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{ Monthly Archives } May 2019

Poppies

I am not green-fingered by nature, and neither was Christopher. When we were thinking about buying this cottage, we were very wary about taking on the garden – and rightly so, as we really didn’t know what we were doing. However, one of the last things that Christopher planted in the garden before he fell […]

A trip to Hellens

There is a very interesting old house about 15 minutes from me, which dates back in part to the Norman Conquest, though much of the remaining fabric of the building dates from when one of the owners in the Tudor period married into money and was able to afford to do it up. Unusually for […]

Calling in the plumber

You would think that with three bathrooms in one smallish cottage, I should have an embarrassment of plumbing amenities. There’s what an estate agent would call the main “family bathroom”, an en-suite in my bedroom, and a very handy shower room in the extension. But over the last few weeks, it all started going wrong. […]

Lunch at Stokesay Castle

Stokesay Castle is about half way between Ironbridge and Malvern, so it was an ideal place to stop for lunch on the way home from my short holiday. It was one of Christopher’s favourite English Heritage sites, and we used to go there at least annually to look at the wonky gatehouse and solidly-built tower, […]

Wroxeter Roman City

Just fifteen minutes from the industrial heritage of Ironbridge is the site of the fourth-largest Roman town in Britain. There’s not a huge amount of it visible these days – most of it is under farmland, with much of the building stone recycled into the churches in the local villages. But there is still a […]