Sunday – Humber – The first visit for the BTO Breeding Birds Survey. It is shortly after dawn. The air is cool and the sky has lumpy grey clouds covering it. The white froth of Cow Parsley grows all along the base of hedgerows which often are white themselves with Hawthorn blossom. Cleavers have already grown to the top of the hedge. The air is full of the strong odour of manure. Beech leaves along one stretch are full of holes like lace. Skylarks sing from on high. It is impossible to tell how many there are as their songs overlap. Several Whitethroats are on the hedges on the old Roman Road. A strip of grass runs away from the road between two fields where the railway ran, the Worcester-Bromyard-Leominster line which effectively closed in 1952, although was still there until full closure in 1958. This part of the line ran through the Blackwardine Romano-British village.
On to Hill Top Farm. Young cows charge around a field. Several Swallows swoop over. Back to the Roman road and down the lane to Humber. Humber Brook runs under Humber Bridge. The water is brown. Through the village. Grape vines have been planted on the edge of a field opposite the big house and barn conversion. It appears this was Humber Court although now that name seems to be attached to what was the Rectory.
Friday – Caynham – My last visit here was 14 years ago. Into the churchyard. As recorded then, the church of St Mary was rebuilt except for the tower in 1865 by James Brookes. The chancel arch is also original, dating from from the end of the 12th century and has a wide pointed central arch and two narrower arches either side. The original 13th century corbels were reset in the rebuild. The reredos, being a memorial to Sir William Curtis, 3rd baronet, is finely carved and the pulpit is in marble. The east window is by Kempe. A stencilled design underneath the interior sills was created by John Wood of Ludlow. He also gilded the altar rails, organ screen and gas brackets, the latter have since been replaced. Seating was remade from the existing old oak by Mr Leilo also of Ludlow. Two reset windows came from the original church. The font looks modern but is mediaeval with later added supports. There is a ring of three bells which are inscribed: -+ I HESUS BE OVRE SPEDE. 1606 1642. + GOD SAVE HIS CHVRCH 1606 The treble and the tenor are by Richard Oldfield and it is thought that the remaining bell is by the same founder.
Snitton – A very small hamlet dominated by Hall Farmhouse dating from the 16th century with 19th century alterations and extensions. It has a painted timber-frame with painted render or brick infill on brick plinth, stone rubble and brick.
Clee – A misty view towards the Malvern hills. Onto the quarry road. Jackdaws are on the sheep cropped grass. Unusually there is not a single Gorse bush in flower. A Wren sings. Up the track to the flooded old quarry. A Raven stands on top of the cliff watching. Nearby on the cliff top is a Canada Goose, more are on the water below. A Red Kite sails into view. St Mark’s Flies drift in the air, legs dangling. A pair of Stonechats alight on a tall stalk rising out of a Gorse bush and call their chack chack song. Another pair are a short distance away.
Down the hill on the route of an inclined plane to the area where the old railway passed. The track descends to Victoria apartments, once the Victoria Inn locally known as the Kremlin allegedly because the jukebox used to pick up Russian radio.
Sunday – Leominster – The sky is blue with some clouds. The forecast states it may rain later but one is not going to hold one’s breath. Swifts scream overhead. Down the road to the railway bridge. A Chiffchaff sings in the woods. A pair of Stock Doves fly up from beside the railway into the trees. Several Wrens are singing. Onto Butts Bridge. Despite the lack of rain, the water level in the River Lugg has not changed for some time now. Along Easters Meadow. Water Crowfoot is in flower in the far side of the river. Red Campion is in a large swathe of pink between the path and the river. A wasp searches the grass. Iridescent bugs are on dock, probably Green Dock Beetles, Gastrophysa cyanea. Field Buttercups open their flowers to face the rising sun. A piping Kingfisher lands on a branch near the confluence of the rivers Lugg and Kenwater. A Grey Wagtail calls from the branches of an Ash tree.
The market is slightly smaller than of late but still busy. Back round Paradise Walk. The River Kenwater is crystal clear and shallow. Clouds of insects dance across its surface. A pair of Mallard are just upstream from Priory footbridge. There are vapour trails all over the sky. High above the Istanbul to Washington and the Munich to Atlanta fly over. A gang of ten Swifts sweep over the fire station.
