Gors Farm, Pwll Trap, St Clears, Carmathenshire, Wales

                                    

Our last day in Gloucestershire was mostly spent in Worcestershire, but then our week’s touring has covered the counties of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, as well as venturing into corners of the Welsh counties of Powys and Monmouthshire.

Another sunny day dawned, promising more of the very warm temperatures the country has enjoyed over the  past week. We popped down the road to top up the diesel tank and replenish the cupboards with groceries, and then after fresh pastries washed down by mugs of coffee, we headed on foot across to the Tewkesbury Abbey. I had wandered through on Sunday when Chris had been otherwise engaged with armchair sport, but after I spelling out the wonders of this glorious structure here on our doorstep, he was keen to check it out for himself. He agreed it was specatular, and reckoned it to be more impressive that the cathedral at Worcester.

After lunch, we headed north toward Worcester for about ten miles before turning a little eastwards to visit Croome, another wonderful National Trust property. Again we were surprised by the number of cars already in the car park, this a weekday when most folk were either working or at school.

Croome Court is a mid-18h century neo-Palladian mansion surrounded  by parkland landscaped by our old mate Lancelot “Capability” Brown. In fact this was Brown’s first large scale commission and is often described as his “first and most favourite child”. He was hired in 1751 by the 6^th Earl of Coventry who had inherited Croome at the age of twenty eight, having survived his older brother.

Brown also designed the replacement church, St Mary Magdalene, and worked beside Robert Adam, who was to become very famous and sought after as a designer in later years.

There is much to discover at Croome; apart from the legacy left by the Earls of Coventry, Croome also served as one of the most secret places in the country during the Second World War and the Cold War years that followed. It was here as RAF Defford  that airbourne radar was tested, developed and proven, this providing a decisive factor in victory for the Allies.

The actual genesis of Croome Court is still a bit of a mystery, even with the modern methods of research and archeology, however there is proof  of a residence here at least in the 1640s. But by the time Gilbert Coventry, 4^th Earl of Coventry  inherited from his nephew in 1712, substantial changes had been made.

The title slipped side ways through lack of direct heirs, and it was when the 6^th Earl, George Coventry who inherited the estate in 1751 that the recorded story begins, as alluded to above. These stories surround two wives, one a painted socialite and the other a soulmate, years of living in the middle of  a building site and major changes to the landscape. The church that had stood adjacent to the Court was demolished and rebuilt on the hill above the house and gardens on the proviso that the large and elaborate tombs of the Earl’s predessors be reestablished in the new church. River extensions and a lake were dug by hand and a complex system of culverts was installed to bring water to the new reservoirs, an area previously a boggy marsh called “Seggy Mere”. 

Second wife, Barbara, was a keen gardener and over 5,000 different species of plants were brought from all over the world. By 1801 Croome’s botanical collection was considered second only to Kew.

The 6^th Earl died in 1809, and the following years brought years of stability although by 1902 the 9^th Earl was struggling financially and sold the Croome wall tapestries to help pay off the debts of his errant son, Viscount Deerhurst. These now grace a museum in New York, along with as much of the room they came from purchased sometime later. In 1930 this Viscount, now the 10^th Earl,  inherited from his father, but lived only until 1940 when he was killed near Ypres during the British retreat to Dunkirk.

Just months later Croome Court and part of the estate was requisitioned by the government, and provided that very important role in the War, with over 2,200 service personnel stationed here.

Prior to these tragic events, the property was placed into the care of the Croome Estate Trust, all part of estate and death duty avoidance smart wealthy folk endeavour. In 1948 the Trust sold the Court  along with thirty eight acres of land to the Roman Catholics and the Grade I mansion became St Joseph’s Special School, a boarding school run by nuns from 1950 until 1979.

It was immediately taken over by the Hare Krishna movement which used it as its UK headquartes and a training college. During the five years of their tenure, they painted the plasterwork in the dining room, picking out the detail of the fruit and vegetable bunches in bright colour; a strange legacy but one that can still be enjoyed today.

