at the foot of the churchyard. A Chiffchaff calls. Elderflowers are opening on the Elder bushes. The water level in the River Kenwater is also low and the river flows more slowly than of late. Stinging Nettles, Red Campion and Hogweed have taken over the beds in the Peace Garden.

Into the churchyard. The homeless person’s tent has gone; hopefully he has been housed somewhere safe. The strains of organ music come from the Minster. The bells toll the hour and the Compline bells ring.

Home – Planting out of seedlings continues. Georgia Collards, yellow Chard and Purple-sprouting Broccoli go in. Some strimming was carried out yesterday, but now the grass is too wet. This has also stopped the planned mowing of the lawn today. Side shoots on the greenhouse tomatoes are pinched out. Most the beans have been planted out now, just the runners to go, although there is another large pot of climbing beans which I may plant out somewhere.

Monday 16^th May – Peasmarsh – I arrived in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, after a long hot journey. The village is spread out over a considerable distance along the A268. My accommodation is to the east in Rye Foreign. The name of the parish came about in 1247, when King Henry III reassumed control of Rye and Winchelsea from the Abbey of Fecamp, but left part of the area still under the Abbey: hence “Rye Foreign”. I head back towards the village for a short distance past a dense wood, Morfey Wood, of young Oaks, Ashes, Beeches and coppiced Hazel. Into Church Lane. A white milestone is marked Rye, strangely not listed. A Victorian house, Park Cottage, looks abandoned although there is a car on the property. The lane runs along the top of a valley of relatively young trees. On the other side of the lane is a field of broad beans in flower. Next is an orchard of young fruit trees.

Opposite another large field of broad beans, once Peasmarsh Park, is the church of SS Peter and Paul. Peasmarsh was known before the Conquest as Tetbald. An Anglo Saxon minster stood where the present church now stands and a settlement grew around it. The village is now to the north of this settlement, believed to have moved because of plague in the 14^th century. The present church is likely to have been built around 1100. The tower, added in 1170, is lower than the nave roof, with a modest broach spire. The chancel was lengthened to twice its previous size in 1240. A table of the Ten Commandments and the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer is over the chancel arch, which is in iron-sandstone, is dated from the reign of Elizabeth I. The organ was built by Bishop and Starr in the 1860s; it was completely rebuilt by Eisjbouts in 2013. Four bells were cast by Joseph Hatch of Ulcombe in 1613. The treble was recast by John Taylor in 1883 and two trebles were cast by Eisjbouts in 1989.

The living of Peasmarsh was in the gift of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. John Lettice (1737-1832) was perhaps the most noteworthy vicar of Peasmarsh, who was presented by his college to the living of Peasmarsh which he held from 1785 to his death there in 1832. Besides sermons, Lettice published other works including, in 1803, a plan for evacuating the coastal population if an invasion was threatened. Peasmarsh would have been in the frontline of the threatened Napoleonic invasion.

The lane forms a large loop and heads back towards the village. There is a hint of Arts and Crafts in a gatehouse to Peasmarsh Place but it is early 19^th century. Peasmarsh Place is the former manor house, now a care home. It has a core of 1616 on earlier foundations, possibly of a 12^th century house known to have been built on the site. It had early 19^th century alterations and was refaced and remodelled by Sir Edwin Cooper in 1937 for Lord Davenport. Before being owned by Davenport, it was the home of the Liddell family, and it is believed that it was here Charles Liddell’s niece, Alice, was told stories by Lewis Carroll, who then wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Morebread Cottages across the lane are also early 19^th century. The workman and deliveries entrance to Peasmarsh Place passes an extensive wall enclosing a kitchen garden. Opposite another house again has a hint of Arts and Crafts. A short distance up the road is the fine Peasmarsh House, the old vicarage with the Old Vicarage Cottage standing next to it. The vicarage was built in 1839, the architect, W J Donthorne in the Tudor Gothic style.

On along the lane past a large pond full of willows. Into a small lane that runs past a field of sheep on one side and on the other now inevitable broad beans. Now there are beans on both sides of the road. A Whitethroat sings from the top of a hazel. There is a fine view to the north across The Weald. After Cock Wood, the lane is a back lane to the village and lined with houses from pretty much every decade of the 20^th century with occasional older property. The school is a much extended Victorian building of 1884. A couple of houses down is the Old Rectory, a strange 16^th century building that has had 1930s extensions built either side of it.

Into The Horse and Cart, an early 19^th century inn, much modernised. Onto the main road. Small timber clad cottages of the early 20^th century are next to an 18^th century farmhouse. A cottage is 18^th century or possibly earlier with a tile hung upper storey. Modern houses surround these buildings. In the night, a Tawny Owl is hooting nearby.

Tuesday 17^th May – Rye and Winchelsea – The sun is filtered by high cloud. From Gibbet Street car park a track leads towards a large white windmill whose sails are just the support rods. The track comes to the River Tillingham and crosses the railway line. The track joins the Winchelsea Road by a bridge over the River Tillingham and a large flood control barrier mechanism. On the other side of the road the river is low as it is tidal here. Black-headed Gulls stalk the mudflats. The sides of the river are a tall dock of wooden pillars and ladders. A few boats sit on the mud. Back across the road a track leads out onto Rye Marsh and hopefully to a footpath which crosses clear to Winchelsea.

Sheep and well grown lambs are out on the grass and sedges of the marsh. Past a farmhouse. A Whitethroat sings from a Hawthorn. A sheep scratches its backside on a metal fence. A Rabbit scuttles down the track. A Magpie sits at the top of a dead tree and the song of Skylarks float down from on high. Pale brown reeds mark the lines of drainage ditches across the Marsh. A house with a large modern extension has a pond next to which stands a Grey Heron. A Mallard is by a duck house. A Reed Warbler sings from a drainage ditch. A Cuckoo calls from trees very close to the line of houses that runs along the Royal Military Road, or New Winchester Road. Another then calls from the opposite direction in trees beside the railway line. The marsh now is covered in winter sown cereal.

