We didn’t take the direct route to get to our Olympic event in Manchester, but went via Southampton to pick up Maddison, so totally the wrong direction. Then back to Hatfield to see if the new laptop had arrived, which it had, so we plugged that in to make sure it worked. There was a small problem here in that half the power lead was missing (the half you plug in the wall), but Geoff found a substitute and the part has now arrived. Once it reached 4pm we headed to the Travelodge at Oswestry, the far side of Birmingham (M25, M1, M6 and toll road).
There has been a lot of driving for Geoff this week and it has started to take it’s toll on his ankle where they had to sew his Achilles tendon together so he is walking with a bit of a limp at the moment. Hopefully he will have time to recover next week as there will be no driving involved.
For somewhere I’d never heard of there are lots of things to explore around Oswestry, as well as the English Heritage sites, unfortunately we only had time seven different site seeing experiences on our way to ‘sunny’ Manchester. and the Travelodge at the airport.
Stokesay Castle – the finest and best preserved fortified medieval manor house in England, with a great hall unaltered since it was built in 1291.
Wenlock Priory – situated in Much Wenlock we saw an unusual washing fountain with 12th century carvings, an extravagantly decorated chapter house and a topiary-filled cloister garden. What surprised us was the adjoining building was still lived in !
Iron Bridge Gorge – a World Heritage site. The world’s first iron bridge was erected over the River Severn here in 1779 by Abraham Darby III and on the wall outside the toll house were displayed the old toll charges, slightly faded where the weather had had it’s way.
Buildwas Abbey – a Cistercian Abbey in an idyllic setting near the river Severn. This is an unaltered 12th century church beautifully vaulted with a tile-floored chapter house and crypt chapel.
White Ladies Priory – Ruins of a late 12th century church of a small nunnery of ‘whiteladies’ of Augustinian canonesses. Charles II hid nearby in 1651, before moving to Boscobel house.
Boscobel House and the Royal Oak – became famous as a hiding places of Charles II after his defeat at the battle of Worcester in 1651. We saw some of the house before a tour started and we were asked to leave, so we looked around the dairy, smithy and gardens. We also saw what was claimed to be a descendant of the original ‘royal oak’ tree in the garden. There were also certified saplings for sale!
RAF Cosford – contains the worlds oldest spitfire (a mark I) and the one made on James May’s tv show about toys. We also got to see prototype planes that never made it into production.
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