In the subsequent years, various owners tried to use the property as a training centre, appartments, a restaurant and conference centre, a hotel and golf course and finally a private family home.

The house was purchased by the Croome Heritage Trust in 2007 and is now managed by the National Trust as a tourist attraction. It opened to the public two years later, at which point six of the rooms had been restored costing £400,000.  Today £4 million has been spent to make the house safe, but there are still trillions to be spent before the house will look anything like the elegant properties to be seen elsewhere. Perhaps it will remain in its half-baked state to demonstrate what happens when repairs and maintenance are so neglected.

It is not surprising, given the National Trust reveres Capability Brown so, that the restoration of his landscape work has taken precedence. £8 million has been spent restoring the parkland so far and there is still more to be done.

We could have spent longer at Croome than just the few hours of the afternoon; we took a tour of the house concentrating on a few women of the house, which was most interesting but did limit time to wander about the lake and grounds. And then it was time to head home and prepare ourselves for departure the next day.

So this morning we left our most excellent camp at Tewkesbury, which had not only served as a well located centre for our touring but provided top notch facilities. Before our departure, I power-walked to the Tesco Metro to pick up the weekend paper which offered, if purchased at a Tesco Metro, a free CD compilation of classical music. Since discovering the CD player in our car at Longleat when we were given a CD to guide us about the safari park, I thought it might be rather nice to have at least one other CD to accompany us on long journeys.

We have also just recently discovered our panoramic sunroof roof, providing the next best thing to having a convertible. Of course we knew we had both a CD player and an opening or tilting roof hatch in our Sorrento, but had never before bothered with these mod-cons. Now we can join the trendy set and blat along the narrow lanes in our Chelsea-tractor, our hair whipping about our faces and Mozart or Beethoven in competition to the discreet English birdlife.

As it turned out, the volume of this aforesaid music and the lack of hearing aids (too often kept in their smart little charging box) nearly caused an accident today; we were approaching a many tentacled roundabout, the sort that require the vehicle to remain in the correct lane, when my instruction and those of the Tomtom became entangled with the uplifting orchestral strains and we were left changing lanes more often than safety or signage would dictate. Soon after I turned the stereo off and we returned to our normal intermittent chatter and commentary.

We could have travelled to South Wales via the M5 to Bristol, crossed the Severn Estuary on the toll bridge, and then continued on around the Welsh coastline mostly on the M4 motorway. Or we could have come on a route halfway between that and the one we did take. Whatever route taken, it was still a journey of about one hundred and thirty miles. 

Today we chose to travel down to Ross-on-Wye on the M50, the same route we had taken twice whilst staying at Tewkesbury, then on the A40 across beautiful rural landscapes to Abergavenny, continuing across the Valleys through mining moonscapes, now mostly abandoned, following the southern edge of the Brecon Beacon National Park, then south west down the Vale of Neath, to meet the M4, which soon merges with the A48, then the A40, bringing us to the end of the lane where our little camp was to be found.

We arrived sometime about 2 pm and have spent the rest of the afternoon doing very little apart from tour planning and watching more World Cup games on the television. Right on dinner time, as the plates of hot food hit the table, our host turned up with his equally friendly Mountain Bernese to welcome us to his corner of the world. What a delight he is, the Welshman that is, although his timing was lousy. By the time he left, our dinner was cold; this didn’t bother me much but the same cannot be said for my more discerning husband.

Tewkesbury Abbey Club Site, Gloucestershire

We started our sojourn in Tewkesbury with a long list of touring destinations, some pushing the boundaries of distance, and all pushing the boundaries of tolerance. I am only too aware that I suffer the modern character flaw of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and this sometimes causes minor friction when touring plans conflict. I want to do it all and my touring mate, who shares almost all of my interests, frequently suggests that I pull my head in, in the nicest possible way of course.  

So with that in mind, we agreed on a modest version of one of my longer itineraries, a day out on the River Wye, starting with a visit to Ross-on-Wye.