A Reed Bunting calls from the top of a reed before dropping down into the ditch. Another Reed Warbler jug jugs from the ditch. A Yellow Wagtail sits atop a Hawthorn. Ahead, Winchelsea stands on a wooded hill. A female Reed Bunting with a caterpillar in her beak dives down into the reeds. A Sedge Warbler sings from the reeds. Three Yellow Wagtails are on top of the reeds. The scratchy song of Sedge Warblers and the jug jug of Reed Warblers play to the background of numerous Skylarks.

The track comes to a much larger drainage ditch. Across a footbridge. A Mute Swan glides down the ditch and climbs onto a nest mound. Another footbridge takes the path over Padiam Sewer, a large drainage channel. The path is overgrown with grass and oilseed rape and my trouser legs are soon saturated. Rye Marsh Farm stands on the other side of the oilseed rape field. A couple of Mallard and a Cormorant fly over. The path has now been sprayed, killing off the wet vegetation and making my passage drier. It continues straight through the oilseed rape which stands five to six feet high and has an odour I find quite unpleasant. A footbridge crosses the ditch and takes the path out of the oilseed rape field and through a field of grass. A cock Ring-necked Pheasant flies up out of the grass.

The path ends at a bridge over the River Brede on Station Road. This was once the site of a ferry. Several old cottages stand on the road. The A259 climbs steeply to the Pipewell Gate. Eastgate gave access to the ferry and was destroyed by the French in 1380. It was rebuilt by John Helde, the mayor, in 1404. His coat of arms can just been seen on the outer side of the gate. It is here, so the tale goes, that Edward I had come to view the fleet in 1297 and his horse shied and disappeared with its rider down the precipice. However some 30 feet below the horse was still stumbling and staggering but the king turned him around with the reins and rode him straight to the gate to the joy and wonderment of the crowd. His story reminds one that Winchelsea was once a port and the sea was below this hill.

Along North Street. There is an extensive view across the marshes to Udimore Ridge and at its end the hill on which Rye stands. In mediaeval times this side of the road would have had the crenellated town wall running along the edge of a cliff. Below would have been the estuary is the River Brede and the sea. At the base of the hill here where the harbour of new Winchelsea was founded in 1288. It was a major channel port however silting was a major problem and it had completely silted up by the mid 16^th century. On the other side of the road are the five houses built in the 1760s to accommodate workers providing fine linen from flax grown in the Brede Valley. They have mediaeval cellars which provided constant temperature and humidity for working flax fibres.

Into School Lane which becomes Hiham Green. The houses are mainly largely 18^th and 19^th century. The street comes to the junction of High Street and German Street. Swifts sweep across a clear blue sky. On one corner is the 18^th century New Inn. On another is the Court Hall, now a museum. It was built in the 14^th century as the town hall. Opposite is the church of S^t Thomas the Martyr.

The original church was recorded in Old Winchelsea in 1215. Old Winchelsea was abandoned to the sea in the 13^th century. Later that century, Edward I ordered a new town to be built on a grid pattern. The church, which was started around 1288 using Caen stone from Normandy, was either planned to be a cruciform building and never finished or it was finished but partly destroyed by French raiders in the 14^th century. The tower collapsed and by the 1660s John Evelyn described it as a “forlorn ruin”. In 1790 John Wesley described it as “now in ruins”. It was not until 1850 when restoration was undertaken, possibly by A D Gough. It is still one of the finest Decorated building in the county. As soon as one walks in one is struck by the wonderful modern glass designed by Douglas Strachan between 1928 and 1933, which fills all but two of the windows. The theme of the central east window is Praise and Resurrection; the left hand window is Christ as the Bestower of Peace; the three in the north aisle represent the elements of earth, air and water in the context of the War Memorial being a testament to the men whose operations were carried out on the land, sea and in the air. There is no nave, just the chancel and side chapels, all the same height, creating a hall church, common on the continent but not here. It is suggested Walter of Hereford was responsible for the new church, although other masons of the period have been proposed. On either side of the building are beautifully carved niches containing effigies of the Alards and a monument to Robert de Winchelsea, who as Archbishop of Canterbury officiated at the marriage of Edward I to Margaret of France. The Alards were a seafaring family. Gervase Alard was born here and was the first mayor of the new town. He rose to Admiral of the Cinque Ports and later Admiral of the Western Fleet. In the churchyard is the grave of Spike Milligan.

Out of the churchyard. Glebe is a house probably of the 15^th century or earlier. Into Friars Road. The Lodge of the Greyfriars, whilst looking mediaeval, was built around 1819. Greyfriars is a large house built by Richard Stileman in 1819 but since modernised and enlarged.

Back to the High Street. Periteau House is an 18^th century L shaped building with two colours of bricks creating a chequered effect. Into Castle Street where the town well is in in the small gothic surround dated 1851. Next to it is the mediaeval armoury now a house. The west end is 14^th century the east 15^th and the cellars are believed to be 13^th century. Old Castle House was formerly an inn dating from the 17^th century or earlier. It also has a 13^th century cellar. Into Barrack Square where a range of houses is built on a series of high vaulted cellars partly above ground which date from about 1300. The houses above appear 18^th century, although some seem to be older.

Around the corner is The Strand Gate, built in 1300. It stands at the top of Strand Hill following a steep climb from the former harbour at the bottom. Nearby the lookout gives a grand view along the coast. To the east is a large collection of wind turbines. Further on in the mist is Dungeness Power Station.

Down the hill to the main road again. A 17^th century cottage stands next to Strand House which has a 15^th century core and was the former workhouse. Opposite is the former Bridge Inn. Cows lay in a meadow under the steep hill that climbs up to the town. It is hard to imagine but this was once sea and a port. Sea Road turns off just before a bridge over the River Brede and the Royal Military Road. This is now Winchelsea Beach. Over the river which is the Royal Military Canal here. Yellow Flag Irises are in flower along the edge of the water. Down one side of the road are 20^th century bungalows looking like mid century self-builds. Past a fishmonger and game dealer.

