Baswich to Swynnerton

A Two Day Walk in Two Very Different Seasons

Setting the Scene

Staffordshire

Stafford Borough

This is a travel blog. I intended it to be about long journeys through strange and exotic lands.

Baswich to Swynnerton is a short journey, barely 11 miles as the crow flies, and it is hardly far from home – indeed, one end is home - but it is still travelling. Walking maybe the slowest form of travel, but it is the purest; it is all about the journey, never, until your feet start to hurt, about the destination.

It took us two days to walk; two Saturdays separated by seven weeks; two Saturdays in two different seasons. It took two days because we are not crows, because the shortest route crosses the centre of Stafford and then follows the A34 and no one would walk that way for pleasure and because Swynnerton is northwest of Baswich and we spent the first day trudging northeast to Milwich.

Day 1 17/10/2010

Baswich to Milwich

Lynne is no fan of walking, so leaving her at home I drove to Milwich to meet Mike. It was cold October morning, with mist clinging to the trees and lingering over the fields, but Mike was wearing shorts. ‘It’ll warm up,’ he said confidently.

Mike parked his car and I drove us to Baswich, stopping briefly where a platoon of pheasants blocked the road, strutting about with the confidence of birds who have survived the first three weeks of the shooting season and believe themselves immortal. At Baswich we joined Francis, Alison and Lee - and a pile of bacon butties.

The Staffs and Worcester Canal

The Staffs and Worcs Canal

Several bacon butties later we left Francis’ house, marched over the park and down to the canal. It was still cool, but the mist had burned off and we strolled along the towpath under a clear blue sky. The Staffs and Worcs canal, built in 1772 by James Brindley, is part of the ‘Grand Cross’ linking the Rivers Severn, Trent and Mersey, but the few moving narrowboats carried not coal or steel, but canal enthusiasts enjoying the autumn sunshine.

Canal enthusiasts enjoying the autumn sunshine

Across the Former Tixall Estate

We crossed the Trent, too small here navigation, left the canal and headed towards Tixall.

Staffordshire’s reputation as an industrial county depends entirely on the Black Country in the South (no longer actually part of Staffordshire) and the unlovely city of Stoke-on-Trent in the North. Most of the county is rural, much of it covered by the great estates once owned (some still owned) by the aristocracy.

1853 saw the end of the Tixall Estate. The hall, built in 1780, was finally demolished in 1927 leaving only the much earlier gatehouse, a remarkable Jacobean building, but not on our route. The estate was sold off piecemeal and we crossed the land of several farmers as our path rose gently towards the county showground.

Across the former Tixall Estate

At the showground, the ‘Motorcycle Mechanics Show’ was in full swing, closing several paths and forcing a detour through the car park. For a bikers show, there really were a lot of cars. The public address invited us, repeatedly, to visit the ‘Wall of Death.’ Call me picky, but nobody really died.

Hopton Pool and the Battle of Hopton Heath

Dropping down to Hopton Pools provided some peace, at least for humans; a heron peering into the water waited patiently for a fish to impale upon the ‘Beak of Death’. The announcements became audible again as we climbed to the road but faded as we rounded MOD Hopton - an ugly collection of buildings surrounded by a wire fence. I have no idea what the Ministry of Defence stores there, but the level of security suggests it is probably not nuclear weapons.

Francis & Lee at Hopton Pools

The battle of Hopton Heath in 1643, may not have been a major Civil War battle, but with two and a half thousand participants, it was more than a skirmish. The Royalist captured the Parliamentarian artillery, the Parliamentarians killed the Royalist commander, both sides claimed victory and then both retreated. The memorial is inside the MOD compound so we could only stare at it through the wire.

...we could only stare at it through the wire...

Leaving the MOD, we crossed the battlefield and climbed to the line of woods that marked the Parliamentarian front line. On a sunny autumn morning, it was difficult to imaging the turmoil that must have been there almost four hundred years ago.