We caught sight of this little township a few days ago when we motored down the M50 before heading to Hay-on-Wye. Ross (in its abbreviated form), a small market town of just over 10,000 folk, nestles above a loop of the River Wye, high on a sandstone cliff although I do question the use of the word “cliff”; I guess its all relative.

The township is delightful, with many Tudor timbered houses clustered around the striking 17^th century Market Hall, which today was full of second hand books for sale. Actually it was in this stall that I fell into converstaion with a local woman after encouraging her to buy Bill Bryson’s “At Home” and learned that she had spent seven years in Auckland in the 1960s. She recocognised my Kiwi accent, something one hardly celebrates although I am proud of having better grammar than England’s  Joe-average you hear on the televison.  In fact it is amazing how often one falls into conversation with a local who has a relative living in New Zealand, or who travelled recently to New Zealand. It is all the more amazing when you consider how unwelcome we Kiwis are in this country; better to be a Pole or Romanian, than a colonial Kiwi; I am reminded everytime I come through immigration that I must be gone within six months.

Ross on Wye celebrates two heros, neither appearing anywhere else in commonly known history. John Kyrle (1637 – 1724), a wealthy philanthropist and town planner, leased a hillock by the church where he laid out gardens that he called The Prospect and a clifftop walk, for local people to enjoy. Tributes celebrate “his community involvement, his modest life style and charitable works. He settled disputes, aided the poor and sick, supported schools and left the beautiful ‘Prospect Walk’ with a fountain and garden for the citizens of Ross”; these are the words printed on the wall of a pub named “The Man of Ross” adjacent to those gardens.

The other local hero, Dr John Edgerton started The Wye Tour in 1745, a two day boat tour to Chepstow, with a stopover at Monmouth, for writers, poets and ladies and gentlemen of leisure, from his vicarage here in the town. Unknowingly he started a trend that became a landscape and artistic movement; The Picturesque,  that took the place of the big European OE. Fans of this tour included Wordswoth and Turner, creators of verse and landscape who did much to promote the area.

We spent some time wandering about the very comprehensive commercial centre of the town, before setting off down to the river on foot, walking downstream to Bridstow and beyond, passing the remains of the privately owned Wilton Castle on the opposite river bank. Eventually the trail diminished to one for the committed, a narrow path between nettles and wheat fields; there we turned and headed back upstream.

Early afternoon, we made our way back up into the town to the car park, and then travelled downstream again, on the eastern side of the river, past Walford then across the bridge to Goodrich, to the English Heritage administered Goodrich Castle, which seems to grown out of the rock on which it was built.

The keep is Norman, but the red sandstone outer walls date from the 13^th and 15^th centuries.  The present ruined condition of this border castle is the result of a single violent event in 1646, an exception of the castle’s largely peaceful existance.

Godric Mappeson, who left his name to the castle with the skewed “Goodrich”, built the first version in about 1100, although nothing remains of that effort. Later came Richard de Clare, known as “Strongbow” who built the Great Tower, the oldest surving building. This character later became famous for invading Ireland in 1170.

In 1204 William Marshall, known as “the best knight in all the realm” was recorded as owner of Goodrich. Marshall, the Earl of Pembroke was given the castle by King John, he whose body lies in the Worcester Cathedral, to partially compensate him for lost lands on the continent.

But it was the ownership of the De Valances that featured in the audio guided tour today.  William De Valance owned Goodrich from 1247 to 1296.

De Valance was a French nobleman from Poitiers, half brother to  Henry III who was “rewarded” with a marriage to Joan de Munchensi, one of the heiresses to the Marshal estate. The marriage made Valance immensely rich and gave him the title of Earl of Pembroke. Valence was not particularly popular with other nobles, who viewed him as a foreign upstart. Valence’s rebuilding of Goodrich sent a powerful message that he was here to stay, that he was a cultured man with the highest connections and was not to be trifled with.

William De Valance completely modernised the castle and much of what is left today was built under his direction. Within the stern military exterior of high walls, towers, barbicans and drawbridges, he created a luxurious and extensive set of buildings for his large household and important  guests. 

