#merin's mediocre guide

[merinsedai]

It's Staffordshire Day!

Apparently it's Staffordshire Day on the 1st May! First I've heard of it, but let me celebrate my home county:

This is Staffordshire:

It used to be a whole lot bigger, but they lopped off most of the Black Country and stuck that into the West Midlands in 1974. Bye bye to Walsall and Willenhall and Wolverhampton.

Places:

Stafford: the county town- suffers from traffic problems and has a 19th c replica of an ancient castle. I met my future husband for the very first time in the train station here, but I can't tell you any more about the place since I've never really been. Maybe it's really interesting; maybe I'm missing out.

Stoke-on-Trent: the potteries. You've probably heard of this place. Famous for Wedgewood, Moorcroft, Spode, Royal Doulton, Emma Bridgewater etc, etc. They really dig ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent. Has a football team with a hippo for a mascot (The Potters-hippopotamus-geddit?) and it's really five towns (is it six now?) melded into one city. Parts of the city look like some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland but it has an excellent museum with some of the Staffordshire Hoard on display. Treat yourself to an oatcake somewhere and mourn the loss of the Leopard pub in Burslem, where great 18th c minds met to plan wonderful engineering works like the Trent and Mersey canal.

Tamworth- it's got a snowdome, it's close to Birmingham and currently has a popular Tiktok jacket potato man to visit. Can't tell you any more as I don't think I've ever actually been to Tamworth... actually that's a lie, since I went ice-skating at the snowdome on a school trip when I was 11.

Burton- they make beer here. Brewing's big business in Burton. It's in the East of the county and again, I can't tell you more since I don't frequent Burton... ever.

Lichfield- historic, founded way back when by religious types and has a cathedral dedicated to St Chad. Known as the 'ladies of the vale', Lichfield cathedral sports not one, not two, but three spires. Bit greedy really, but looks nice. It has a nice spring bank Bower festival every year where it always seems to rain. The potato man here is pretty good... I wonder if he's still in business. Be sure to stop by Erasmus Darwin's house and admire the statue of Samuel Johnson, Lichfield's most famous son. Also make time to go to the park and admire the statue of Capt John Smith of Titanic fame. I don't think he had any connection to Lichfield, but apparently Stoke didn't want the statue so Lichfield took it.

Burntwood- really a collection of former mining villages, there's a lot of houses here and not much else: no history, no culture, nada. A place for people to live and to dream about living somewhere more interesting and where people speak with less awful accents. Or that might've just been me. You will never have heard of this place and will have no reason to ever visit unless your mum still lives there.

Biddulph- small market town. Has Biddulph Grange NT garden. Very nice. Good display of tulips and rhododendrons in the spring. Once heard it described as a 'poor man's Bodnant' but really, we can't all be Bodnant and anyway, there's room for all sorts of gardens in this world.

Leek- another small market town. Nice bookshop. Don't mention roundabouts. People in this town really know how to hold a grudge about roundabouts. Famous for the double sunset each midsummer. Obviously it's usually cloudy and everyone misses the double sunset but it happens nonetheless.

Assorted lovely little villages dotting the place. Lots of nice ones up in the Moorlands.

OTHER STAFFORDSHIRE THINGS!

Staffordshire Bull Terrier- not my kind of dog, I'm afraid, but they're pretty popular.

Staffordshire oat cake: it's an oatmeal pancake filled with warm and savoury stuff. I like cheese and mushroom personally, but I reckon bacon and ham and whatever is most popular. Can also get a sweet filling, like nutella. A North Staffordshire delicacy, the Hairy Bikers made these in Lichfield for their TV show once, much to the confusion of the locals. South Staffordshire holds no truck with oatcakes apparently.

The Staffordshire Hoard: oh, only the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver ever found in this country. Imagine being the detectorist who found it, or the farmer whose land it was found on. Whew. I used to work at a riding stables in Hammerwich (where it was discovered). Imagine if I'd gone poking around in fields rather than picking poo in stables... anyway it's bloody impressive stuff.

Alton Towers- you might not have heard of Staffordshire, but you've heard of this place, eh? Our famous theme park. Must peeve the people of Alton off, all that traffic through their lovely little village. Still, I heard they get free entry to the park so... silver lining.

[merinsedai]

Merin's Mediocre Guide to....Wincle.

#1 in my series of 'places I drive through and think are nice'

Wincle is a small village in the Cheshire Peak District. It's mostly farms but also has a church, a school, a pub, a brewery and a trout farm. What more could you ask for? Well, a shop. I love a little shop for all my disorganised needs.

I'm a sucker for a country church and this is a nice one indeed.

St Michael's is a traditional parish church with a Norman Tower. It looks very pretty in the Autumn when the ivy (Virginia creeper? I don't know, some climbing plant) turns vivid red. A church has stood here since at least the mid 17th c; the current building was completely restored in the 1880s.

There are lots of higgledy-piggledy graves in the church yard and there is a fantastic view back across to Hanging Stone (a local landmark) and general pretty Peak District countryside. (You can't actually *see* the Hanging Stone in this photo, but it's there and you can in real life.)

The church stands next to its associated CE Primary School. A cute and traditional looking little school. This building dates from 1865 though there has been a school here for a lot longer than that, apparently.

How cute is that little Spire? Anyway, unlike many rural primary schools (locally, this includes the schools at Wildboarclough, Flash, Meerbook and probably others I can't remember right now), this one has so far escaped the fate of closure.

Since they're completely surrounded by farms, these kids get to look at sheep and cows during their play times. Plenty of tractors rumbling past too. Can it be smelly? Almost certainly. Does anyone care? Unknown.

Wincle also boasts a traditional pub called The Ship Inn. I've never been in but my mum has and she was very complimentary. I was once told that the Ship Inn was named after local legend Sir Philip Brocklehurst, who went on a jaunt on the Nimrod with Ernest Shackleton in the 1900s (Good for him.) ship, The Swythamley, but since the pub has been named The Ship Inn for far longer than that, sadly that must be false. Maybe the picture on the sign was The Nimrod or The Swythamley? (It's a coat of arms now, but used to be an actual ship) Something to investigate. (Full disclosure- I didn't take this photo, I just got it from trip advisor.) Anyway, this place is popular with walkers and day trippers and it looks cosy.

While there is sadly no village shop, Wincle is also home to an award winning brewery. In 2019 it was named in the top 5 most scenic breweries in the country by The Guardian. Admittedly, when you consider where most breweries are located, this isn't too hard a list to top. However, it IS extremely picturesque, set in the valley at the bottom of the village, on the banks of the River Dane. The Dane forms the border between Cheshire and Staffordshire here, which begs the question (to me)- the houses on the other side of the river- are they still Wincle? Are they still counted as Cheshire? I know not.

Walks along the Dane Valley itself are very pleasant. Plenty of pretty pastoral countryside to see and in the Springtime, the forest is carpeted in bluebells. My photography leaves much to be desired but trust me, it's very pretty.

In conclusion:

What a lovely little village! Could I live here? No, I couldn't afford it. Also, there's no shop unless you drive to Macclesfield, and there's lots of snow in the winter and I hate hate hate snow.

Tune in next time for my medicore guide to.... FLASH!