We continued to Salt, where lunch at the Holly Bush, black pudding in a Staffordshire oatcake, seemed sufficiently local.

Crossing the Sandon Estate

North of Salt, we entered the Sandon Estate, passing through a small wood containing a Doric column erected in 1806 to the memory of Pitt the Younger. William Pitt died in January 1806, four months after Nelson whose better-known column was not started until 1840. Whilst it is pleasing that Staffordshire thrashed London in the column erecting stakes, it is hard to understand why this memorial to a man unconnected with the county was placed on this obscure hillside.

Pitt's Column

Much of the Sandon Estate is a grassy plateau, commanding sweeping views across miles of farmland. Any walk in Mid-Staffordshire must contain at least one view of Rugeley Power Station, which looked surprisingly elegant – at least from that distance.

Rugeley Power Station (closed 2019)

Being an aristocratic estate, the grazing sheep also need a folly to gaze at and improve their minds; it is an even more pointless construction than Pitt’s Column.

An even more pointless construction than Pitt's Column

By mid-afternoon it was not only sunny but warm, Mike had been right all along.

Nearing the end of the Sandon estate in warm sunshine

Once off the estate, poorly signed field paths took us, with some navigational discussion, to Milwich and the end of part one.

Day 2 04/12/2010

Milwich to Swynnerton

Seven weeks passed. Getting people together is difficult, and I did not help by disappearing to China for three weeks. On December the 4th, Brian was available to join us, but Mike was unwell – probably a cold on the knees.

It does not snow every year in Staffordshire, but generally, we expect a covering for a few days, maybe a week, in January or February. It does not snow before Christmas, and if it does, never in November. Except this year when the snow came, the temperature plunged and the snow stayed. It was still there on December the 4th indeed an additional sprinkling had fallen in the night, making the drive up the lane from Sandon to Milwich a touch slippy.

Milwich to Hilderstone

The morning was as misty as the first leg, but there was no danger of it burning off. Had the day been colder and the sky clearer it might have been pleasant, but grey mist limited the view and the white fields and black limbed winter trees gave the world a sad monochrome appearance.

A sad monochrome world

Although it was easy walking over the field paths to Hilderstone, we passed only one other party – everybody else had decided to stop indoors. We sat in the bus shelter outside Hilderstone to drink our coffee; the next bus was due on Monday morning so we were in no danger of being disturbed.

Stone

More of the same brought us to Stone.

Crossing a stream, approaching Stone

The temperature had risen and a thaw had started as we walked through the farmer’s market in the High Street. There were pies and speciality sausages, cakes and patés, pheasants and partridges - oven ready or fully feathered - and many other goodies I might have liked to buy, but could not fit in my rucksack. We lingered by the Port of Lancaster Smokehouse stall, producers, in Brian’s well-informed opinion, of the world’s finest kippers.

The city of Stoke-on-Trent some ten miles to the north, is a dismal place, but produces things of beauty. I cannot get excited by Wedgwood, Moorcroft or Claris Cliff, but Titanic beers are another matter. Captain Smith of the Titanic hailed from Stoke, hence the name. We sat in The Royal Exchange and sank a couple of pints.

Across the Swynnerton Estate

Walking through Stone, then up the small but busy road towards Yarnfield was not a great start to the afternoon.

Turning onto the Swynnerton Estate was only a slight improvement. Ploughed fields under 5 cm of snow are not easy walking. Uneven footholds and a tendency to slither into the hidden furrows causes a sort of lurching stagger, as though we had spent too long in The Royal Exchange.

A lurching stagger...in the wrong direction

After a while, Lee looked at the field patterns on the map and decided we needed to turn left. I thought he was correct and Francis nodded so we turned left. Francis soon voiced doubts. Lee was adamant and I agreed, but quietly as I know that disagreeing with Francis over map reading is a reliable way of being wrong. And so it turned out, our detour bringing us an extra hundred meters of hidden ruts and a damp crawl under a barbed wire fence.