When William died, his widow Joan sometimes stayed at Goodrich for months at a time, despite it was more fashionable to relocate one’s dwelling place up to eighty times a year. (We have nothing on those medieval gypsies!) Alas the castle would only stay in the De Valance family for one more generation.

In 1326, the Talbots came to own Goodrich, Gilbert Talbot fought with Henry V at Agincourt in 1415, and his brother John, labelled  “the terror of the French”, was made Earl of Shrewsbury, a title that remained en famille. The castle remained in the family’s hands right through to 1616 when Gilbert Talbot died with no male heir and Goodrich passed into the hands of Henry Grey, Earl of Kent, however the Greys chose not to live at Goodrich, instead renting the castle to a series of tenants.

For much of the first English Civil War of 1642 – 46, Goodrich was held for King Charles I by Henry Lingen and a garrison of one hundred and twenty soldiers and fifty officers. By 1646, it was the only royalist stronghold in the area. In March that year, John Birch, the local Parliamentarian commander, directed a night raid on the castle stables, burnig the buildings and stealing the horses, thus temporarily halting royalist attacks in the district. Three months later, he returned from other operations, determined to capture the castle or destroy it.

The royalist rejected Birch’s demands that they surrender, and he was forced to try other means, Birch ordered a local forge to cast a new mortar, later nicknamed “Roaring Meg”, capable of firing an explosive shell of 85 kilo. By bombarding the north-west corner of the castle and digging mines through the rock, Birch brought down one tower and was ready to attach with his army. On 31 July, the royalists surrendered, marching out as prisoners.

Though badly damaged, the castle remained inhabitable. For this reason the walls and battlements were deliberately “slighted” and the buildings unroofed. The history of Goodrich as a functioning castle had come to an end.

We enjoyed our visit to the castle very much, glad to have taken advantage of the audio guides, and glad the fine weather afforded the glorious views from the top of the Great Tower up and down the Wye Valley.

It was time to head home but we were keen to travel back on a route other than that we had taken  in the morning, mainly on the M50 we had travelled some days ago and which we would travel again in a few more days as we headed to South Wales. 

We followed the A4234 downriver to Lower Lybrook, then back over the Forest of Dean  through a valley that was once the site of a local iron and coal industry, a pub named “Collier’s Arms” alerting us to the possibility. We followed the A4136 still up through the Forest, until we joined the ring road that skirts Gloucester, then headed back up to Tewkesbury on the A38.

Today Chris was stung yet again by one of the local bugs and consumed surely more anti-histamine tablets than one should; I cooked dinner and left him to doze before the abysmal soccer game between Belgium and England. There is football frenzy  all about, although the English don’t do car flags like the Australians do. Perhaps it is just as well they keep a lower profile, based on this evening’s efforts.

Tewkesbury Abbey Club Site, Gloucestershire

The high temperatures, something one does not normally think of in conjunction with the UK, are taking their toll on us. A few days of 29 degrees would be most welcome if there was a little accompanying breeze; alas there is no such relief. Perhaps this was why I was glad of a slower day on Tuesday.

Our water pump had been playing up more than usual, so Chris managed to track down a local mobile caravan fixit man who swung by soon after breakfast. That same morning I did a load of washing and we popped out to the local Morrsions after Graeme had replaced the offending pump, and then stayed on to eat our packed lunch in the caravan. So it was not until near 1 pm that we headed off to the day’s destination.

Snowshill lies just over thirty miles to the east of Tewkesbury, a straight forward drive across on the A47 then the B4077 before turning up into the Cotsworlds on the B4632 toward Broadway, duplicating part of the road travelled last year when we stayed in Cheltenham and spent time exploring the Cotsworlds. Our destination on Tuesday was Snowshill Manor, a National Trust property rather different from the run of-the-mill stately homes. 