A track continues straight on. Behind the houses on a mound is a pillbox. A track leads to the edge of marshlands. River Brede and Castle farms stand close by and the track continues out into the open. In the middle is Camber Castle. Iridescent small black beetles stumble across the gravel path. A Cuckoo is calling from the south. The land here is short, often brown, grass overlaying mounds of beach pebbles demonstrating how this was once all sea.

Camber Castle only opens from August to October which is a shame. A Pied Wagtail squeaks from the top of the walls. The castle, also known formerly as Winchelsea Castle, is a 16^th century Device Fort, built by King Henry VIII to protect the Sussex coast of England against French attack. The first fortification on the site was a small, round artillery tower, constructed by Henry between 1512 and 1514, overlooking the Camber anchorage and the entrance to it was rebuilt and extended over the next year under the direction of the Moravian engineer, Stefan von Haschenperg. The results were considered unsatisfactory and further work was carried out from 1542 to 1543, at great expense, to rectify the problems. The result was a large, concentric artillery fort, with a central keep, surrounded by four circular bastions and a circular entrance bastion, built from stone and brick.

The Royal Military Canal path continues a north-easterly direction back towards Rye. A Marsh Harrier flies across the area. The track comes to a concrete construction, maybe an animal ark and a corrugated concrete arch three holes in it nearby is the concrete base but presumably demolished building. These may have been part of the war defences. Over a drainage ditch a single blue damselfly passes. The track is now along a causeway possibly that which led to the castle when the sea covered this area. Some very large Scotch Thistles are growing and almost in flower. A Red Admiral butterfly lands on Stinging Nettles. A partly crushed Horse Mushroom is at the top of the bank above the drainage ditch. The canal is now on the other side of the causeway. The track comes out at Brede sluice. Across the road is a boat yard in Rye harbour. Over the bridge and up to the A259. Across the road is a Martello tower.

Into the town centre along Cinque Ports Street. Buildings are a mixture of many different eras. Into Tower Street. The waterworks for some reason is still surrounded by Christmas decorations. It was built in 1895. Through the Land Gate built in 1329 when Edward I made grants for four to be built. This is the only one left. It has a chamber over the arch, a portcullis gate and a drawbridge. The High Street is full of twee shops. The Old Grammar School was built in 1636 by Thomas Peacocke and on his death in 1638 he left the building to the town as a free Grammar School.

Up the hill to the churchyard of S^t Mary’s. A Herring Gull comes to within a few feet, hopeful but alas without joy, for part of my lunch. Into Rye Castle. The building of a castle here was mentioned in the first half of the 13^th century, when Peter of Savoy was engaged to build a castle, but it is unclear that anything was actually built. A tax was enacted for building works in 1329. The castle was probably called Baddings Tower. In 1430 it became the property of John de Ipres, which led to the building being called Ypres Tower. In the 16^th century it was used as a prison. A women’s prison was added in 1837. In 1891, the building became the town morgue. From the view point one looks out on Rock Channel, being the River Tillingham, joining the River Rother and Romney Marshes heading into the distance. The Gun Terrace lays below.

Back to the church past the Methodist Chapel. John Wesley visited Rye eleven times in all. Robert Raikes, an English philanthropist and Anglican clergyman, established a Sunday School in 1813. In the Second World War a German bomber, returning from a raid over London, jettisoned a string of bombs over the town. The chapel was severely damaged and the Sunday School had all of its windows blown in. It was considered impractical to restore both premises and, in due course, the chapel site was sold, the building demolished and a large house, now S^t Mary’s Rectory, built on the land. The complete renovation of the Sunday School was delayed due to haggling over the terms of wartime compensation and it was not until 1954 that it was completed and the building reopened and dedicated as Rye Methodist Church.

S^t Mary’s church is a cruciform building of which the chancel, crossing, transepts and nave were built from 1150-1180 and were altered in the 15^th century. North and South aisles are late 12^th century, the north and south chapels added between 1220-1250. Flying buttresses were added at the south east end of the chancel 15^th century. The church overall, is rather plain and the number of tourists means there is little atmosphere. The glass is worth the visit, being designed by Burne-Jones. There is the oldest church turret clock in the country which is still functioning. It dates from 1561-2 and has an 18 foot long pendulum (a much later addition) which can be seen swinging in the body of the church.

Out of the churchyard and into West Street. Here is Lamb House. The Lamb family were a leading family in Rye for 250 years but their house is probably more famous as the home of the expatriate American writer Henry James and later, the writer E.F. Benson. The house was completed by James Lamb in 1723, the same year in which he became Mayor for the first time. In 1726 the George I was returning from Hanover to open Parliament when he was driven ashore by a terrible storm, landing at Camber Sands. James Lamb escorted the King to his house where the family entertained him for three days though George spoke very little English and the Lambs knew no German. On the very first night Mrs Lamb gave birth to a baby boy. The King agreed to act as godfather at the christening of the baby in S^t Mary’s church; the boy was named George. The family sold the house in 1860. Henry James bought the property for £2000 in 1899. He spent most of the last 18 years of his life in Lamb House of his house and wrote some of his most highly regarded works here, including The Awkward Age, The Wings of a Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl.

Through cobbled streets of mediaeval and later houses. Walking on cobbles is quite difficult! A timber-framed house claimed as 15^th century was the old hospital. Along a Street called The Mint. The Bell is an old building with a 1930s mock Tudor extension. Down past the Literary Institute, dated 1900. The station is on Station Approach. The building, opened on 1851, was designed in the symmetric Italianate style by William Tress. Route

Wednesday 18^th May – Ripple – I stay overnight in this scattered village in Kent. The name means “a strip of land”. It is recorded in Domesday as Ryple. There was a small Roman fort here, dug when Julius Caesar invaded in 55BCE. The church was completely rebuilt in 1861. Little is known about the former church but it is believed to have been Norman. Nearby Ripple House is a restored Queen Anne buildings.

Deal – On Deal seafront. The sky is clear apart from a crazy paving of jet trails. It is already getting hot. Here is the site of the Sandwich Bay battery, two 6-inch guns with a range of 5000 yards were never fired in anger. The sea, this area called Small Downs, is blue and calm. In a distance is a large wind turbine farm. A pair of Cormorants fish. To the north Ramsgate sits out where the North Sea meets the English Channel. To the South, beyond Deal pier, a cross channel ferry reverses into Dover harbour, a second is out at sea in the haze.

