A visit to the English West Midlands is a visit to the birthplace of Shakespeare, Elgar, ELO and Cadbury’s chocolate. Confusingly, the West Midlands of England includes a county called the West Midlands, as well as those of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. The east of the region is dominated by Birmingham, Britain’s second city and home to Europe’s largest public library; the west of the region, bordering Wales, is more rural. Though famous as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution at Ironbridge, this is now a world heritage site with a network of worthwhile museums. There are charming villages tucked into rolling hills around Hereford, where you can follow a ‘black & white’ trail past half-timbered buildings. As well as Stratford upon Avon, old medieval towns like Warwick and Ludlow, both with famous castles, as well as Ledbury and Shrewsbury, should all be on the tourist itinerary.
The skeletal ruins of Coventry’s medieval cathedral of St Michael’s are a stark reminder of the destruction of an old war. Paradoxically, it and the adjacent new cathedral of which it is a part, serve as emblems of reconciliation and the quest for peace. The appearance of both buildings was conceived in one night, Thursday […]
Coventry’s Blitz and Cathedral Read More »
West Midlands
The National Memorial Arboretum is a year-round centre of remembrance and needs to be revisited. Not only should a first visit be mandatory, but also it is one of those places that gives more each time you go. It changes with the seasons of course, but also as trees mature and new memorials are added.
National Memorial Arboretum revisited Read More »
British Stuff West Midlands
I don’t really know why we went to Clun. It was there, of course, which I suppose is some sort of a reason to go anywhere at least once. Was the name vaguely familiar? It has a ruined castle, anyway, which might have been the deciding factor and, indeed, that became our target. Whatever the
Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle is one of those places you think you should have arrived at much sooner than you do. “We must have passed it. Maybe I should turn round”. Surely, supernatural forces were at work, discombobulating me as I (unsuccessfully) navigated the car along narrow border lanes between England and Wales. In fact,
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West Midlands
The views of Worcester Cathedral, elegantly perched on the east bank of the River Severn, are surely among the best of any cathedral in Britain. Inside, Worcester is also one Britain’s most fascinating cathedrals. This compensates for it being a little hemmed in and its east end being crudely violated by a busy road, Deansway.
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West Midlands
It may come as a surprise that what might be the finest Baroque church in Britain will be found, not in some great city, but in rural Worcestershire. This is Great Witley Church. It dates from 1735, when it replaced an earlier medieval parish church that had stood nearby. The new church was built by
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West Midlands
The small Shropshire village of Wroxeter is the only surviving settlement of what was once the fourth largest Roman city in Britain: Viroconium, or Uriconium, more fully expressed as Viroconium Cornoviorum. The Very Keen Reader will want to know what the three largest Roman cities in Britain were and these seem to have been Londinium
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West Midlands
Awesome is an over-used word these days, but Kenilworth Castle in its prime must have been exactly that. It still is, in so many ways, its vast red sandstone ruins giving more than a hint of the money that has been spent on the place over the last nine centuries, and a tantalising glimpse into
The wind and rain blow arrogantly through the empty shell of Witley Court. There are puddles in the earth-floored entrance hall, where the Prince of Wales had been among many rich and powerful Victorian house guests. The hand-woven Persian silk carpet and exquisite statuary have long gone; there is no trace of the brass-railed balcony
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West Midlands
The house at Baddesley Clinton is a neat example of medieval-Victorian style. Fortunately, successive owners were never what you might call filthy rich. Had they been, doubtless another Jacobean or Georgian pile would have been constructed (really, don’t we have quite enough of those already?) and a delightful moated manor house would have been lost,
Baddesley Clinton – medieval manor, murder, mayhem and mellowness Read More »
West Midlands
Lovely little Stokesay Castle isn’t really a castle at all; certainly, no self-respecting potential besieger would take it as a serious hindrance. Described by English Heritage as “the finest and best-preserved fortified medieval manor house in England”, Stokesay actually looks like someone has taken a grand old barn and added interesting bits to it, one
A complete working historic estate of 900 acres in rural Staffordshire, Shugborough has everything an aristocratic country pile should have – imposing Georgian mansion, parkland, formal gardens, a walled garden, farm (including labourers’ houses, watermill, workshops and rare breeds), river walks, monuments, servants’ quarters, stables, a brewery…enough to please most day trippers, and even keep