Snowshill Manor , until it was passed over to the National Trust in 1951, was a private museum housing one man’s eclectic collection of treasures. He was a collector of such extremes, that he housed his collection in a house purchased for just that purpose and lived in a “shack” next door in hermit-like simplicity. 

That is an over simplified description of what Snowshill Manor is all about, but even after a couple of hours, quizzing the loyal and passionate guides and reading all there was on offer about this weidro, there were still so very many questions left unanswered.

The property itself belonged to nearby Winchcombe Abbey from 821 until the Dissolution in 1539, when Henry VIII presented it as a gift to his last queen, Catherine Parr. Between 1539 and 1919 it had a number of owners, none of whom seem to warrant mention in the historical records. But its obscurity ended when Charles Paget Wade purchased the property in 1919. 

Charles was born in 1883 in Kent into a family who had held sugar cane plantations in St Kitts in the West Indies for a couple of generations. While not involved in the slave trade themselves, they did benefit from the compensation the British government paid out when slavery was abolished, so one could say their wealth did come from illgotten gains.

When Charles was less than seven years old, he was sent to live with his grandmother in Great Yarmouth,  who proved to be the mentor of his collection bent. She owned a Chinese cabinet full of amazing treasures which fascinated the young Charles, a boy of artistic and flamboyant character,  to such an extent, he started his own collection in his fomative years. 

In 1907, he qualified as an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and took a position with a reputable firm, where he proved his worth and talent in the field. However work was obviously an interim time filler, because when his father died in 1911 and he inherited the plantations on St Kitts, he quit his career, and concentrated on expanding his collection. 

Unfortunately for Charles, and of course for many millions, the First World War arrived,and Charles did his bit on the Western Front in a fairly passive role, appropriate to his age and inclinations. He spent whatever time he had sketching and painting the buildings he saw, and fell in love with a property he saw advertised in a year old publication of “Country Life” lying about his quarters. 

Amazingly, after his discharge, when he tracked down the estate agents who had advertised the property, it was still for sale, and he bought it without further examination. When he did arrive to take up possession, he found it had not been occupied for about one hundred years and required three years efforts by his friends and himself, shovelling out the accumulations of the years to make it semi-habitable or at least functional for his grand plan. The good news, for Charles, was that it had not been spoilt by modern additions.  He was assisted with the transformation of the garden and outdoor rooms by Arts & Crafts architect and designer, M H Baillie Scott. 

Charles never did actually live in the Manor, preferring to live in what he called the Priest’s House, and given the manner it is presented to the public today, as being authentic to his own occupation, lived a rather monastic life.

By the time of his death, he had amassed over 22,000 objects, originating from the world at large, but most acquired in the United Kingdom from previous collectors. The objects were collected not for their financial value but for their beauty or craftmanship appeal. There is an extraordinary collection of Samurai warrior armour, lacquer cabinets, toys and childhood accessories such as the precursers to baby walkers and the jolly jumpers of today (or at least of the time I had my children), tapestries and paintings, theatre masks and bicycles, prams and ornaments. The collection is so varied and so numerous that my few words here cannot begin to describe it all.

Charles Wade remained single until he reached the ripe old age of about sixty three when he convinced a 44 year old vicar’s daughter, Mary Graham, to make an honest man of him. They lived for a brief time at Snowshill in the Priest’s House, in those hideously primitive conditions, before spending increasing amounts of time in St Kitts in the 1950s. During a visit back to England in 1956, Charles was taken ill and died in Evesham. His widow survived him for many years, ending her days not at Snowshill but in comfort at the Lygon Arms Hotel in Broadway in 1999, a wise woman indeed. Hopefully she managed to find some sort of normal human companionship during those final  forty years or so.

But more importantly for us, the visitors to this National Trust property, childless and single Charles started talks with the National Trust as early as 1937 about gifting the property to them. His terms were strict, regarding display, lighting, and a dozen other querks and it was not until 1951 both parties arrived at a mutually satisfying agreement.