Tuesday – Home – Another hot day. There was a bit of rain on Monday, a large thunderstorm passed us by – oddly giving a downpour just a couple of streets away, and now it looks like no rain for the next week or so. The butts are emptying fast as everything dries out quickly. The bean poles are erected. Dwarf French beans are planted out. A Bumblebee visits the broad bean flowers. Another pot of broad beans are sown. In the afternoon we just sit in the garden and relax. Several Starlings fly over, not a usual sight these days for some reason. Swifts sweep great curves across the sky. A Brown Hawker dragonfly visits the garden. A Ragged Robin, a pink flower with, as the name suggests, ragged petals is flowering in our little meadow.
Wednesday – Haughmond Abbey – Haughmond lays to the east of Shrewsbury on a wooded hill to the east of Shrewsbury. Around 1100 the sheriff of Shropshire, probably Warin the Bald or one of his successors paid for a small chapel or hermitage. An archaeological excavation has revealed a small cross-shaped church about 19 metres long. At its west end lay a burial ground, containing the graves of around 24 people who were buried over 40 or 50 years. As the burials were adult men, which suggests that this must have been a community of up to a dozen priests and servants. From the 1120s the new sheriff of Shropshire, William FitzAlan, began granting land to provide rental income to support the church at Haughmond. Prior Fulk, head of the community transformed it into a small monastery or priory, almost doubling the length of the church itself and building three new ranges of buildings around a cloister or courtyard. Prior Fulk’s priests became Augustinian canons. Successive generations of the local FitzAlan family supported the monastery over two or three centuries and around 1155, William FitzAlan secured the promotion of Haughmond from priory to abbey status. Abbot Ingenulf could now recruit more canons and plan a grander church. About 20 years later his son, William FitzAlan II, and the new abbot, William, began a major campaign of reconstruction. Over a quarter century or more they replaced almost all Prior Fulk’s buildings, creating a 64 metre-long church and three new ranges of buildings, including a chapter house, refectory and library. Running southwards from the cloister was a 40 metre-long dormitory that could have housed at least 24 canons. Around 1500 Abbot Richard Pontesbury carried out a final building campaign, creating a more modern but smaller abbey, perhaps because he had fewer canons. He built a new west front for the church, reducing its length, and demolished the west range of the cloister. He also improved his lodgings with a fine new bay window and added a new storey above the chapter house. In 1539 the abbey was closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Sir Rowland Hill, a wealthy London merchant who came from Shropshire, bought the site three years later. In the 1550s his nephew James Barker demolished the church and dormitory but kept the grand abbot’s hall, kitchen block, west end of the refectory and chapter house, converting the buildings into a Tudor mansion with courtyards and walled gardens. The mansion was damaged in the during the Civil War and in 1652 was leased as a farm. The Corbet family inherited the estate in 1740 and they began to adapt the old buildings into a landscape garden for their home, Sundorne House, a mile to the west. By dismantling some of the Tudor additions, the Corbets created a Gothic feature – a real medieval ruin – for their picturesque garden. Modern visitors arrive at the abbey ruins using the 18th century main road and enter the site through the rear gate built by the Corbets.
The remains are a fine example of a mediaeval religious establishment. It is very warm in the sunshine. The Chapter House retains statues of saints and probably St Thomas Beckett. Within are a number of grave lids and a battered font. A number of the FitzAlans and the Says, were buried in the church and the cloister walks. John FitzAlan III (died 1272) and his wife, Isabel Mortimer (died about 1292), were buried together in the prestigious east end of the church. A pristine Red Admiral butterfly rests on the stones of the former church, which seems to have been more robbed out than the rest of the site. From the abbey grounds there is a view across south Shropshire through Shrewsbury to the South Shropshire hills beyond.