Back on the right track, we found the underpass below the M6 and walked through a small wood. It was pretty as a picture, but pictures do not show the roar of the adjacent motorway nor the thawing snow dripped unpleasantly down your neck.

...pictures do not show the roar of the adjacent motorway...

The Swynnerton estate is large and it was a long haul towards Swynnerton Hall, built in 1729 by the Fitzherbert family and still the home of Francis Fitzherbert, Lord Stafford. After more navigational uncertainty, we found the path that hits the lane behind the hall. The sun was setting, but it is only a short walk behind the big house, past the church and on to the more modest Dandly Towers where Lynne had the kettle on and the cake cut, bless her.

Travelling through remote parts of China may be more exciting, but it is always worth taking a look at the countryside closer to home. It is full of history, pheasants, snow and, just occasionally, sunshine. The beer is better, too.

Staffordshire, Quebec and Kunming: Coping with a Cold Snap

Different Countries with Different Weather Problems and Different Failures

Snow on the roofs of North Staffs

I went swimming yesterday morning, as is my thrice-weekly wont. Driving home about eight o’clock, I glanced at the thermometer and saw it registered -6°. ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘that’s cold.’

Why the extreme cold had not registered as I walked from house to garage, or to and from the doors of the leisure centre, I do not know – maybe it was too early in the morning to notice anything. It certainly registered on the walk from the car back to the front door, all five freezing paces of it.

But I was being a wuss. In February 1998 I went skiing in Quebec. Watching breakfast television one morning, I heard the newsreader say: ‘It’s going to be a mild one today, with a top temperature of –7.’ Yesterday’s top temperature was a balmy +2, but I was still shivering.

Several weeks ago I was complaining about the cold in Kunming, when the temperature was - only just - in double figures. Perhaps I was justified, nowhere in Kunming - with the merciful exception of our hotel room - had any heating and the cold and damp seemed to seep into your bones.

This morning I woke up to a clear pale blue sky and a light dusting of snow. The rest of the country had snow yesterday, and along with it came the predictable chaos. Equally predictable was the moaning about how it is only in Britain that a little snow brings everything to a halt and how everywhere else deals with it so much better. Canada is always held up as the example, and indeed they cope with snow admirably – but then, it lies around for months on end, so they have to. This is the our first November snow for over twenty years; most years snow lies on the ground for two or three days in January or February, sometimes there is none at all. If Staffordshire spent the same money on snow shifting as Quebec, there would be letters in the local press moaning about expensive equipment sitting idle for 360 days a year. They would probably be from the same people who moan about the current situation.

A dusting of snow on my back garden

We had a conversation with Wang about snow in Kunming, which is as frequent as snow here. ‘It’s chaos,’ he said, ‘the schools close, the buses slide off the road, everything grinds to a halt.’ The only difference between here and there is that the Kunming authorities do not have to put up with carping and ignorant criticism in the local press. Indeed, they do not have to put up with criticism at all. ‘The price of freedom,’ said Thomas Jefferson, ‘is eternal vigilance.’ It is also eternal moaning, but he never mentioned that.

Back to Quebec for a final thought. That week in 1998 eventually became so mild it rained. Not proper rain, but the sort of drizzle that might make you think about putting up an umbrella. What happened? The schools were closed, there was traffic chaos and the firefighters had a backlog of cellars to pump out that would keep them busy until the thaw.

The observation that there ‘is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes,’ has been ascribed to Roald Amundsen, Billy Connolly and Dr Johnson, among others. I prefer Dr Johnson because he was earlier – and from Staffordshire – but whoever said it, it seems they were right, both literally and in a much larger sense.

