Cannock Chase, Venturing Further East: The (N + 7)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

Staffordshire

The Fish and Chip Walk came into being some 20ish years ago (nobody knows precisely when) so that a small group of teachers could get some fresh air and exercise between the end of term and the start of the Christmas excesses.

In December, with Francis and Alison in Australia, Mike and I did a rerun of the 2012 walk, though in snowy rather than rainy conditions, but the official Chip Walk was held over to now. There is a precedent, weather caused the 2013 walk to be postponed until January 2014.

Alison was still unavailable after her antipodean trip, Mike was in Mexico, Sue was playing hockey and Anne had a nasty bought of flu, so like 2012 there was only Francis, Lee and me.

Francis had promised a new route and a different pub, so we met at a new starting place, the Glacial Boulder Car Park.

Glacial Boulder car park, Cannock Chase

Several Chip Walks have passed the boulder, but starting there was a new experience. The boulder was dragged from the Dumfries area 20,000 years ago by a glacier that didn’t take its rubbish home. It is not a huge boulder, indeed it is not much bigger than its plinth which is constructed from the river-rounded Bunter Sandstone cobbles that underlie most of the Chase (there is more in Chip Walk (N + 5), 2015).

The Glacial Boulder, Cannock Chase

Past the boulder we descended, as so often before, into the Sherbrook Valley. It is a pleasant, gentle descent through gorse covered heathland.

Down into the Sherbrook Valley

At the bottom we turned right to follow the brook. I can find no record of the Sher Brook being used to power mills, but there are odd pools which look mill-related to my amateur’s eye.

(Mill?) pool on the Sher Brook

A kilometre later we joined the Heart of England Way where it crosses the brook and followed it as it turned right towards Flints Corner and joined Marquis’s Drive.

>Here Marquis’s Drive is a tarmac road. We paused for coffee on a roadside bench and watched a large group of walkers go by. The road later becomes a footpath and descends towards the railway and the A460 Hednesford Road. On the descent we re-passed the group; three people can sit on a bench, twenty must make do with the wet ground.

Marquis's Drive, Cannock Chase (with the large party on and round the bend)

I have occasionally wondered why Marquis’s Drive (usually referred to as Marquis Drive) is so called. I have a plausible (if unproven) answer.

Marquis's Drive ends (or starts) at Beaudesert Park. The Estate and House (now a ruin on the edge of the Chase) was granted to Henry Paget, the 1st Baron Paget, in 1546. The family collected titles and the 10th Baron, another Henry Paget (b 1768), was also Earl of Uxbridge and Baronet of Plas Newydd, Anglesey. He was Wellington's Second in Command at Waterloo where he famously mislaid his leg. As a reward he was created 1st Marquess of Anglesey because another title was just what he really needed.

The Marquesses of Anglesey lived at Beaudesert, with Plas Newydd (now owned by the National Trust, we visited 2018) as a second house, for six generations. The 5th Marquess (1875-1905) was an interesting character whose extravagances led to bankruptcy. and his early death, after which the titles passed to his cousin, Charles. He tried to keep Beaudesert going but eventually bowed to the inevitable and sold the estate making a gift of 120 acres to Cannock Chase District in 1920 and a further (unspecified) gift 'to the people of Staffordshire' in 1938. Marquis’s Drive is presumably named after him. (Marquess is the preferred spelling, but Marquis is a common variant.)

Charles Paget, 6th Marquess of Anglesey (also 7th Earl of Uxbridge, 15th Baron Paget and 9th Baronet Plas Newydd)
(portrait by Rex Whistler, 1937)

At the bottom we crossed the railway. Last time I was there this involved opening a gate, looking both ways and scuttling across, now an elaborate footbridge has been constructed.

Footbridge over the railway, Marquis's Drive, Cannock Chase

We still had to cross the A460 on foot – which was always more dangerous than the railway.

The crossing used to be down there, by the white house

Marquis’s Drive continues up the other side. I have previously moaned about the long slog up Miflins Valley, which runs parallel a little to the north, but the climb up Marquis’s Drive seemed much pleasanter. Eventually the Miflins Valley path turns and runs into Marquis’s Drive. We made a navigation error at that point last year; this year there was no error and it was hard to see how we ever made one.