North to the site of Sandown castle. The castle was built in 1539/40 by Henry VIII, the most northerly of his three castles in the Downs, Walmer, Deal and Sandown. Sandown and Walmer castles had four semicircular lunettes, or bastions around a central keep, Deal six bastions. The Deal area castles were captured by Royalist troops for a brief period during the Civil War but apart from that this castle was never involved in action. In 1663 Charles II used the castle to imprison Colonel Hutchinson, one of the men who had signed Charles I’s death warrant. Hutchinson died a year later. The decline of the castle began in 1785 when the sea breached the moat. It was briefly used again during the Napoleonic wars but was finally abandoned as a military station. The castle was still fairly complete in 1855 when the last Captain of the castle Sir John Hill died. It was briefly occupied by the coastal blockade. In 1863, the War Office sold off parts as building materials. It was bought by Deal council in 1894 after the Royal Engineers blew up the bastions. A substantial part of the basement was still in existence and could be seen until the 1980s when they were encased in concrete as part of the new sea wall. North of here is a golf course. The last house here is a fine Art Deco building.

I head south again. More ships have appeared at sea, two large container ships and a tanker. Along The Marina. The houses here are late 19^th and 20^th century. In one house J B Priestley wrote The Good Companions in 1929. A striking red brick house has a small tower and an anchor painted onto the top of the gable. It stands next to the coastguard station and presumably housed the officers of the lookout. Similar houses stand behind the modern lookout. The Deal Angling Club premises date to 1919. Art Deco style shelters, built in the 1950s adorn the promenade.

The Marina becomes Beach Street at North Street. This is now the older part of town with streets of 17^th to 19^th century houses heading for the town centre. The Royal Exchange is a mid 19^th century former pub. Next are the Boatman’s Rooms in 1884, a chapel run by the R^evd T Stanley Treanor. Converted to a house, it was occupied at one time by Arnold Cawthrow, Big Chief I-Spy. A row of Georgian houses ends with the former pub the Albion. Nearby is the Pelican, a Victorian former pub. The Royal Hotel is dated 1720. Nelson stayed there in 1801, when it was called The Three Kings, preparing for a disastrous attack on Boulogne harbour. Very narrow roads run off of seafront to the town centre lined by Georgian cottages. The shops here are selling tourist tat and fast food. The buildings are mainly 18^th and 19^th century with the occasional earlier one.

Thin cloud is now filtering the sun. A large bronze of a man in a boat wrestling with fish stands in front of the entrance to the pier. It is called “Embracing the Sea” and is by Jon Buck, created in 1998. Deal was once one of the busiest ports on the English Channel but it never had any harbour or docks. First deal pier in 1838 was a wooden jetty for ships to dock alongside. It was located north of here, designed by Sir John Rennie and destroyed by a gale in 1857. A new pier was built in 1863 and purchased by the council in 1919. On January 29^th 1940 a Dutch merchant ship, crippled by a mine, ran into the pier cutting it into two. Soon after it was completely demolished as an anti-invasion measure. The present concrete pier was started in October 1954 and opened in 1957. The area of sea beyond is called The Downs and is a sheltered mooring between the land and the Goodwin Sands.

On south past pubs, hotels and shops, the buildings dating from the Georgian to early 20^th century. One pub claims a date of 1645, but the listing reckons early 19^th century. The former Regent cinemas is Art Deco and slowly rotting away. Next to it is the Time Ball Tower, built 1820-21, four storeys high. Originally situated at the entrance to the old Navy Yard, it was one of 10 Royal signal towers used to semaphore messages to the Admiralty from the fleet at the Downs during the Napoleonic Wars. However, the semaphore line was never completed. Instead the semaphore tower became the headquarters for the coast blockade for the suppression of smuggling until 1831. In 1855 the tower was adapted to form a Time-Ball Tower. At Greenwich in 1855 the first Time Ball was installed to enable ships on the Thames to check their chronometers. In 1855 a similar Time Ball of copper, mounted on a 14 ft mast was installed on top of the old semaphore station in Deal. At 12:55 pm every day the ball was raised halfway, at 12:57 pm it was raised to the top of the mast. At 1 pm a time-signal, direct from Greenwich, was used to operate a slave Shepherd clock at Deal. This relayed the signal to operate the mechanism and allow the ball to drop. This system was in operation until 1927 when it was replaced by wireless time signals.

Into Prince of Wales Terrace. Boats are drawn up onto the beach here. It is not clear how many if any are put to sea now. Prince of Wales Terrace stands on land occupied by the old naval yard which was established in the 16^th century. A new larger yard was built here, opening in 1703. The South Eastern Railway Company built a luxury hotel on a corner here in 1847 but it was destroyed in 1981 by fire and a modern hotel now stands there. Across the road is Deal Castle. Further south are former barracks built in the early 19^th century now housing the Royal Marines School of Music. Two large Arts and Crafts style houses and early 20^th century ones line the road.

The seafront parade has now entered Walmer. Clumps of Red Valerian flower on the shingle along with beautiful domes of white and green flowers of Sea Kale and a clump of a yellow Oxford Ragwort. Fisherman’s huts boats and piles of debris from fishing on the beach none of them looking as if it has been used for some time. A bandstand built in 1993 is a memorial to the eleven members of the Band of the Royal Marine School of Music who were killed by an IRA bomb in September 1989. A Lifeboat station was built in 1856 on Walmer Green. Private gardens stands between the beach and large Victorian houses. Joseph Lister lived in one of them. The track passes by open countryside. A pill box stands at the edge of a pasture.