Macau: China's Far Southwest Part 10

Across the Pearl River Estuary to the Former Portuguese Colony of Macau

Leaving Hong Kong

Hong Kong's Kowloon China Ferry Terminal is more like a cross between an office block and an airport than a ferry terminal. The entry off Canton Road gives no clue that water is anywhere near. The entrance hall is empty except for a bank of lifts. One floor up, in a small shopping mall, a ticket office hides in an unobtrusive corner. Following signs to the ferries brings you to a series of check-in desks where tickets are scanned, seats assigned and boarding cards handed out. Once through, you queue to have your passport stamped before following the signs to an airline-style gate. The first glimpse of water through the window is unsettling; surely it should be tarmac.

Surely it should be tarmac, the view from inside the Kowloon Ferry Terminal

The enclosed cabin of the supercat is considerably more spacious than a plane, and if they don’t move quite as fast, they are still quick enough to cover the 70 km across the Pearl River Estuary to Macau in just over an hour.

Macau - A Little History and Orientation

Macao

Macau claims to have been the first and last European colony in China. A permanent Portuguese settlement was established in 1557 and it was governed by a Portuguese senate from 1583, though under nominal Chinese authority. However, it was not until 1887 – 45 years after the British gained sovereignty over Hong Kong - that the Chinese ceded the right of "perpetual occupation and government of Macau by Portugal". Unpopular colonial wars helped bring down the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974, and the new democratic Portugal was happy to allow Chinese influence to grow in Macau. The colony was formally handed back in 1999, two years after Hong Kong. Like Hong Kong it is governed under ‘one country, two sytems’, has its own border formalities and its own currency, the Pataca. 1 Pataca is worth much the same as a Hong Kong Dollar and even the tiniest business is happy to take payment in HK$ and give change in whichever currency comes to hand.

Probably named for the same Mazu, Goddess of the Sea, worshipped in Hong Kong’s many Tin Hau Temples, Macau consistes of a peninsula and an island, joined by bridges (it used to be two islands but the gap between Taipa and Coloane was filled in). On a day trip we ventured no further than the Macau peninsula.

Macau - my thanks to Graphic maps

Macau and Gambling

The main business of Macau is gambling and the casinos were the destination of many, if not most, of our fellow travellers. The ferry passed under the Friendship Bridge linking Macau with Taipa and then, just to emphasis that Macau is spiritually twinned with Las Vegas, the brief run to the dock passed ersatz Dutch houses, the Colosseum, an Egyptian temple, a volcano and a desert fort.

....a volcano and a desert fort, Macau

We had intended taking a taxi the couple of kilometres into the centre, but outside the terminal we encountered a row of free shuttle buses operated by the various casinos. As we were aiming for the New Lisboa Hotel, we boarded their bus and ten minutes later were disgorged into the bowels of the earth below the slightly tacky gilded splendour of the enormous hotel/casino complex.

We both have a problem with gambling, not a ‘gambling problem’ but a difficulty with the basic concept. We just don’t get it. Although I live a pure and blameless life (of course) I can vaguely comprehend the attraction of most forms of vice and wickedness, but gambling is simply beyond me. We have been to Las Vegas, but we just drove through lamenting the waste of a good desert. I have never been inside a betting shop nor, until I dutifully trooped off the shuttle bus and followed the crowd through the doors that opened before us, had I been in a casino. I suppose I should have been curious, should have stayed to watch, maybe tried to understand the attraction, even had a flutter. We stayed in the casino as long as it took to find the escalator to the hotel lobby.

The Old Lisboa, smaller and more understated than the New Lisboa

Avenida do Infante Don Henrique and around

We emerged at the Eastern end of the Avenida do Infante Don Henrique, Macau’s main drag. Despite its name the Avenida does not look Portuguese, it is not quite like Hong Kong either, but it is a lot more like Hong Kong than Lisbon; tall buildings, a mass of Chinese faces and traffic that drives on the left. Given Britain’s century-long ownership of Hong Kong, driving on the left might be expected there, but in Macau it is harder to explain.

Street signs are in Chinese, Portuguese and English and after walking some way up the Avenida we turned right towards the Sé, the cathedral. Once in the back streets it did feel a little Portuguese, the balconied houses might just have been in the Bairro Alta district of Lisbon. The Cathedral itself, a restored mid-nineteenth century edifice on an older foundation, is uncharacteristically plain.