Myddle – We stop at this village to visit the church of St Peter. The village stands on the Wroxeter to Chester Roman Road. The manor was held by Siward pre-Conquest and a church was believed to be here. In Domesday Mulleht was held by Shrewsbury Abbey. The manor house was occupied by Rainald the Sheriff. During the 12th century, the Fitz Alan family of Clun occupied the manor house, with John Le Strange acquiring it around 1165. In the Middle Ages, Myddle was an important market town and had a thriving wool trade. The village was also the birthplace of Richard Gough, a 17th century antiquarian and historian who is best known for his work on the history of Shropshire. In 1232, the first named Rector, Howell ap Griffin de Bromfeld, a younger son of the Prince of Lower Powis had Henry III’s permission to reside here. The tower was rebuilt in 1634 by John Dod and the rest of the church rebuilt in 1744 by William Cooper. The stone font is octagonal with carved panels and inscription, tall wooden font cover made from wood brought from the Holy Land and carved by the Revd G H Egerton in 1879. The glass is mid to late Victorian.
A castle was constructed in Myddle between 1308 and 1310 by Lord John Le Strange as a stronghold against the Welsh after the family obtained a licence to convert the manor house into a castle. The limited remains stand behind the church but we give them a miss.
Ruyton XI Towns – Formerly called Ruyton of the Eleven Towns, this small town lays next to the River Perry to the north of Shrewsbury. The place had the sites of Iron Age settlements and two Roman villas. The Domesday Book calls the village Ruitone and it acquired its unusual compound name in the 12th century when a castle was built by John Le Strange, and it became the major manor of eleven local townships. The castle was destroyed in during the Barons’ Revolt by Llewellyn ab Iorwerth when the Welsh supported the barons against King John. It was perhaps not rebuilt until Edmund, Earl of Arundel, bought it in 1302. It was again repaired in 1357. It was last mentioned in 1364 and probably went out of use soon afterwards. There now remains some relatively small pieces of wall. Nearby is a replacement preaching cross.
The church of St John the Baptist, known as the “Church Around The Cliffe” stands beside the castle ruins. The land to the north of the churchyard falls away steeply to a valley containing a park with a football pitch and children’s play area. The church was built in red sandstone between 1120 and 1148 as a chapel of ease for Baschurch under the control of Shrewsbury. It became the parish church under John Le Strange but in 1272 transferred to the Abbot of Haughmond and then, in 1301, to Edmund, Earl of Arundel. The north aisle was rebuilt in 1845 and the chancel restored in 1862 and the rest of the church in 1868. The tower is 15th century. Most of the fittings are from the time of the Victorian restoration. The stone reredos of 1892 is by Bodley and Garner. In the north aisle is the Hunt Window, painted in Munich in the 1850s, erected by the Revd George Hunt in memory of his children who all died in 1831/2, possibly in the first outbreak of cholera in the UK. Nearby is a late 13th century stone coffin lid with a foliated cross. There is a ring of six bells.
Down the hill into the village. The Admiral Benbow pub, built 1823, looks closed. Opposite the Parish Hall is dated 1960. A tall terrace of Georgian houses have slipped windows. The Post Office is closed but a sign in the window is for an alcohol licence application. The Dog is a pub formerly called The Talbot built as a house in the late 17th century. It used to have a brewery at the back. At a road junction is The Cross, erected in the 19th century in red sandstone ashlar and painted wrought-iron in a Gothic style.
Wem – Weme was an Anglo-Saxon estate, which transitioned into a planned Norman castle-town. Domesday Book records that Wem was held by William Pantulf (Guillaume Pantol in French) who fought at Hastings under Earl Roger. The name is derived from the Old English term wamm, meaning “marsh”. On 3rd March 1677, a fire destroyed many of the wooden buildings in the town, the event came to be known as the “Great Fire of Wem”. Jane Churn dropped a candle, which started a huge fire. The intense heat partly melted the church bells, which had to be recast. We are staying at the Old Rectory, a large early 19th century house with a Victorian extension in extensive grounds. Into town. The Fox inn has closed down. The Maltings are now apartments. Opposite is a car saleroom on the site of the old gas works. The High Street is a mixture of buildings including 17th century timber-framed cottages, a fine late 18th house with two three storey semi-circular bays and numerous shops in 18th and 19th century buildings. The church of St Peter and St Paul stands above a junction.
