Churches (104) : St Peter and Paul, Aston

The parish church of St Peter & St Paul in Aston is now in Birmingham though when the church was first mentioned in the Domesday Book, Aston was surrounded by fields and indeed was a larger place than Birmingham! When the church was completed in the 12th century it was one of the largest in the Midlands at the time and may have been the ministry church for the large Aston parish.

The church was rebuilt and reordered in 1480 including the current tower and spire. The church was rebuilt again in 1879.

The church was where my Mother was christened and her parents married.

Model Week : Adding some rubbish

Unlike my 1:1 world, Birches Green is quite tidy and doesn't have piles of rubbish hanging about all over the place. Well let's change that. I've turned a couple of wooden coffee stirrers into piles of timber. These will be placed at various points around the layout.

Departing Bloxwich

Heading for Rugeley.

West Midlands Places (4) : Harborne

Harborne is an area of South West Birmingham. The oldest area of Harborne is centred around the parish church of St Peter. The church is mostly Victorian (the tower is 14th century) though has been built on the site of earlier churches dating back to Saxon times. St Chad of Mercia is thought to have preached here. Harborne is listed in the Domesday Book.

Harborne became part of Birmingham in 1891, it was also transferred from Staffordshire to Warwickshire. Since 1974 it has been part of the West Midlands.

Liverpool frustration

I headed up to Liverpool today with a carefully worked out plan to get four new stations, but when i got to Lime Street my plans were thrown into chaos by train problems. I quickly worked out a plan B and visited two stations and a church in Roby, though getting the second station did involve cutting it very fine with my return train! Well i will try again next week. You can see my railway photos here.