Walmer Castle was one of Henry VIII’s Downs castle as mentioned above. It has a deep moat and a central keep surrounded by four bastions. In the 18^th century, Walmer became the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and was gradually modified from a military fortification into a private residence. Various Prime Ministers and prominent politicians were appointed as Lord Warden, including William Pitt, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Granville, who adapted parts of the Tudor castle as living spaces and constructed extensive gardens around the property. The house is now open to the public and is mainly dedicated to the Duke of Wellington. The gardens of Walmer Castle date mainly from the 1790s and 1860s. The Broadwalk is the main axis of the gardens separating the glasshouses from the Oval Lawn, planted with lime trees and yews. The Broadwalk is lined by the “Cloud Hedge”, a formal 19^th century yew hedge that grew out of control in the Second World War and was left in its current, undulating style. Two terraces in the middle of the garden, designed by William Masters in an Italianate style, separate the further half of the garden.

Back along the beach short distance then inland into Walmer. Along Liverpool Road. Large 20^th century houses sit in extensive grounds. Liverpool House is early 19^th century. Glenthorne is 18^th century but the core is earlier. Into S^t Clare Road. One side is modern housing other again very large Victorian premises. The Old Vicarage is Victorian and stands next to S^t Mary’s church at the top of the hill. The church is locked. It was designed by Arthur Blomfield in 1887 to take the pressure off the parish’s two other churches, the small medieval Old S^t Mary’s and S^t Saviour’s, the Victorian chapel of ease for fishermen on the seafront, opposite the lifeboat house. A spire was designed but never built.

Across the road from the church is Generals Meadow, a very large former mansion house built by Sir Herbert Baker in the Dutch Colonial style, currently being re-roofed. It played an important role in caring for injured servicemen during the First World War. This is followed by another large building with coats of arms on the front, built in 1957. Into Grams Road. Leelands House is another huge early 19^th century building with a three storey frontage and two storey wings. It was formerly a private school. Onto the busy Dover Road. On the corner is the Catholic church of the Sacred Heart. It was designed in 1881 in Gothic style by Peter Paul Pugin and Cuthbert Pugin and foundation stone laid in that year but not completed until 1890 and tower not until 1897. This is the only remaining part of the Convent of the Visitation, built by an order of nuns founded in France in 1610, of which the remaining buildings were demolished in 1982. Opposite are the Harriet Cooke homes, founded in 1886. A former school is now residences. The Rattling Cat is a former inn dated around 1700. It used to be an old coaching inn and got its name from the many cats an owner once kept with pieces of bone attached to their collars. When strangers appeared in the area the cats would run home and the rattling of their collars would alert everyone that the might be Excise men in the area. Gothic House is a very strange looking mid 19^th century building. Across the road, Glebe House is of a similar age and worryingly missing quite a few slates. It was once part of Leelands School. Dover Road descends a gentle hill with modern housing on one side and Georgian and Victorian housing on the other. Walmer Parish Hall is early 20^th century. Past tennis courts and games pitches. The Baptist church was built in 1904, designed by Wills and Sons of Derby.

Archery Square surrounds the lawn tennis club. A terrace of early 20^th century houses listed as “an attractive and stylishly executed example of early 20^th century Domestic Revival architecture which survives with a good level of external preservation”. Back along the coast road, The Strand. A house was lived in from 1877-1907 by John Lewis Roget the thesaurus compiler. S^t Saviours church stands directly behind the lifeboat station. It is locked of course. It was built in 1848, designed by I. Johnson FSA of Adelphi, and constructed by William Denne in the Neo-Gothic architectural style. It was built as a chapel of ease for the town’s boatmen (who, in the days of sail, took supplies out to vessels in the Downs). On past the barracks to Deal Castle.

Deal Castle retains its character as a military fortress, unlike Walmer castle. In 1547 Deal was armed with 57 guns, but the planned 140 guns did not happen following Henry VIII’s death. For the remainder of the 16^th century, the castle was maintained on a shoestring and fully prepared only in response to invasion scares in 1568–70, 1583–8 (including the Armada of 1588) and 1596–9. In 1570 the castle had only 17 guns, most of them unserviceable, making all-round defence unachievable. James I and Charles I neglected the castle with a garrison of just 22 men to protect the Downs, where disputes between ships of rival nations often erupted into fighting, and where pirate vessels regularly preyed on merchant ships. In 1639, during the Battle of the Downs, the guns of Walmer, Deal and Sandown could not prevent a Spanish fleet, which was seeking the neutrality of the anchorage, from being mauled by a Dutch fleet. Several Spanish vessels were sunk and 2000 shipwrecked sailors struggled ashore, leaving the English to organise their relief. In 1713 British involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession, which had engulfed Europe since 1701, came to an end. Peace prompted a review of coastal fortifications which, at Deal, resulted in modernisation. Military engineers from the Ordnance Office installed 12 modern 9-pounder guns. In 1730–32 they built the Captain’s House and improved a large garden for him just outside the castle. Craftsmen demolished the old Tudor parapets, replacing them with the more decorative crenellations that survive in part today. Subsequent alterations included new parapets for the three seaward-facing bastions to enable a wide arc of fire for each gun (1738); a new keep roof (1739); a new drawbridge (1741); and a high brick wall to enclose the captain’s garden (1744–50). It was considered to be an important defence during the Napoleonic wars. By 1860 small ornamental gardens took up parts of the outer bastions, although four 32-pounder guns remained, and still do. In 1904 the War Office transferred the castle to the Office of Works, to be conserved as a historic building. In May 1940, with a German invasion expected, the Royal Artillery requisitioned the castle, and built two emplacements for 6-inch guns next to the promenade and an underground magazine in the castle’s paddock. They built a concrete observation post, to direct the guns, on the east bastion, while the castle interior became battery HQ. Engineers erected barbed wire and concrete obstacles (“dragon’s teeth”) on the beach, promenade and adjacent streets, to hinder the movement of enemy forces that might land. In April 1944, as the prospect of invasion receded, the Home Guard replaced most of the artillerymen until the end of the war. The most significant wartime moment was when a German bomb, falling on 5 October 1940, severely damaged the Captain’s House. In 1945 the Office of Works resumed responsibility for the castle, and made plans to restore it and open it to the public, as closely as possible to its Tudor form. This involved removing the remains of the Captain’s House. The lowest level of the castle consists of a long corridor, The Rounds, around the building. It was designed to cause confusion to anyone attacking through it and the numerous points at which one has to step into an almost pitch black space to find the next section at right angles is still very disconcerting. The walk around The Rounds (hence the phrase “doing the rounds”) also seems never-ending making one believe one must have missed the exit.