A visit to Snowshill Manor is worth a detour if in this neck of the Cotswolds, and a visit to Broadway is certainly so. After we left the well patronised National Trust attraction, we drove up and around the charming and very pretty village of Snowshill, the buildings all in that gorgeous Cotswald cream sandstone and then drove down to Broadway and drove up and down the street to admire more of the same.

We then drove west to Evesham, mainly because it is on the Avon River and I was keen to see the canal port, however on the eastern edge of the town we became ensnared in a traffic jam and Chris lacked the patience to do battle. We turned and drove toward Tewkesbury, caught up in yet another traffic jam on the A46, this due to roadworks with little happening but irritating temporary traffic lights.

Today we headed off to Worcester for the day, this not even a Plan B on the touring agenda, and so without expectation. The road north to this city of about 100,000 inhabitants, is less than twenty miles whether one travels up on the M5 or the more interesting A38, this latter the route we chose to take.

As usual we misjudged tha amount of time required to explore the best features of the city, finding ourselves in a machine ruled car park which we fed with enough to cover up to four hours. From this, near the River Severn, we walked up into the High Street where I treated myself to a new item of clothing, and we called into the Information Centre to acquire a town map. There we were given a long list of must-see attractions; it was evident even at that point, we would not do this all justice in four hours. Instead we retreated to Maccas to agonise over mid-morning burgers and coffee and attempt an intelligent selection.

The first destination was Greyfriars, a Grade I listed building in the Shambles, administered by the National Trust. For some years it was thought to be the guest house or friary of the Franciscan order of Greyfriars, however more recent research has found it to have been built as a house and brewhouse in about 1485 for one Thomas Grene, brewer and High Bailiff of Worcester.

The building is a two story timber frame building, considered the finest half-timbered building in the City, has had a varied life, but it is only that of the last century or so that is told today with any authority. 

Throughout most of the 1600s it was home to the Street family,  and in 1724, it was let to Daniel George, a baker and malster, who turned the top of the building into a tiled withering floor; withering being part of the preparation process of barley for malting. It was the George family who divided the Friary into four tenements and built a row of ten cottages in the garden, these latter removed in the middle of last century.

There are photos of the property taken about the beginning of the 20^th century when the property was home to several shops with living quarters above each, this conversion having occurred about 1870. From here on the property sank to slum proprotions and by the 1940s it was in danger of being demolished.

But thank goodness for the oddballs of society, and this time these came along in the persons of a sibling couple, Elsie and Malcom Matley Moore, who restored the building to its former glory. They were collectors of antiquity, thinking nothing of crossing town with a wheelbarrow and trundling rescued building materials home to install in their grand project. 

Elsie was a talented artist, seamstress and craftsman, who attended the well-known Slade School of Fine Art for a short while until she was recalled to the domestic heath by her domineering mother. Malcom was a dentist who continued his profession throughout the restoration but was also very capable with needle and thread, and any other artists tools he applied himself to. This talented pair rescued this wonderful old building from the brink of annihilation, and for that we can be thankful. This odd couple lived here enjoying the fruits of their labour until they died in their eighties.

The building and garden, together with the fine old building across the road, has been in National Trust ownership since 1966. The second property was rescued from demolition when modern buildings were starting to spring up will-nilly about the town, and Matley Moore feared their project would be lost in a modern urban jungle. Today it is let out commercially and helps to finance the upkeep of the two properties.

We were taken through the rooms open to the public by a guide on a one-to-two basis, and learned much about these two strange people; it seems that Worcestershire and the surrounding district had more than its fair share of peculiar folk.

It was not far to the Cathedral from here and we were already aware that our time was running short. We were greeted by a large kilt-wearing Scotsman, with a great big personality and clad in socks purchased in New Zealand’s Dunedin. After leaving the warmth of his greeting, we soon realised that this cathedral was worth more than a ten minute rush around. We decided to do something else until our parking ticket ran out, pay another round and return for the 2.30 pm tour.

So we walked on to one of the several museums of Worcester, this the Museum of Royal Worcester, celebration and memorial to England’s largest porcelain industry. 