Continuing through the back streets we found the church of São Domingo, a seventeenth century Baroque building painted just the right shade of Portuguese yellow. From the church the arcaded Largo do Senado led back to the main road and the Leal Senado (Loyal Senate) building. The pedestrianised largo has the same small cubical cobbles set out in the same sort of design as can be found in any pedestrianised square in Portugal. We even found an exact copy of the famed squid that adorns the Roman bathhouse in Milreu in the Algarve. Accepting that Chinese crowds are not quite like Portuguese crowds, and that something in the atmosphere says that you are unmistakably on the edge of the tropics, Largo do Senado is as Portuguese as Asia can be.

As Portuguese as Asia can be, Largo do Senado, Macau

We wandered on through the rather disappointing market, by now looking for somewhere to eat. Macau boasts some of the best Portuguese restaurants outside Portugal, but as regular visitors to the real thing that did not attract us. There is, reputedly, a Macanese fusion cuisine which we had hoped to stumble across, but all we found were a few hole in the wall restaurants which were either impossibly packed or uninvitingly empty.

Beyond the market the Avenida do Infante D Henrique becomes the Avenida de Almeida Ribero, but both parts of the road are too busy with designer goods to bother with food. In a small square south of Almeida Ribeiro we came across the interestingly named ‘God of Money’ restaurant. The menu was basic Cantonese – but there is nothing wrong with that.

We chose some deep fried cuttlefish and, at the management’s suggestion, sweet and sour pork. This surprising combination worked remarkably well, the pork being a more cultured relative of the garish sweet and sour dishes available in every Chinese restaurant in England. Given the helpful attitude of the management, the quality of the food and number of diners, the God of Money may well be smiling on them. I could have ordered the cuttlefish in Portuguese, though sadly not in Cantonese, but that was unnecessary. The default non-Chinese language, written on the menu and spoken by the staff, was English.

Well fed, we crossed back over the road. Crossings in Hong Kong are controlled by lights. Nobody moves when the little man is red and and the crossing ticks portentously as if counting off the seconds to Armageddon. Then the man turns white, the ticking speeds up and everybody obediently scurries across. Macau, though, has zebra crossings. In mainland China, drivers regard the stripes as decorations, British and Portuguese drivers generally observe them properly, but in Macau a pedestrian only has to think about crossing and twitch a muscle to bring the traffic screeching to a halt.

The Façade of the Church of São Paulo

Half a kilometre north of Almeida Ribeiro a set of steps leads up to the church of São Paulo. Begun in 1602, the façade at the top of the steps took twenty-five years to finish. Being designed by a Spaniard in an Italian style and built by Japanese craftsmen it could have been a disaster, but it is actually magnificent. A dove at the top symbolising the Holy Spirit is flanked by the sun and moon. In the second tier Jesus stands among the implements of crucifixion and below this The Virgin Mary and angels are surrounded by a peony, representing China, a chysanthemum (Japan) a griffin and a rigged galleon (Portugal). Four Jesuit saints make up the lowest tier. The façade is the image of Macau, reproduced everywhere on shopping bags and t-shirts, and the steps swarm with the tourists of several continents all jockeying for the best position to photograph each other in front of the stonework. We joined in.

We joined in
Façade of the church of São Paulo, Macau

The church behind was beautiful, too, more beautiful than ‘all the churches of Italy, except St Peter’s’ as one 1630 visitor wrote. We must take his word for it as the church burned down in 1835. The floor plan is preserved, as is the crypt which contains some relics, church regalia and a rather disturbing painting of the crucifixion of 23 Christians in Nagasaki in 1597.

The Fortaleza do Monte

More steps take you up to the Fortaleza do Monte where stunning views across Macau are dominated, at least to the South, by the golden tailfeathers of the New Lisboa Hotel. The fort saw action once, driving off a Dutch attack in 1622, but today houses the Museum of Macau.

