In search of Snowdrops at Berkswell

I've been waiting for the weather to become a bit milder and sunnier to go in search of snowdrops and yesterday afternoon was ideal. There are several local churchyards that have good displays - Baddesley Clinton, Temple Balsall, St Giles, Packwood but as time was limited I decided to go to the closest at Berkswell.

I know I have done a lot of posts on Berkswell in the past so apologies to those of you who have been visiting my blog for some years and may remember some of the history of the village.


Crocuses were in flower on the village green.

The village stocks were in use until the mid 19th century to punish beggars, drunkards, vagabonds and blasphemers. You may notice from the photo below that the stocks in Berkswell are unusual in that they have 5 not 6 holes for limbs. D E Gibbs in "Berkswell through the looking glass" suggests that the stocks were specially designed for 3 persistent local offenders - one of whom had only one leg.

Bercul's Well (from which the village gets its name). A group of springs in Church Lane supplies the 16 feet deep stone-walled well with water. It may have been used for baptisms of newly converted Christians many centuries ago and was restored in 1851.

This cottage used to house the Berkswell Museum. How I wished I had visited the museum when it was still open especially as I believe it may have closed due to lack of visitors which makes me feel rather guilty than I never found the time to go.

St John the Baptist dates back to the 12th century and was built on the site of an earlier Saxon church.

The first sign of Snowdrops

Snowdrops also known as Fair Maids of February, Mary's tapers, Candlemas bells, Snow piercer, Snow bells, may have been introduced into Britain by Italian monks in the late 15th century. They were first mentioned in the wild in the 1770's in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire where they may have been garden escapes. Snowdrops possess anti-freeze proteins that prevent ice crystals forming which would damage the plant's cells.

I bought a lovely little book last year by Rosamond Richardson called "Britain's Wildflowers" published by the National Trust which is a treasury of traditions, superstitions, remedies and literature. It is a delightful book and tells of a charming story concerning snowdrops when Eve who was feeling sad about the barren soil of Eden after The Fall of Man was visited by an angel. To console Eve the angel takes a falling snowflake, breathes on it and tells it to live. As she releases the snowflake it forms a flower as it reaches the ground. When the Angel leaves Eve a ring of Snowdrops appears around where he had stood.

In the Language of Flowers snowdrops represent purity, hope, humility, gratitude and virgin innocence.

I was in an area of the churchyard which I hadn't really visited in the past so here are a few photos of new Berkswell gravestones.

I was actually searching for a particular gravestone - recently I read that a famous British suffragette was buried here. I finally found the gravestone although it is difficult to make out the inscriptions.

Lettice Floyd (1865-1934) was the daughter of William Floyd (a gentleman farmer) and his wife Alison. They lived at Beechwood House which is only a short distance from the village. Lettice and her sister May formed the Berkswell branch of the Birmingham and District Suffrage Society. They dissolved this in 1908 when they both left to become members of a more militant group - the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) - the suffragettes. WSPU was formed in Manchester by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst.

Lettice took part on 13th October, 1908, in the suffragette "rush" on the House of Commons. She went on speaking tours for the WSPU, and was involved in other militant actions, for example the 1912 window-smashing campaign in London. At one stage she was imprisoned and had to endure being force-fed after she went on hunger strike. Lettice and her friend Annie Williams eventually returned to live in Berkswell and helped set up the Berkswell Women's Institute in 1920. She died in 1934 following an operation.



Another famous resident of Berkswell who I have mentioned before was Maud Watson (1864-1946) who was winner of the 1st Ladies Lawn Tennis Championship at Wimbledon in 1884. She was born in Harrow but the family moved to Berkswell in 1865 when her father Henry became vicar of St John's. She and her sister are buried at Berkswell.

They lived in Well House which was formerly the Rectory.

I found more signs of Spring - wild arum (or Cuckoo Pint) leaves emerging and a few Lesser Celandines and Primroses in flower.

"There is a flower, the Lesser Celandine
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
And the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again!......."

from The Lesser Celandine by William Wordsworth

Plants, mosses and lichens on the churchyard wall

This little lichen was particularly pretty and rather distinctive. If anyone can identify it please let me know. The closest match I can find is Cladonia floerkeana or "Devil's Matchsticks" and "British Soldiers" but, as the preferred habitat for this is rotting wood or peat soils, I suspect I am hopelessly wrong.

Some of the church "grotesques"

The base of the churchyard cross is very old probably Saxon and pre-dates the present church.

Timothy came too!

It was good to get out for some fresh air and look for signs of Spring although I shall avoid going to Berkswell at that time of day again - when I got back to the car in the car park it had been completely blocked in by parents on the school run at the nearby primary school! So I spent 15 minutes studying the woods adjacent to the car park in the hope that the hawfinches were still around. I didn't see any so perhaps they have moved on.