Like the Barcelona posts, this post and its companions are a Covid lockdown project. The walk actually took place in 2005/6.
For an introduction to the Staffordshire
Way, see Day
1.
Day 6 Saturday 29/04/2006
Starting the Journey Down the Tail of Staffordshire
Participants: Francis, Mike, Alison C, & Myself
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| Staffordshire |
Another flat section, the start and finish points being small villages not particularly well-known, even within Staffordshire. This was our second day on Section 3: Parkland Staffordshire and the Southern Uplands, and Lapley is not even marked on the Section map. It is between Mitton (actually even smaller) and the Telford Aqueduct over the A5. Staffordshire has an unusual shape with a southern tail, best seen on the map at the end of these posts. It was not always like this, it looked like a regular county before its industrial south east corner, Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Bromwich and surrounding areas were donated to the new West Midlands Metropolitan County in 1974. From a walking point of view this was no great loss, what remains are a few outer suburbs and much open countryside.
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| Section 3: Parkland Staffordshire and the Southern Uplands |
Lapley
We returned to Lapley at the end of April
when the warmer weather persuaded Mike into his shorts. We hauled on
our boots outside the church. The nave, chancel and lower parts of the stumpy
four-square tower are Norman, above it is 15th century.
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| Almost ready to leave Lapley |
Lapley is a small village but was once
important. When Burghead, son of Ælfgar, Lord of
Mercia, died in Reims in 1061 his dying wish was to be buried there in the Benedictine
Abbey of Saint-Remi. To this end Ælfgar donated land to the Abbey, including a
plot at Lapley where a satellite house of Saint-Remi was subsequently established.
Lapley Priory thrived until 1415 when Henry V suppressed ‘alien priories’ during
his war with France. The Priory House survived until the Civil War when it was
fortified and garrisoned. In response parliament had it dismantled in 1645.
From Lapley we crossed a field and
followed a dead straight farm track to Lapley Wood Farm and descended to the Shropshire Union Canal.
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| Down to the Shropshire Union Canal |
The Shropshire Union Canal
The Shropshire Union was a complex network
of canals. We were walking beside the main line which connects the Mersey at Ellesmere Port to the Staffs and Worcs Canal at Wolverhampton. It passes through more of Cheshire and Staffordshire than Shropshire but its purpose was to link all the canals from Shropshire
and North Wales into the national system.
The Stretton Spoil Banks
Completed in 1835, decades after the other
canals on this walk, it was the last of the ‘narrow’ trunk canals and the final major work of Thomas Telford. Canal building had changed since James Brindley’s
day. His canals (the three previous waterways on this walk) carefully followed
the contours of the land, Telford’s were much straighter, he dug cuttings, constructed
aqueducts and tunnelled through hillsides. We had joined the canal at its
highest point, but the surrounding land is higher still and this stretch is the
Stretton Cutting; the earth dug out being heaped on either side. Now wooded, the
Stretton Spoil Banks make a pleasantly shaded walk along the tow path.
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| The Stretton Spoil Banks, Shropshire Union Canal |
Telford's Aqueduct over the London-Holyhead Road
Beyond the spoil banks the canal crosses
another of Telford’s major works, the London-Holyhead Road, now known as the
A5. Completed in 1826 with the opening of the Menai Suspension Bridge (see ‘Both
sides of the Menai Strait’ – Part 1 ends and Part 2 starts with Telford’s
bridge), the road was of great importance. The 1801 Act of Union had united the
British and Irish Parliaments, so a highway linking London and Dublin via the
Holyhead ferry had both strategic and symbolic value. The A5 is still, in parts,
a major road, but as a whole its importance is long gone. It is still spanned
by Telford’s aqueduct, so this section has seen no significant widening – but that
does not detract from Telford’s achievement which, to be fair, looks more
impressive from the road than from the canal.
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| Telford's Aqueduct over the A5 |
Another kilometre along the straight, flat
and increasingly tedious tow path took us to Broomhall Bridge. The morning was
becoming warmer and it was time to remove some outer clothing.
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| Broomhall Bridge, Shropshire Union Canal |
Brewood
After yet another kilometre we reached Brewood Bridge where we at last left the canal and walked through the town. Although
not a Staffordshire native I have lived in the county for almost 30 years and
this was my one and only visit to Brewood. Pronounced ‘Brood’ it gained
a reputation as a small but prosperous market town in the middle ages, and
little has changed since – except our definitions of ‘prosperous’ (two oxen and
a plough doesn’t cut it any more) and ‘small town’ (Brewood’s current population
of 7,500 would have made it England’s second biggest city in the late 14th century).
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| Brewood |
We left Brewood heading south west, returning to the canal only to cross Dean Hall Bridge from where we could look back at the parish church of St Mary and St Chad.
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| Looking back to Brewood from Dean Hall Bridge |
Chillington Hall
Field paths brought us out onto the Upper Avenue of Chillington Hall. I have a drive, but I cannot imagine anyone needing binoculars
to view my house from it.
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| Chillington Hall, middle of the Upper Avenue |
We crossed the Upper Avenue near its
midpoint; visitors some centuries ago would first have had to drive the equally
long Lower Avenue even to reach the Upper Avenue. I have a closer view of the house,
Cowpat Walks 9: Codsall (2015) followed a different footpath.
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| Chillington Hall from rather closer (2015) |
The present house was built in 1724, but the Giffard family (pronounced with a soft ‘g’) have owned a
house on this site since 1175. The continuity is remarkable, but the Giffards
managed it despite remaining Catholics throughout the Tudor persecution and
backing the loser in the Civil War. John Giffard is currently the 29th generation
to live here. In a move his forebears might have found perplexing, he joined the
police force on leaving Southampton University in 1973 and retired as Chief
Constable of Staffordshire in 2006.