The golden tailfeathers of the New Lisboa Hotel

It is difficult to trace British influence in any existing architecture in Hong Kong. With the exception of the Murray House, relocated to Stanley from Central, there appears to be little interest in preserving old buildings – knock it down and rebuild it bigger and shinier is the Hong Kong way. Despite that Hong Kong retains a distinctly British air. It is not just the use of English as one of the official languages, nor the driving on the left, there is an atmosphere, a way of doing things which makes the place feel like an, admittedly far distant, out-post of home. Central Macau, by contrast, retains a large area that looks exactly like a sub-tropical Portugal, but that is where it stops. The Portuguese language survives in signs and street names, but we heard no one speak Portuguese; we could discern no surviving Portuguese feel to the place.

Back down in the streets below São Paulo the main business was the manufacture and selling of flat sheets of what seemed to be pounded meat. We had ignored this on the way up, being full of cuttlefish and pork, but took a closer look now. Outside several shops girls were slicing off samples for passers-by. I am not convinced that the old-fashioned term ‘sweetmeats’ ever referred to food containing meat, but sweet meat was exactly what we found ourselves nibbling. Taking the sugar out and replacing it with garlic would have produced a decent salami – and I, for one, would have preferred it.

The Façade of São Paulo is emblem of Macua - it is even on plastic shopping bags

Macau Custard Tarts - not Quite the Real Thing

Deciding that sugary meat products were not for us we found a coffee shop and ordered cappuccinos and a couple of Pasteis de Nata, as they are called in Portuguese, though the menu called them custard tarts. The Macanese are very proud of their custard tarts and we are very fond of Pasteis de Nata, indeed morning coffee in Portugal is not complete without one. The custard tarts were perfectly acceptable but, in all fairness, there are several hundred bakers in the Algarve who daily produce lighter, crisper pastry and sweeter, richer custard cream.

Back to Hong Kong

We returned to the New Lisboa Hotel hoping to take their shuttle back to the ferry port, but soon discovered a receipt for gambling chips was necessary for a free return ride. There was nothing for it, we either had to lose our gambling virginity or take a taxi. We took a taxi.

The warm November day had become increasingly breezy and by the time we reached the port the sea was distinctly choppy. The supercats, so swift and sure-footed in calm water, do not like waves. They lurch from crest to crest like a drunken kangaroo that is reluctant to get its feet wet. Our return to Hong Kong was less comfortable and considerably longer than our outward journey, and do you want to know about the length of the queues in Hong Kong passport control? Probably not.

In a day we did the tourist ‘must-sees’ but hardly scratched the surface of the real Macau. One day, we must return.

...And we did return in 2016 for a longer look at both Hong Kong and Macau, links below. Both Macau posts cover all new ground, give a different origin of the name (perhaps neither are correct!) and Macau (2) has an in depth look at the Macanese Custard tart and Lord Stow's Garden Café. (I still prefer the Portuguese version).

Hong Kong and Macau (2016)

Part 1 Delights Revisited: The Sheraton at Dusk and Woo Sung Street
Part 2 The Transit of Lamma
Part 3 Macau (1) The Macau Peninsula
Part 4 Macau (2) Mainly Taipa and Coloane
Part 5 Hong Kong History Museum, Dim Sum and Mongkok>
Part 6 To Sai Kung and Deeper into the New Territories
Part 7 The Peak, Markets and a Trip to Ap Lei Chau

China's Far South West (2010)

Part 1: Kunming and The Stone Forest
Part 2: Shilin to Xingyi
Part 3: Xingyi and on to Huangguoshu
Part 4: Qingyan, Guiyang and on to Kaili
Part 5: Kaili, Xijiang and Rongjiang
Part 6: Rongjiang, Zhaoxing and on to Guangxi
Part 7: Chengyang Dong Villages and the Longsheng Rice Terraces
Part 8: Guilin and the Li River
Part 9: Hong Kong
Part 10: Macau