On northwards along Victoria Road. This area was developed after the Naval dockyard closed in 1863. The Baptist Church is dated 1881. Into High Street. Typically for such a street, Georgian and Victorian buildings have modern chain store shop fronts. The main Post Office is on Stanhope Road, late 19^th century by architect, C B Hutchinson. S^t George’s church was built 1706-16 to designs of a local man, Samuel Simmons, with advice after 1712 (when it benefited from from a tax on coal imports into the town) from John James of Greenwich. A west tower was added in 1822, and removed in the early 20^th century. The Town Hall of 1803 is under scaffolding. It was designed by John Mathews in the neoclassical style, built in yellow brick with stone dressings at a cost of £2,961 and was completed in autumn 1804. A terrace of houses, now mainly shops, are in the same yellow brick. The Congregational church is now a community centre. The original church or chapel, known as the Meeting House, was established in January 1681. By 1800 the building was proving too small for the growing congregation, so it was pulled down and replaced by a new chapel in 1803. The present buildings was erected in 1882 but closed in 1974. Lloyd Court looks Art Deco but is dated 1901. Into Alfred Square, mainly early 19^th century buildings. The Prince Albert had connections to smuggling, the landlord strongly suspected of being a ringleader but it was never proven.

Down to the seafront again. Far out at sea of the red Goodwin Sands lightship along with a number of navigation buoys. Ships pass further out. Back to the car which is splatted with gull droppings. Route with glitches from Deal Castle!

Thursday 19^th May – Eastbourne – A thunderstorm passed through in the night bringing heavy rain. This morning the clouds are grey and lumpy across the sky. Down to the seafront passing the magnificent Grand Hotel. It was built in 1875 with a 400-foot frontage at a cost of £50,000 by William Earp designed by local architect Robert Knott Blessley. Across a green surrounded by privet hedges and palm trees. A bronze statue of Spencer Compton 8^th Duke of Devonshire stands on a marble plinth. Nearby, marquees are being set up for a beer festival and beyond that a Ferris wheel. The sea is calm, a small boat and a Cormorant pass. A few gulls stand on rocks and the groynes.

A large modern restaurant of limited architectural design overlooks the promenade. Large Victorian hotels and less interesting modern ones stands along King Edward’s Parade. A Martello tower, called the Wish Tower, is on a hillock. At its foot is AA Box 73. The Cavendish Hotel has an extension which is totally out of keeping with the rest of the building. It is difficult to see how any competent town planner allowed this to happen.

The bandstand was opened in 1935. Up a level and along a palm tree lined promenade. Jackdaws stalk the lawns. Flocks of feral pigeons fly around. An app on my phone indicates that thunderstorms are crossing the channel from north France. Scaffolding and a large open space indicates where the Claremont Hotel stood before burning down in November 2019. The glorious Eastbourne pier of 1865 stretches out into the sea.

It starts to rain so I head inland to Seaside Road. Heading west many of the great Victorian and Edwardian buildings are in a poor state with many empty. Into Trinity Place beside the Holy Trinity Church. It was built in 1837/38 by Decimus Burton, subsequently much enlarged especially 1909-10 by A R G Fenning. Its walls are flint with stone dressings and the tower is coursed pebbles. One of its halls is now a coffee shop. In to Compton Street. Here the large buildings are a mixture of Victorian, Edwardian and modern. The rain has ceased but this may be temporary as the storm appears to be approaching. Past the Devonshire Park Theatre and the tired and shabby looking older part of the Congress theatre. Behind the building, the 1960s glass theatre extension is called the Welcome Building.

Sunday 22^nd May – Leominster – Luminous grey clouds cover the sky. Screaming Swifts sweep low over the street. They inspect the 18^th century manse next to the Baptist Church looking at the eaves to see if there are any potential nesting sites. Over the railway. A Song Thrush with the only sustained song, other bird sounds are fragmentary. The water level in the River Lugg is low. The gravel bar stretches out towards the centre channel. A Wren bursts into song.

Into Pinsley Mill. Another Wren sings along with a Chiffchaff. A Blackcap sings on the edge of Millennium Park. Dabinett is the only apple tree still in blossom. However, Elder is now in flower. The path through the park is scattered with rabbit droppings and one of those responsible is still grazing ahead. At the north end of the park, Chiffchaff and Blackbird sing. The River Kenwater is flowing slowly; it is shallow and clear.

Through the churchyard. Gnats dance in the air under a Silver Birch.

Home – Everything is growing well now. Yesterday more bean sticks were erected and beans planted out. Radish seeds were scattered between the rows. This morning the area around the fruit trees is strimmed. It is a rough area that we do not really keep tidy but we do not want the Stinging Nettle bed to spread further and the grass needs keeping down or it will simply turn rank. The potatoes are earthed up. This probably the third potato crop in this bed over the last decade, so the ground has been well dug, but the soil still comes up in clumps and full of river pebbles. It looks like rain is on the way.

Wednesday 25^th May – Bodenham Lake – Fine drizzle falls from a featureless grey sky. House Sparrows chatter and a Song Thrush repeats its notes. The lake seems empty. Three Mute Swans sleep on an island along with a pair of Tufted Duck. A couple of House Martins sweep over the surface of the water. A Blackcap sings from its normal spot beside the boathouse. Brambles are beginning to blossom.

Into the meadow. Field Buttercups, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Red and White Clover are all in flower. Common Spotted Orchids are in bud. At the western end of the meadow there is a sea of yellow spots of Field Buttercups on a green carpet of grass. Into the hide. Another score of Mute Swans are on the water. The Moorhen’s nest is empty but there is an adult and a couple of chicks in the reed bed. A lone Great Crested Grebe glides across an empty expanse of water at the western end. Beyond on the edge of the water is a large patch of Yellow Flag in flower. A Cuckoo calls from the south. A white-breasted Cormorant flaps its wings as it stands on an island. Several Lesser Black-backed Gulls circle then fly off. A Reed Warbler sings from the reed beds which are now growing rapidly. A single Coot appears. The Moorhen has emerged from the reeds and actually has five youngsters. A pair of Mallard appear. A tatty looking Cormorant with wing and tail feathers missing flies in. A few Canada geese are on the southern bank, mercifully silent. A Swift sweeps over. Ox-eye Daisies are opening. Two Canada Geese and a Greylag appear with three well grown goslings. A piping Oystercatcher flies across the lake. A Mandarin Duck appears near the southern hide. A Kingfisher flashes across the water. A skein of thirteen Greylags flies in. A Ringed Plover flies onto one of the islands.