The old church was destroyed in the Great Fire. The replacement church was itself rebuilt in 1810, only part of the tower and the west door being from the 14th century. The nave is Hanoverian and the chancel Victorian. A gallery runs around the nave. There is a beautifully carved reredos of Caen stone, raised murals on either side of the altar depicting Old Testament scenes, a fine marble mosaic on the chancel floor and the original Georgian east window. The pulpit is a fine 19th century blacksmithed wrought iron frame supported by a base of varied marble pillars. A window commemorates Henry Eckford FRHS who cross-bred the first modern Sweet Peas in 1887. Eckford’s contribution to horticulture is celebrated every year in Wem with the annual Sweet Pea Show. There is a peal of eight bells. High on the tower is a new gargoyle by William Taylor of Buckley.
To the west of the churchyard is the motte of Wem castle. It was the Pantulf’s caput, probably constructed by William Pantulf between 1135 and 1154. Around the beginning of the 13th century Hugh Pantulf, with the help of Richard de Slepe, rebuilt the castle by replacing wooden structures with stone buildings. In 1235 the castle passed by marriage to the le Botiler family. In 1290 it was in ruins and was rebuilt in 1313, at which time it was held for the le Botiler’s by Hugh fitzAer. In 1459 title to the castle passed to the de Audleys and it was dismantled shortly afterwards.
The town hall was built in 1905 in red brick in the Victorian style. The interior was completely destroyed by fire in 1995. On towards the station which is on the Wales to Manchester line. Into Aston Street. The Morgan Library was built in the Arts and Crafts style around 1900. The central porch has a stone arch with relief carving depicting boys reading and inscription above. A shop is dated 1893. Wem Methodist church was built in 1926 in red brick. Opposite is a former cemetery with a mortuary chapel. The gravestones now stand around the edge of the plot and the ground is now a community green space. We rest at the Castle Hotel, a 17th century stuccoed timber-frame range altered in 18th and 19th centuries.
Saturday – Home – Off to Westhope and back with three new point-of-lay hens – a Pied Rock, a Rhode Rock and a Bluebelle. They are put in a closed off corner of the run. The Warren that is still laying is highly agitated and keeps wandering around, looking at the new hens and crowing fairly quietly. The Bluebelle looks feisty and tries to find a way out to get to the Warren. The Pied Rock just explores and the Rhode Rock just huddles down looking very worried.
I cut the grass which has grown rapidly and lushly. Some of the cuttings go into the chicken run, more on the potatoes and the rest in the compost bins, which will need some “brown” as there is a lot of soft green stuff in there.
Sunday – Home – Up early and in the garden for a cup of coffee. It is rather cool. A half moon lays in the southern sky. Wood pigeons are calling in every direction. A Chiffchaff is in the Ash tree. A Wren sings nearby. Jackdaws are on the move, coming down to the bird bath for a drink. A Swift sweeps over. Off up the Ludlow Road for some manure. It is a couple of degrees colder here, not far off freezing. A heavy mist covers the countryside.
Leominster – A Cinnabar moth flits down the ginnel by the White Lion. The day is now warming. The water level in the River Lugg continues to fall very slowly. Onto Easters Meadow most Dandelions have run to seed and dandelion clocks are dotted all over. Robins, Chiffchaffs and Wrens are still in song. A large Carrion Crow is on a spit by the bank close to the confluence of the Lugg and Kenwater. A Lesser Black-backed Gull tries to land on the spit but the crow is having none of it and sees it off.
The market is large and busy. Round Paradise Walk, over the Priory Bridge and up The Priory. Red Valerian and Black White Bryony flower in the cracks between the tarmac and walls. Into churchyard. Clouds of tiny insects dance in the sunlight. A good number of people are on the Grange; some playing football, others for the park yoga session.
Home – The manure goes straight into the three smaller compost bins and an attempt is made to mix it in. Yet more weeding of the vegetable beds and chard and spinach seedlings are planted out. Most the water butts are empty so reluctantly we fill a couple from the tap. The Warren hen is still violently bullying the new ones. Nothing much can be done; they will settle eventually.
Monday – Home – Another bed is weeded. The ground is rock hard and comes up in large clods. There is a lot of Couch Grass and Enchanter’s Nightshade, both of which spread by rhizomes, which ideally should be dug out but there is always a small bit missed and that grows into a new plant. There are also a lot of small river-smoothed stones. Beetroot seedlings will be planted out tomorrow and maybe a row of seeds. In another bed, mange tout peas are sown. Gallons of water goes onto the tomatoes, both in the greenhouse and outside in hanging baskets and troughs. The sky is beginning to cloud over and hopefully it will rain.
