Herefordshire 2023 (9) - Part 1: Hatfield and Bromyard

 So back to Herefordshire for four nights.  Although the weather forecast wasn't good we had to be there for a boiler service and gas safety check with British Gas on the Friday. Also it was good to get away from thumping and banging next door and have lovely views from the windows and total peace and quiet. I am just so thankful we have this refuge to escape to.

We travelled on the Wednesday and did the usual click at collect at Morrisons in the afternoon for food shopping. The site was lovely and quiet with only one other car way up the hill.

I love the old British Rail County Posters but to be honest a poster sized reproduction of the one for Herefordshire would have been too large so I was thrilled to see this print in Rossiters - its a bit bigger than A4 size. I've found a place for it too - on the fireplace below the clock.

My favourite trees were looking very similar to the last visit.

Herefordshire Oak

Octopus Tree

The Constable Tree

The Campanula was a good buy as it just keeps on and on flowering.

I bought a set of these vintage style plant labels from Brigsty Vintage Centre and gave some to D for his birthday and kept a couple for myself.

The mini alliums I bought on the last visit.

D wanted a small barbecue to use at the caravan for one of his birthday presents.  They do have a lot of strict rules on the site but I checked recently and you are allowed to have them as long as they don't bother other residents. Well as there was no-one for 100 yards we had a small barbecue on the first evening.

The two bug boxes recently installed.  B has now planted some of those pink cranesbill geraniums that I call "strawberries and cream" in the base of the pot.

We planted a few wildflower seed mixes in the border under the hawthorn hedge at the side of the caravan and, despite damage by moles!, the seeds are finally emerging and starting to flower including Black Medick and Poppies and this purple flower. I haven't been able to identify it to be honest and am wondering if it could be a garden plant that was included as its good for pollinators?  If anyone can id it please leave a comment.

D's promised to lend me this book when he's finished reading it - apparently its very good.

We now buy our eggs from this Hen House at the site entrance - to be honest we only discovered this year that they do actually sell eggs although I think the sign is new.

Thursday was better than forecast so D and I went to Stockton Bury Gardens which I'll write about in the next post.  Friday was lovely too but the gas engineer was due between 12 and 6 and didn't turn up until 4.30!  So we could have gone out! As it was D and I paid a quick visit to Bromyard to buy some cheeses from the farm shop there. And D managed to get me a photo of the post box topper outside the post office.

On Saturday it rained all day and all evening so it was a day of reading and relaxing indoors. Sunday lunchtime we came home.  I really do hope one day we can stop for longer but at the moment E still hasn't moved full time into her flat and she doesn't like being at home on her own so its all rather problematical.

All photos taken by me and my son with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera. I don't particularly rate my photos but if anyone wishes to use one I would be grateful for an email first - thanks.

Coleshill - Church and Books

D and I paid Coleshill a visit recently mainly to look round the second hand charity bookshop - Books Revisited.

This is the Coleshill Pillory and Whipping Post which is unique in Warwickshire and it is a listed monument.  It was first located by the market hall in 1708 but was later moved to Church Street.  It was last used in 1863 to punish two felons for drunkeness. 

This hardware store has been in existence for many decades.

The above is an archive photo from a previous visit when they were raising funds to save the shop. Thankfully they were successful.

Coleshill Parish Church - St Peter and St Paul

Edit - just seen the snow!  This is another old photo of mine as I didn't take a picture of the whole church this time.

Before we left I had a wander round the outside of the church which was built mainly in the C14th/C15th.

The church is usually closed although I think it may be open for a few hours one morning a week but if you would like to see inside please see Christmas Tree Festival at Coleshill Parish Church

War Memorial

I took a photo of Warwickshire's Bear and Ragged Staff while D popped into Morrisons.

A circus used to visit Coleshill regularly in the early 20th century and on one visit the circus elephant died in 1910.  It is buried in Coleshill under what is now the site of Morrisons.

Here are the purchases from Books Revisited.  I was pleased to see they still had the Bewick book as I had resisted temptation on my previous visit and regretted it.  I let D have the Mythic Bestiary book.

In other news I am afraid the building work continues unabated in the adjoining semi detached house - its been nearly 11 months now and I can see it going on for another 6.

Out of the blue we had an email from the owner  asking for access again to re-put scaffolding up on our patio to do more work on the perishing roof and replace the missing tile which fell on our greenhouse roof breaking one of the panels. No apology for the inconvenience or details of the actual work (as mentioned above) in the original email. So B wrote back and asked for details of work and why yet again they needed to access our land. The scaffolding was up for 10 weeks last winter and it was awful - no privacy at all and a real intrusion let alone the worry over security of our property. In any case the roof work should have been completed when the scaffolding was up before.

Anyway he finally sent details (see above) and B reckons 2 of the jobs can be accessed from their land anyway as to the missing tile it is on the wall of the loft extension dormer roof which does not have planning permission and  in actual fact the Council put in a specific condition in the approval that there should be no dormer window in the loft or any extra windows at the rear (in fact there are now 6 extra windows at least).

To cut a long story short B emailed him yesterday to say we were not prepared to accommodate the request at the present time as the patio is full of pots of vegetables as is the greenhouse.  

As you can imagine I am back to sleepless nights over the whole nightmare - we did go to Herefordshire for four nights last week to get away from the thumping, banging and drilling so I'll write about that visit in the next two posts.

All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera. I don't particularly rate my photos but if anyone wishes to use one I would be grateful for an email first - thanks.