asquith

dry-valleys:

At Llandudno and its marvellous pier, construction of which began in 1876, the design of James Brunlees, and which is now a Grade II listed building.

Having hosted such worthies and less-worthies as David Lloyd George, Oswald Mosley, Neville Chamberlain, Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill, Llandudno has since its listing in 2005 benefited from the nationwide revival of piers.

(1,2) the town from the Great Orme,  (3) the Little Orme, (4) the pier from the Happy Valley, (5) the pier from the Great Orme, and the rest sunset from the Great Orme.

dry-valleys:

“It’s too frustrating. I can only get this sense of peace, and of communication- something of the confessional, I suppose- in empty churches. There, in the silence, through which I can hear the whisperings of gossip and desire, the intoned devotions of two, three centuries, I feel tranquil” Alan Clark. 

The strangest of people do, and I got that feeling at Saint Tudno, on the Great Orme in Llandudno, with a sea view that hopefully (2) captures.

The cell of Saint Tudno, who established himself here in the 6th century, sadly no longer exists and neither does most of the 12th-century church built on this site. (”Llandudno” literally means “site of the cell of Saint Tudno” and was built around the sites of worship on the Orme, though more commonly used now is the Victorian Holy Trinity.

 In 1855 the Illustrated London News deemed it “dilapidated and now in disuse” but noted that Llandudno life was beginning to pick up: “the town, which is the property of Lord Mostyn, is rapidly increasing”, and in the same year a Birmingham man, WH Reece,  “gratefully resolved to restore the church at his sole cost as a thank offering for Divine Goodness”.

The church has been open ever since and its open air services have to be seen to believed, though you may prefer the solace of a visit when it’s empty.

dry-valleys:

“You have not told us one half of the beauties and attractions of Llandudno as a watering place; it is the most attractive spot on the shores of Britain, and easy to reach from England by sea or land”. John Smith, Liverpool Mercury.

Still within easy reach of Liverpool or the centre of the known universe, Stoke-on-Trent, Llandudno is where I wish I still was and these pictures from the Great Orme show why.

Beginning at the beach (1,2, with 3 being from the lesser known but equally lovely West Shore) to (4,5) the Happy Valley gardens, laid out by local landowner Lord Mostyn in 1887 for Vicky’s jubilee, and climbing higher to Parisella’s Cave- apparently good for bouldering, though I didn’t try out the “delights” of this myself- and to the summit (8) to get the most glorious views of (9) the town and (10) Puffin Island and Angelsey or Ynys Mon as it’s known to the native Welsh.

“I closed my eyes for I knew now what he wanted. ‘And the island,’ I said, opening my eyes again, ‘is Ynys Mon?’

‘Yes,’ Merlin said. ‘The blessed isle.’

Before the Romans came and before the Saxons were even dreamed of, Britain was ruled by the Gods and the Gods spoke to us from Ynys Mon…“ But that’s for another day.

dry-valleys:

“It’s too frustrating. I can only get this sense of peace, and of communication- something of the confessional, I suppose- in empty churches. There, in the silence, through which I can hear the whisperings of gossip and desire, the intoned devotions of two, three centuries, I feel tranquil” Alan Clark. 

The strangest of people do, and I got that feeling at Saint Tudno, on the Great Orme in Llandudno, with a sea view that hopefully (2) captures.

The cell of Saint Tudno, who established himself here in the 6th century, sadly no longer exists and neither does most of the 12th-century church built on this site. (”Llandudno” literally means “site of the cell of Saint Tudno” and was built around the sites of worship on the Orme, though more commonly used now is the Victorian Holy Trinity.

 In 1855 the Illustrated London News deemed it “dilapidated and now in disuse” but noted that Llandudno life was beginning to pick up: “the town, which is the property of Lord Mostyn, is rapidly increasing”, and in the same year a Birmingham man, WH Reece,  “gratefully resolved to restore the church at his sole cost as a thank offering for Divine Goodness”.

The church has been open ever since and its open air services have to be seen to believed, though you may prefer the solace of a visit when it’s empty.

dry-valleys:

“ Words are ineffectually employed to describe the hateful, blighted scene, but imagine a wide and dreary stretch of common land surrounded by the scattered, dirty and decrepit cottages of the semi-savage population of nail makers and pitmen, with here and there a school, a woe-bygone chapel, a tin tabernacle, and a plentiful sprinkling of public houses. Further imagine the grass of this wide spreading common to be as brown, and innutritious as it is possible for grass to be, and with an extra-ordinary wealth of scrap iron, tin clippings, broken glass, and brick-bats deposited over every square yard, and all around it the ghastly refuse heaps of long abandoned mines.”

Charles G. Harper. (1912) (8 is from around that time).

Followed the Trent and Mersey Canal then turned off near Shugborough, without sampling the delights of that place (please see my earlier essay on Shugborough), as I was rushing to make my first ever visit to Chasewater, a place outside my normal cycling range but which @brownhillsbob and other Staffordshire bloggers made me decide to visit.

As I took a ‘shortcut’ across Cannock Chase, I followed a time-honoured Staffordshire and Black Country tradition and got completely lost amidst the heath and plantation woodland, which in fairness is quite samey compared to landscapes I’m more used to, like the Staffordshire Moorlands.