Tuesday – Home – Some rain did fall overnight, enough to dampen the ground but certainly nowhere near enough to give it the good soak we need. Things are not improving much with the hens, I just try occasionally to stop the Warren’s attacks. The beetroot seedlings are planted out. Later in go courgettes, Lemona and El Greco and a squash, White Snake. A lot of brown paper is torn up and placed in the compost bins.
Thursday – Home – Yesterday the difficult decision had to be made about the chickens. The violence of the Warren’s attacks was getting too much so sadly I despatched her. The young birds are much happier now and moving around the run more freely. I put up a barrier in the hen house to prevent the hens sleeping in the nest boxes. Somehow, the Rhode Rock managed to get past it and trap herself in the nest box.
There has been no rain overnight and the ground is drying out after watering last evening. Everything appears to be growing well. The meadow has a large patch of Germander Speedwell. Yellow Rattle is coming into flower. Ox-eye Daisies are yet to open. Something is calling over the garden wall. I would suspect Sedge Warbler but this is really not the environment for that species. I think it was a Blackcap sub-song, but will go down as a bit of a mystery.
Berrington Hall – Up the main road to Berrington Hall. The large gardens between the gatehouse and the hall are being redesigned and a team of volunteers are replanting. The large balls of evergreen, possibly Box, are all brown. Round to the walled garden. Some of the fruit bushes are loaded with nascent fruit, especially the gooseberries. The strawberries are looking good too. Bees are busy in the flower borders. The curved wall garden, one of the last things designed by Capability Brown, is still bare. We wander around the outer edge of the gardens looking out over a truly bucolic landscape – all created by Brown.
Sunday - Leominster - The sun appears intermittently as large clouds sweep eastwards across the sky. A great bank of grey cloud lays out to the west. There is a brisk wind. A Blackbird sings sweetly outside the White Lion. Large discs of cream are on the edge of the woods as Elderflowers emerge. A Robin sings from the top of a wooden electricity pole. Wrens sing in the woods. Red Campion flowers beside the path to Butts Bridge. There is considerable variety in the shades of pink, some dark, some almost white. Overnight rain has made no difference to the water level in the River Lugg which remains low. A Grey Wagtail searches the shingle bank for insects.
Onto Easters Meadow. A pellet is on the top of the fence at Brightwells’ compound. It is made exclusively of whole pieces of grain. I had initially thought pellet means owl and what is an owl doing eating grain? But apparently corvids also hack up pellets so it is likely to be from a Carrion Crow or Jackdaw. A black-winged Beautiful Demoiselle flits across the grass. The clouds are now blocking the sun and it starts to rain. A Drake Mallard is sitting motionless in the water just beyond the confluence of the rivers Lugg and Kenwater. A young but tall tree has fallen completely across the end of the River Kenwater. The Minster bells start ringing; someone loses their rhythm but finds it again.
The threat of rain means the market is far smaller than recent weeks and far fewer punters. Refurbishment of the petrol station is still carrying on there is a huge mound of soil now with a digger on top of it. A battered rusty tank, presumably one of the old petrol tanks, lays beside the pile.
Monday - Home - The sky is grey and wind blows through the trees. There should be rain, for which we, along with many other gardeners and farmers, are beginning to get desperate. However, there are just some desultory spits which fail to wet the ground. Another part of a bed is weeded. The soil is still lumpy and solid, despite this bed being dug deeply last year for potatoes. A row of swede is sown. The seeds go in the brassica bed; last year I forgot they are brassicas and failed to notice the devastation caused by Cabbage White caterpillars until too late.
The big surprise of the day is a small blue-green egg in the hens’ nest. I assume it is Bluebelle who has laid it. One of the hens has been roosting on the house roof, so a covering of wire mesh is placed over it to discourage whoever it may be. Finally some rain, but not nearly enough.
Tuesday – Leominster – Rain starts to fall as I head down the street. Huge pile a rubble from the town centre works in the compound at the bottom of the street is being fed into a rock crusher. A Manchester bound train pulls into the station. Over the bridge and onto Butts Bridge. A Grey Wagtail repeats a single note. There is the occasional blast of song from a Wren. Wind blows through the trees. Back over the footbridge as the Milford Haven train, too long for the platform, pulls in.
