Departing Manchester Piccadilly

A Northern service departs.

BGLR : Running

Due to the cold weather (and unheated house) there hasn't been a great deal of running on the layout this year so far though that changed at the weekend where the active fleet all got a decent run. The Bear still sounds like a bag of spanners when headed in one direction, it's sister loco Jam also makes a bit of a noise too though not as bad. Hopefully all Bear needs is a bit of running in. Though Bear only has a month before it is scheduled to be replaced in the active fleet by Growler so we'll need to maximise running opportunities with the loco over the next few weeks.

Churches (26) : Holy Trinity, Lower Ettington

The church of the Holy Trinity was the former parish church of the now lost village of Lower Ettington (only Upper Ettington still exists about two kilometres away, nowadays just called Ettington) next to the river Stour. The ruins of the church are in the grounds of Victorian great house Ettington Park which is now a hotel.

The church of the Holy Trinity (sometimes also known as St. Nicholas') was built in the thirteenth century in the Norman style with later additions including a fourteenth century North arcade [1]. It had a West tower, a chancel, a nave and North and South transepts [2].

Lower Ettington was abandoned in the eighteenth century, the church had already by then been replaced as the parish church by one in Upper Ettington. In the early nineteenth century the church was partially restored to act as a private mortuary chapel for the Shirley family. Nowadays only the South transept and the tower are intact with the rest of the church in various degrees of ruin.

[1] Nikolaus Pevsner & Alexandra Wedgwood, Warwickshire (Penguin, 1966) p. 290
[2] "Parishes: Ettington." A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 5, Kington Hundred. Ed. L F Salzman. London: Victoria County History, 1949. 77-84. British History Online. Web. 26 February 2019. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol5/pp77-84.

Getting on with gardening 2019

The mild start to the year meant that I was able to cut the lawn last week. However I think we should be a bit cautious before we think Winter is over as March last year saw a lot of snow. This year's major project will be the second raised bed which will have some shrubs. The original raised bed will also have a bit of an overhaul as it's starting to get a bit frayed and worn. At the moment though all there is to do is cutting and chopping!

Moreton-in-Marsh

A few years ago I wrote my dissertation on how the horse-drawn tramway from Stratford to Moreton-in-Marsh affected the economy of Stratford-upon-Avon in the nineteenth century. Until yesterday though I had never actually been to Moreton-in-Marsh which is a rather delightful town in the Cotswolds. There arn't really any traces of the old tramway left but there were a lot of lovely old stone buildings.

Moreton is a bit touristy though like Stratford (a bit more than I'd like), signs at the railway station were in English and Japanese! But you can understand the appeal. You can see my photos here.