Back out into the Alder plantation. A Great Tit flies past with a beak full of food for a nestling somewhere. A Ring-necked Pheasant stands motionless in the small paddock of different breeds of sheep. Another Ring-necked Pheasant is also motionless in the paddock containing the two donkeys. The drizzle has stopped.

In the cider orchard just Chisel Jersey and Dabinett trees are still in blossom. In the dessert apple orchard all the blossom is over.

Friday 27^th May – Aston Botterell-Cleobury North-Burwarton – A large farmhouse the former manor house, stands beside 12^th century church of S^t Michael. The small village got its its name from the family of Botterell, by whom the manor was held under the earls of Arundel in the reign of Henry III. In the field beside are mounds which are the remains of a ringwork, a mediaeval fortified site which was probably constructed between the late 11^th and 13^th centuries. The hall, associated service buildings and stables stood on a raised platform surrounded by timber palisade and broad ditch. It would have been the manorial residence until the manor house was built in the 13^th century. The church is locked.

It is cooler than I expected, the sky is a mixture of cloud and blue with a sharp wind. The road runs around the edge of the churchyard and then passed the Manor farm barns. Road twists and turns around a large stone-built house divided into two dwellings. It is the former Fox Inn. The roadside has a white froth of Cow Parsley with yellow spots of Field Buttercups. A patch of Common Vetch is being visited by bees. The lane winds its way northwards passing large Oaks which are several hundred years old. To the west is Brown Clee and its radio masts. A Red-and-Black Froghopper, Cercopis vulnerata, sits on leaf. A bumble bee visits Common Vetch flowers.

The lane joins another which has been recently tarmacked. This lane joins the Cleobury North to Stottesdon road. Past several properties, one an enlarged old Cottage, another an enlarged farmhouse, Little Haymore, a smaller stone built house and a more modern house. A track leads off beside a Victorian house. Past a pond. The track leads to Charlcotte House and beyond is Charlcotte iron works. I do not go further than the track to the house, which was probably a mistake as the iron works, Charlcotte Furnace, is a very rare survivor in the form of a charcoal furnace dating from 1670 in excellent condition.

Back up the track and onto a path which runs on the route of the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway railway. The line opened for passenger traffic on 21^st November 1908 and closed for passenger services on 26^th September 1938. The line was then used by the Royal Navy which had a Royal Naval Armaments Depot (RNAD) at the end of line at RNAD Ditton Priors until the railway finally closed in 1960. A Blue Tit flies from bush to bush and cawing Rooks pass overhead. A Common Buzzard hovers high above and a larger flock of Rooks passes over. A Yellowhammer flies off. On one side of the track a cereal crop stands tall and green on the other is a harrowed field without any sign of a crop. An embankment passes over a small valley of Batchmore Brook. It is difficult here in this bucolic scene with a Chiffchaff calling and lambs baaing nearby to imagine the men working here with picks and shovels to build this embankment, lay the lines and then the clatter as the engine and carriages pass over. A large pond has a reed bed and several patches of Yellow Flag Iris.

A footpath runs along side of a stream into Cleobury North. It passes the extensive gardens of a large house, the former late 18^th century rectory. The path enters the churchyard of SS Peter and Paul’s church. It is locked. The tower is apparently older than the church, being 12th century whilst the main body was 13^th century although the roof was replaced in both the 16^th and 17^th centuries whilst most of the chancel was rebuilt in 1890. Opposite, across the main road to Bewdley, is the large house, The Court, having a date stone of 1879 to the front façade with the rear of the property pre-dating the front. It was once owned by Wilfred Dodgson, Lewis Carroll’s brother. Nearby is the village hall and shop.

A short distance west along the road a lane heads south west. A large field of mown hay is being turned. The lane passes the turning for the track to Charlecotte and back onto my earlier route. On past the Aston Botterell turning. House Martins fly around a large farmhouse at Chatmore. Past Dingle Leys, a large house.

A pair of estate workers’ semi-detached houses have a plaque in the gable, a crowned B with the date 1879. One of the houses was the old Post Office. More houses with similar brickwork are in Oak Tree Lane. Into Burwarton. Opposite are more, plainer houses, dated 1947. The lane reaches the main road again. On the junction is a large house, now the estate offices. To the north is the old schoolhouse of 1864. Beside it is a meadow is a shelter with a plaque, “A gift to the children in memory of Jessie Adelaide Parker 1916”. South, around the bend is a large early 19^th century pub, The Boyne Arms. A track passes modern houses and leads into a sprawling graveyard. In a corner are over a dozen small plain crosses around a grave with a cast iron surround, dated 1886, but too overgrown with Ivy to identify the occupant. Somewhere here are the remains of the 12^th century St Lawrence’s church, but I fail to find them. A path crosses the bottom of the garden of the former Dower House and meets the main road opposite the lodge house to Burwarton House. Nearby, the later church, built 1874-76 by Anthony Salvin in the Decorated style, is now a residence.The house, which is out of sight up a long drive was also designed by Anthony Salvin in the Italianate style. It was built on the site of an earlier house. The house was a seat of the Holland family. In 1876, the family inherited the estate in 1807 following the marriage in 1796 of Harriet, daughter of Benjamin Baugh, to Gustavus Hamilton, later 6^th Viscount Boyne. During the 19^th century, the estate was further enlarged until some 8,500 acres was sold in 1919. This reduced the estate to a core comprising the three parishes of Burwarton, Cleobury North and Aston Botterell. Lord Boyne still owns the estate.