Into Pinsley Mill. Brambles, Elder, Stinging Nettles and Cleavers are all proving that the railway fence is no barrier to them. Into the Millennium Orchard. There are plenty of tiny apples on the trees but whether I will be fit enough to collect them in the autumn remains to be seen. The Millennium Green is covered in Field Buttercups. Along the edge of the churchyard are Elders adorned with numerous dishes of cream florets. The water level in the River Kenwater remains very low. An umbellifer, Lesser Water-parsnip I think, is coming into flower. Into the churchyard. The trunk and roots are all that left the of the fallen Birch tree. Into the town centre. Yet more shops are empty or closing down.
Thursday – Stocktonbury Gardens – These four acres of extensive ornamental gardens are just east of Leominster in the hamlet of Stocktonbury. Stocktonbury was one of the farms attached to the priory of Leominster. The mediaeval village was to the south of the gardens, now just lumps in the ground. The present house of Stockton Bury was built in 1970 on part of the foundations of the previous Georgian building. The latter was the home of “Squire” Herbert Smith-Williams, who had purchased it from Lord Rodney of Berrington Hall in 1887, when parts of the Berrington estate were sold off to settle gambling debts. Thomas Carwardine, a renowned breeder of Hereford cattle, farmed The Bury between 1868 and 1884. One of his bulls, Anxiety IV, was exported to America in 1880. It is claimed that 95% of all present day American Hereford cattle can trace their ancestry back to this bull. Raymond Treasure along with his partner Gordon Fenn, good friends of Christoper Lloyd and Beth Chatto, were encouraged to create a garden by Raymonds’ second cousin, John Treasure (a well-known Clematis grower and creator of the nearby Burford House Gardens in Tenbury Wells). Over the past 50 years the garden has been developed. The present house is on the footprint of the Georgian house demolished in 1970. A mediaeval pigeon house is in the gardens, photographed long before the gardens were established by Alfred Watkins.
The gardens are made up of numerous enclosed spaces. Flowers are magnificent right now. Huge, blousy Chinese Peonies, roses, clematis, Rock Roses, Carolina Allspice, Irises to name but a few. There are quirky little grottos; ponds, one with an enormous Gunnera; a display of bee skeps; a museum in the old stable; a long kitchen garden and through a small gap beside an urn, the entrance to a secret garden where a seat looks out towards the western hills. We have a very pleasant lunch at the café, despite the blustery wind.
original, dating from from the end of the 12th century and has a wide pointed central arch and two narrower arches either side. The original 13th century corbels were reset in the rebuild. The reredos, being a memorial to Sir William Curtis, 3rd baronet, is finely carved and the pulpit is in marble. The east window is by Kempe. A stencilled design underneath the interior sills was created by John Wood of Ludlow. He also gilded the altar rails, organ screen and gas brackets, the latter have since been replaced. Seating was remade from the existing old oak by Mr Leilo also of Ludlow. Two reset windows came from the original church. The font looks modern but is mediaeval with later added supports. There is a ring of three bells which are inscribed: -+ I HESUS BE OVRE SPEDE. 1606 1642. + GOD SAVE HIS CHVRCH 1606 The treble and the tenor are by Richard Oldfield and it is thought that 
the remaining bell is by the same founder.
pair of Stock Doves fly up from beside the railway into the trees. Several Wrens are singing. Onto Butts Bridge. Despite the lack of rain, the water level in the River Lugg has not changed for some time now. Along Easters Meadow. Water Crowfoot is in flower in the far side of the river. Red Campion is in a large swathe of pink between the path and the river. A wasp searches the grass. Iridescent bugs are on dock, probably Green Dock Beetles, Gastrophysa cyanea. Field Buttercups open their flowers to face the rising sun. A piping Kingfisher lands on a branch near the confluence of the rivers Lugg and Kenwater. A Grey Wagtail calls from the branches of an Ash tree.