Porcelain was made commercially in Worcester between 1751 and 2009, “Worcester porcelain” encompassing five factory sites and many owners, partnerships and mergers.

In 1751, John Wall, a doctor and son of a former Worcester mayor, persuaded a group of local businesmen to invest in a porcelain manufactory, raising £4,500, close to a million pounds today. Apothecary William Davis shared Dr Wall’s entrepreneurial curiosity and it is probable that the idea for Worcester Porcelain was conceived over chemical experiments at Davis’s Worcester shop. These two entrepreneurs were so anxious to keep their recipe for porcelain secret that it was secured with three different locks and keys. The fine for divulging the secret was £4,000, then a massive sum.

Davis oversaw the day-to-day management of the factory, and within ten years employed well over a hundred workers. Davis assumed sole charge in the late 1700s and oversaw changes in production that made the early factory so successful.

In 1783 the original Worcester factory was purchased by Thomas Flight for his sons Joseph and John, They initially struggled with the technical process but slowly their fortunes improved. One story I heard today referred to one of the skilled workman who held the recipe secret, died on the job in 1789.  It took an underhand payout to this man’s heirs to retrieve the recipe for the porcelain, without which the business could well have been bankrupted.

The porcelain business ebbed and flowed, the processes improving with technology and dwindling with changing fashions. Workers from one factory set up to start others, and then merged again with the old masters. Porcelain painters made their names within the industry and their work is sought even today.

It was interesting to learn that the apprentices who were taken on for seven years and paid half the weekly wage, were enrolled at the Worcester Government School of Design which opened in 1852 and where they studied anatomy, botany, geometry and perspective, their contracts insisting they pass the examinations.

We learned too that the factory sites were dangerous places to work; workers died from poisoning from paint, brain damage caused by mercury gilding vapours, Potter’s Rot or silicosis from silica dust, or arsenic poisoning from licking the brushes, to name a few.

Despite these negatives, there were workers who stuck by the industry, from apprenticeship to retirement, men and women, sometimes for up to four generations. 

By the late 20^th century, manufacturing was changing to take advantage of lower labour costs abroad and more efficient global transportation.  In 1976 Royal Worcester merged to become Royal Worcester Spode Limited then went through a series of ownerships. But the company struggled to stay competitive as consumer demand changed, making considerable losses. In 2006 it ceased making china in the United Kingdom and three years later the factory in Worcester finally closed, 258 years after it was founded.

Unlike my husband, I am not one to get excited when Antiques Roadshow or any like televison programme announces itself, but was willing to endure this museum of objet d’arts for his sake. However even I enjoyed the museum because aided by audio guides, we were able to learn so much about the social, economic and production history of the industry. We rushed through in under an hour, which is just not enough if you are one to examine the intricacies of the craft on display.

From here it was a short walk down to the river bank, a lovely promenade, with plenty of trees for shade and benches to rest. Here we dined al fresco while watching rowers practicing their sport and narrow boats heading for the sea.

After refilling the parking fee to cover a further two hours, we headed back to the Cathedral and joined five other tourists on an hour long tour.

The cathedral was founded in 680 and some kind of structure was erected  on the site, seemingly in timber, but nothing now remains.  A second cathedral was built in 983 by Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, later St Oswald, along with an attached monastry. Then in 1084 Wulstan, the last Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Worcester, also later sainted, began the cathedral that stands today, although there have been additions over the centuries. Deliberate destruction has also been part of the story, mostly from Cromwell’s puritans who spoiled most of the decoration. The Victorian years saw monied elite stump up with money to restore the cathedral, and today it is indeed an impressive structure.

Again, we could have spent much longer here, beyond the time of the tour. In fact Worcester is worth at least two days exploration, even more.

Today has been even hotter than the previous days; we were glad we had closed all the blinds in the caravan during the day, and even after our return, we left the sunny side shut and the windows open on the shaded side. It is only since sunset at about 9.30 that the temperatures have fallen slightly. It seems we are to enjoy this tropical weather for some weeks yet.