Chillington to Codsall
Working our way south round the estate we took a track that led to, then over the M54 – one reason why the A5 has not needed widening and Telford’s aqueduct has survived.
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| The M54 crossing on a quiet day in 2015 |
Gunstone
The same farm track continued to the hamlet of Gunstone. The name is an unusual hybrid, Gunni being a Danish personal name
while tun is Old English for a farmstead. After Alfred the Great’s victory
over the Danish warlord Guthrum at the Battle of Edington in 878, the Danes
agreed to settle only to the north and east of Watling Street, leaving the
south and west to the Kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. The route of the Roman
road known to the Saxon’s as Watling Street was extensively used by Telford in
the construction of his London-Holyhead Road. We had crossed the A5/Watling
Street 7km ago, so either Gunni had not read the treaty, or he had become
assimilated among the Saxons.
The fishpond just south of Gunstone is an attractive place to drown worms – if that is your thing.
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| Fishpond, Gunstone Hall |
Proof-reading Nightmare
Less than a kilometre of field paths now separated us from Codsall.
The Staffordshire Way was created and is maintained by Staffordshire County Council. They are responsible for the waymarking, which is
generally good, the distinctive yellow arrows are easily seen wherever you need
them. In 2015 between Gunstone and Codsall we encountered the sign below, I suspect
there may be many more of them.
I do not wish to be over-critical; I am well aware of the pitfalls of proof-reading but… someone had only five words to check and
messed up on the big one.
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| Proof-reading nightmare, near Codsall |
Codsall
Codsall is a relative newcomer among Staffordshire towns. Having swallowed Billbrook and Oaken it is larger than Brewood and is
the administrative centre for the South Staffordshire district. It is also only a couple of
hundred metres of greenbelt from being itself swallowed up by Wolverhampton,
lurking just over the county boundary.
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| Church Street in Codsall (in 2015, but it hasn't changed much) |
We walked through Codsall to the station…
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| Codsall Station, still functioning, unlike so many others |
…not because we wanted to catch a train, though that can be done there, but because the station buildings have been converted into a
pub, a good place for a bite and a pint of Holden’s excellent Black Country Bitter.
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| The pub on Codsall Station |
New micro-breweries and craft ales are two-a-penny, or they were before the Covid lockdowns, but it is not a new idea. Holdens have
been craft brewing in Dudley since 1915. And long may they continue.
A track almost opposite the station took us to Oaken from where we followed minor roads to the A41.
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| Looking back at Codsall |
Wrottesley Park and Hall
Once across the main road, the path runs parallel with it as far as the Wrottesley Park lodge, then turns on to the park.
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| Wrottesley Park |
We crossed it all, but missed Wrottesley Hall - it was probably hidden by trees. The relatively modest house was built in
1923, replacing a Christopher Wren designed mansion which burned down in 1897 and that had been a replacement for a moated Tudor house demolished in 1686. Like the
Giffards at Chillington, the Wrottesley family held the estate from the 12th century,
but unlike the Giffards, they sold up in the 1960s.
Perton and Nurton
For most of the afternoon we were in open country but within sight of Wolverhampton. As geographers like Francis and Alison would
say, between industry and agriculture is horsiculture. We certainly encountered
horses, but these margins also grow golf courses and our route led us round the
edge of Perton Golf Course.
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| Round Perton Golf Course |
Perton, a few hundred metres to our left, is a large commuter village built in the 1970s on the site of the former wartime RAF
Perton. Not quite contiguous with Wolverhampton it remains in South Staffordshire
after seeing off an expansion attempt by its larger neighbour in 1987.
Old Perton is a line of up-market dwellings lining an east-west ridge south of the new village. We topped the ridge and set off down
the wonderfully named Toadsnest Lane on the other side.
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| Down Toadsnest Lane |
It is no longer obvious where Old Perton ends and Nurton begins (names round here swing seemlessly from imaginative to banal). At
the old hamlet of Nurton, the ridge changes to north-south and we walked below it …
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| Nurton on its ridge |
…and into Freehold Wood.
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| Freehold Wood |
Smestow Brook
From the wood to Trescott is a couple of kilometres of flat farmland. The fields are fairly small and enough hedgerows remain for
stiles to be plentiful, but it was a pleasant stroll in warm spring sunshine.
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| Blackthorn in blossom, near Trescott |
The internet has little to say about the village apart from warnings about the ‘treacherous’ ford across the Smestow Brook, but we
crossed the brook on a well-made farm track.
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| Smestow Brook |
Smestow Brook is largely insignificant, and the Perton-Nurton ridge only stands out because the rest of the land is so flat.
But, since Penkridge on Day 5 we had never been far from the River Penk. It
actually runs through Perton and rises just inside Wolverhampton. The Penk runs
into the Sow, which enters the Trent at Shugborough (Day 4) and discharges into
the North Sea on the east coast. The Smestow Brook runs into the Stour which
later joins the Severn and reaches the sea on the west coast. Between Perton
and Trescott we had crossed the English watershed. This makes the Perton-Nurton
ridge rather more important than it looks.
Field paths following the generally southwesterly line of the brook brought to the village of Seisdon. We had left a car on the grass
verge near the substantial Seisdon House (17th century with 19th century
extensions) so that was the end of Day 6.
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| Seisdon House |
Today's distance: 22km
Total distance completed: 131km
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| The Staffordshire Way: The First Six Days |
The Staffordshire Way
Day 2: Rudyard to Hawksmoor
Day 3: Hawksmoor to Uttoxeter
Day 4: Uttoxeter to Shugborough
Day 5: Cannock Chase, Penkridge and Lapley
Day 6: Lapley to Seisdon
Day 7: Seisdon to Kinver Edge
THE END