On my way I visited places like (3) Tackeroo, a First World War railway which lasted between 1915 and 1919, then became a cycle track on which I happily set off in the wrong direction. In its day, Brocton training camp prepared men such as JRR Tolkien for the rigours of war, and this is commemorated in the war memorials and cemeteries which lie across the chase (please see my earlier essays and visit the Museum of Cannock Chase for more).

I did eventually end up at (4) Chasewater Country Park, which is the place to be in this area (I bumped into my girlfriend and her parents, who all live in Rugeley and had come here in their car, though we weren’t together for long as I had to leave in order to get home) and found a beautiful place just yielding to autumn.

Like Cannock Chase, this area has been heavily shaped by humans for centuries, and the reservoir was built as early as 1797, to provide water for the Wyrley and Essington Canal. The railway came in 1849 and mining in the area boomed, producing a way of life that fastidious men like Harper abhorred, perhaps out of shame that the backbreaking toil done there was the thing that enabled them to be ‘superior’.

In the second half of the 20th century, mining declined and the canal ended in 1954, as part of a general turn towards leisure at Chasewater. It was acquired by Brownhills Council in 1997 and transferred to Lichfield Council in 1994; they sculpted the country park in 1998 and did a fine job.

Mining finally disappeared from the area in 1993 and is commemorated by the statue at Burntwood (10), designed by local artist Peter Walker and unveiled in 2013. After this I had to belt back Castle Ring, Rugeley and Stone way as, due to the Cannock Chase farrago, I was late.

The railway I mentioned earlier? Unlike almost all other such lines, this one was never shut because as its industrial use came to an end, it was taken over in 1964 by the volunteers who still run it. Like the castle and other places, that was not taken in during my brief visit but will be something to look forward to next time, without being blighted!

dry-valleys:

I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed.

Wilfred Owen (writing on the Minnie Pit disaster).

From Halmerend, down to what is now Bateswood Nature Reserve, run by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, of which I’m a proud member; from 1860-1957 it was a mine, like neighbouring Silverdale.

Although bustling, the community suffered from pollution and the hardships of their work; as World War 1 raged, and 62 local men were being killed on the front, the Minnie Pit disaster of 1918 killed 155 in a single day, a far greater number than died in battle throughout the 4 years of war.

The men understood the concept of redemptive sacrifice, both from what they were taught in Sunday school, and because it was bred into communities like this, and many of those who died did so because they were saving their mates, or trying to do so. Both through the demise of faith, and of the mining industry, this is not properly understood today, but a visit to the excellent Apedale museum will hopefully take you back to their world.

(8 is the war memorial, 9-10 the Minnie Pit memorial; (3,5) from October 2013, (6) from June 2016, (9) from 13 Jan 1918, the day after Minnie Pit, the rest from Saturday. An interesting comparison is that (4-6) are very near to each other, but (4) is an older woodland and (5-6) are very recently planted,  a difference I noticed when there and which I think comes through in the images).

After 1918 the community declined and the mine shut in 1957 and the railway, which opened in 1870 to take coal to the industries of Stoke-on-Trent, ended in 1962. Employment here is mainly in low-paid shed warehouse jobs, with many unemployed historically and due to the covid-19 outbreak of 2020 (still raging at the time of writing), while a minority have become middle-class commuters, but the spirit of mining is here forever.

The whole site is thus a memorial to the miners who, though the land is no longer put to such use, have left their mark here forever. Bateswood, which became a nature reserve in 2002 and which I first visited when volunteering with the Wildlife Trust in 2013, is a place that will not forget. Let us prove Owen wrong!

The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned.
But they will not dream of us poor lads
Left in the ground.                        

dry-valleys:

Is there hope for the future?
Say the brown bells of Merthyr
Who made the mine owner?
Say the black bells of Rhondda
And who killed the miner?
Say the grim bells of Blaina.

(I like this version)

First cycled to the higher ground near to Silverdale Country Park, from which can be seen (1,2) Shropshire and even Wales, then down to the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust (proud member) site at Bateswood. (3 is the best panorama of the wood and you can see from 9 how steep the climb is from Bateswood to Halmerend).

Bateswood, like Silverdale, is on the site of an old quarry; this one opened in 1860 and shut in 1957, leaving behind not only the poverty but the ex-industrial landscape. No more will the railway shunt coals here; opened in 1870, it was redundant after the end of the mine, and ran its course in 1962, leaving only the greenway (5).

While it is sad that the pit, whose wares once went to the industry of Stoke-on-Trent on the railway, has been replaced (in 1958) by the M6 (4 is beneath the M6), and low-paid jobs in nearby sheds warehouses, Staffordshire cannot be suppressed so easily.

Open-cast mining took place here, hence the pools, but was abandoned in the 1970s. Using natural and man-made features, the local council began to rework this land in the 1980s, and in 2002 the nature reserve was complete. I have been here many times (4,5,7 June 2016, 8,10 October 2013, the rest Saturday).

Next time we will discuss the history of the mine and the local community, also remembered at the Apedale museum; I first discovered Bateswood when volunteering for the Wildlife Trust in 2013, so though in a lesser way I have taken part in the great work of these lands, and felt it become real to me.

simondmikaeldsen:

Tatra mountains. Slovakia. Photos by S.N.