Back down the Stottesdon lane. House Sparrows chirp near the estate houses and a Pied Wagtail walks up the road. Swifts scream high overhead. A bridleway heads, on theory, back to Aston Botterell cutting off a corner. A Mistle Thrush flies out of a tree into the field. Another calls from the same tree. This route, of course, turns out to be a mistake. Firstly the track disappears and it only found again when I realise I am moving off the route by looking at the GPS. To get back onto the path one has to push through a hedge. The track is then an old holloway, completely overgrown and in places completely impassible. I am able to walk down the side of a field but the problem here is a lively herd of cattle insist on charging at me every now and again. Eventually I found my way out and onto a track which leads back to the road and Aston Botterell. Up a short lane from the track is the former rectory. Route

Sunday 29^th May – Leominster – The sky is covered in grey cloud and there is a light but cool wind. A Wood Pigeon calls in the street, “My Toe Bleeds Taffy”. Jackdaws circle around the White Lion before settling in the trees behind it. Over the railway. A Wren sings loudly and a Blackbird emits notes but hardly enough for a song. Onto Butts Bridge. The pair of Dippers are on the rocks a little way up stream. The water level has dropped further. More of the gravel bar is exposed and a couple of Mallard sit at the end before heading off downstream. The railing on the steps down to Easters Meadow has been replaced with a substantial piece of wood.

The grass is high in the meadow and bright yellow Field Buttercups are everywhere. A Blackcap sings in the trees by the river. A Great Tit hovers above the long grass before plunging into it. There are the usual vans, ambulances and a very large police horsebox in Brightwells’ compound. An angler tries his luck at the confluence of the Kenwater and Lugg.

Over Mill Street, through the petrol station and over Ridgemoor Brook. The car boot sale has been moved to the field here which is much more convenient. It has been probably nearly four years since I last visited this market, yet here are all the old familiar faces, both vendors and purchasers. Back through the town. Nearly all the bridges now have name plaques attached by the Civic Society.

Home – Some tomatoes are transferred to larger pots in the greenhouse. The cucumber plants are growing well. The tomatoes in the greenhouse bed are also developing nicely. The sweet pepper plants are slow – the late sown chillies even slower. The potatoes have been earthed up now. The beans all seem to be on the slow side and the broad beans have bad blackfly. Courgettes are planted out. The small amounts of rain we have had recently have helped a bit but two of the water butts are now empty. The flower beds are a delight and all around the garden, roses are coming into bloom.

Monday 30^th May – Croft – Plenty of clouds are in the sky but the sun still beats down, warming the earth quickly. Birdsong is muted. Red Campion is in flower on the open area at the top of the Fish Pool Valley. It is accompanied by Dock and Buttercups. Towards the gate Cleavers and Stinging Nettles are rampant. Down the ride. The song of a Song Thrush rings out across the valley. It is punctuated by Wren and Chiffchaff calls. A Common Scorpionfly, Panorpa communis, is on a leaf. Foxgloves are coming into flower. Raspberry canes are on the bank and they are in flower. There is the comforting hum of numerous bees visiting them. A Cuckoo is calling further up the valley. Buckler Ferns are unfurling.

Across the dam by the old pump house. Fish occasionally break the water on the large pond. The cloud is thickening and it grows cooler as the sun is obscured. Tadpoles are on the brick work at the top of the overflow channel. Up into the Beech wood. Spurges are in flower. Dried leaves, Beech mast and moss crunches under my feet. I listening vain for the call of a Wood Warbler – there are Chaffinch, Great Tit, Blackcap, Blackbird, Nuthatch and Wood Pigeons. A strange call comes from one of the newly resurrected ones below and there is a female Mandarin Duck with one duckling. Common Buzzards call.

Up the path out of the valley. Coal Tits chase through a Honeysuckle covered Hawthorn. Numerous small black flies, smaller than S^t Mark’s Flies, are in the air above the path. Further up the path there are still Bluebells in flower. The path continues upwards until it reaches the old Mortimer Trail and the fallen Hornbeam. Two more aged Hornbeams stand at the foot of the path up to Croft Ambrey Iron Age hill-fort. It looks like the ancient Yew by the path is dying. Yellow flowers in whorls, Crosswort, are by the path.

A pause on one of the grounded Ash branches on the hill-fort. The distant hills are slightly hazy, but still distinguishable – Hay Bluff, Tampa, the Brecon Beacons (Cribyn and Pen-y-Fan in particular), Aconbury, Dinedor, the Malverns and the Shropshire Hills. A couple of of Common Ink Caps are in the grass. A Whitethroat sings on the southern rampart. One area of the hill fort has a great froth of white umbellifer flowers. A male Stonechat sits on a small Hawthorn.

Down past the pillow mounds. Green fronds with pale fresh growth hang down from the branches of a conifer like a curtain across the path. On down the track towards Croft Castle. A small herd of brown black heifers is on the track but move off as I pass. Sheep and lambs graze the Spanish Chestnut field. The sheep seem to be the type that shed their winter coats without shearing as many are looking tatty with most of the wool fallen off. Beechnuts have already formed on the large Beech tree in the field. Young Pied Wagtails search the track for food. The adults are by the quarry pond. House Sparrows and Linnets are around Croft Farm.

Tuesday 31^st May – Home – The day is punctuated by showers. Unfortunately, they are too short to really soak the ground, which is what is needed. Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in the greenhouse are coming on well. Callaloo seedlings seem to have stalled, so a few are planted on. The potatoes are still growing well and have flower buds. The garlic looks magnificent and is beginning to turn yellow – it will be ready to harvest in the near future.

It looks like a Wren is nesting in the thicket of clematis and vine by the patio, an adult is making frequent visits. Blackbirds and Robins are probably nesting here somewhere, but we do not look to prevent disturbance. There are Long-tailed Tits around but I suspect they are just passing through. Swifts are still sweeping past overhead. One of the flowers in the “meadow” have blackfly, but hopefully some Ladybird grubs will be along to feed on them. There is a lot of “cuckoo spit”, the foam in which Froghopper larvae develop, on various meadow plants.