to a dozen priests and servants. From the 1120s the new sheriff of Shropshire, William FitzAlan, began granting land to provide rental income to support the church at Haughmond. Prior Fulk, head of the community transformed it into a small monastery or priory, almost doubling the length of the church itself and building three new ranges of buildings around a cloister or courtyard. Prior Fulk’s priests became Augustinian canons. Successive generations of the local FitzAlan family supported the monastery over two or three centuries and around 1155, William FitzAlan secured the promotion of Haughmond from priory to abbey status. Abbot Ingenulf could now recruit more canons and plan a grander church. About 20 years later his son, William FitzAlan II, and the new abbot, William, began a major campaign 
of reconstruction. Over a quarter century or more they replaced almost all Prior Fulk’s buildings, creating a 64 metre-long church and three new ranges of buildings, including a chapter house, refectory and library. Running southwards from the cloister was a 40 metre-long dormitory that could have housed at least 24 canons. Around 1500 Abbot Richard Pontesbury carried out a final building campaign, creating a more modern but smaller abbey, perhaps because he had fewer canons. He built a new west front for the church, reducing its length, and demolished the west range of the cloister. He also improved his lodgings with a fine new bay window and added a new storey above the chapter house. In 1539 the abbey was closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
destroyed in during the Barons’ Revolt by Llewellyn ab Iorwerth when the Welsh supported the barons against King John. It was perhaps not rebuilt until Edmund, Earl of Arundel, bought it in 1302. It was again repaired in 1357. It was last mentioned in 1364 and probably went out of use soon afterwards. There now remains some relatively small pieces of wall. Nearby 
is a replacement preaching cross.
The old church was destroyed in the Great Fire. The replacement church was itself rebuilt in 1810, only part of the tower and the west door being from the 14th century. The nave is Hanoverian and the 
chancel Victorian. A gallery runs around the nave. There is a beautifully carved reredos of Caen stone, raised murals on either side of the altar depicting Old Testament scenes, a fine marble mosaic on the chancel floor and the original Georgian east window. The pulpit is a fine 19th century blacksmithed wrought iron frame supported by a base of varied marble pillars. A window commemorates Henry Eckford FRHS who cross-bred the first modern Sweet Peas in 1887. Eckford’s contribution to horticulture is celebrated every year in Wem with the annual Sweet Pea Show. There is a peal of eight bells. High on the tower is a new gargoyle by William Taylor of Buckley.
time it was held for the le Botiler’s by Hugh fitzAer. In 1459 title to the castle passed to the de Audleys and it was dismantled shortly afterwards.
laying is highly agitated and keeps wandering around, looking at the new hens and crowing fairly quietly. The Bluebelle looks feisty and tries to find a way out to get to the Warren. The Pied Rock just explores and the Rhode Rock just huddles down looking very worried.
Rain starts to fall as I head down the street. Huge pile a rubble from the town centre works in the compound at the bottom of the street is being fed into a rock crusher. A Manchester bound train pulls into the station. Over the bridge and onto Butts Bridge. A Grey Wagtail repeats a single note. There is the occasional blast of song from a Wren. Wind blows through the trees. Back over the footbridge as the Milford Haven train, too long for the platform, pulls in.
gardens are just east of Leominster in the hamlet of Stocktonbury. Stocktonbury was one of the farms attached to the priory of Leominster. The mediaeval village was to the south of the gardens, now just lumps in the ground. The present house of Stockton Bury was built in 1970 on part of the foundations of the previous Georgian building. The latter was the home of “Squire” Herbert Smith-Williams, who had purchased it from Lord Rodney of Berrington Hall in 1887, when parts of the Berrington estate were sold 
off to settle gambling debts. Thomas Carwardine, a renowned breeder of Hereford cattle, farmed The Bury between 1868 and 1884. One of his bulls, Anxiety IV, was exported to America in 1880. It is claimed that 95% of all present day American Hereford cattle can trace their ancestry back to this bull. Raymond Treasure along with his partner Gordon Fenn, good friends of Christoper Lloyd and Beth Chatto, were encouraged to create a garden by Raymonds’ second cousin, John Treasure (a well-known Clematis grower and creator of the nearby Burford House Gardens in Tenbury Wells). Over the past 50 years the garden has been developed. 
The present house is on the footprint of the Georgian house demolished in 1970. A mediaeval pigeon house is in the gardens, photographed long before the gardens were established by Alfred Watkins.