Nearing the top of Stile Cop and the end of Marquis's Drive
Somehow a much gentler and pleasanter ascent than Miflins Valley

Marquis’s Drive ends at the top of Stile Cop, more a ridge than a hill, despite its name. As usual Lee’s car had earlier been positioned in a Stile Cop Road car park, but instead of walking to it and driving to the Swan with Two Necks in Longdon we crossed the road and plunged down a muddy forestry trail towards the Horsepasture Pools, thus entering Beaudesert Old Park and venturing further east than any previous Chip Walk*.

After some slipping and sliding the path improved and I was strolling along, talking to Lee when we suddenly realised Francis was missing. Turning, we saw him striding down towards us. It is unlike Francis to lag at the back (that’s my job) and he watered a tree just before Stile Cop, so why was he behind? As he came closer we could see that his left arm and leg were covered in mud, closer still we observed that both knees had been torn out of his trousers. The slimy sludge had claimed a victim, his knees were red, his trousers ruined and he was caked in mud, but his dignity had suffered the most.

A mud-bespattered Francis catches up, Beaudesert Old Park

After a brief scrape down, we continued to the largest of the Horsepasture Pools.

The largest of the Horsepasture Pools, Beaudesert Old Park, Cannock Chase

The map showed a network of forestry roads, and to climb Hare Hill to Upper Longdon we should turn left, second right and then bear right. In fact, we followed the single path straight into the village. The mismatch between map and ground was a warning.

The Chetwynd Arms in Upper Longdon…

Approaching the Chetwynd Arms, Upper Longdon

…then became the third pub (and the second ‘Chetwynd Arms’) to host the walk’s traditional fish and chips. The ‘small’ portion lived up to its description, which made the afternoon walk easier. A couple of pints from the excellent Three Tuns brewery in Bishop’s Castle did not, perhaps, help that cause but were much enjoyed.

Fish and Chips at the Chetwynd Arms, Upper Longdon

It was only 5km back to Lee’s car on Stile Cop Road. We started by retracing our steps to the Horsepasture Pools.

Back down to the Horsepasture Pools, Beaudesert Old Park, Cannock Chase

The track that should have taken us from our earlier route up towards Startley Lane did not exist (we had been warned!) so we turned late, followed a barely discernible path in roughly the right direction and emerged on Startley Lane only a little to the east of our intended point.

We could then have walked down the road to a signed right-of-way, but Lee was scornful of that approach. He suggested that if we cut through the forest we would pick up the path in 150m or so. His argument won the day, but once you go off-piste you tend to stay off-piste.

Once you go off-piste you tend to stay that way, Beaudesert Old Park

We never did pick up the proper path, but we did find a muddy track which eventually became an unmarked farm road and deposited us on The Slade only 50m from the sign marking the intended path.

Lee hides in the rhododendrons to avoid the mud

Back on track we followed the road until a bridle way led us behind some farm building where we found a signed path, for once exactly where the map said it was, heading steeply up Stile Cop. I had an attack of cramp at the bottom – my penance for trying to keep up with two much fitter walkers - but after a brief pause for stretching I found the steep gradient aided recovery.

A steep climb at the base of Stile Cop

The path at the top was barely visible, so we followed our best guess....

At the top the path was barely visible, Stile Cop

...until reaching a crossing of trails where we should have gone straight over – through impenetrable gorse bushes. Being only 500m from the car we zigged and then zagged....

Is this a zig or a zag?

...following any passable track (and there were many on the ground, though none on the map) that seemed to lead in the right direction. This approach was surprisingly effective and we reached the car at 3 o’clock.

As if by magic the car park appears, Stile Cop

It had been a short walk, as these things go, but long enough for me and a good test for my plantar tendons, which have taken well over six months to recover but seem to have got there.

home I stopped at a red light and a girl crossed the road wearing trousers ripped exactly liked a pair I had seen earlier. I emailed Francis to tell him he had inadvertently arrived at the cutting edge of fashion but he said had had already thrown the trousers away. Apparently, some people just do not want to be a fashion icon.

*Oh dear it seems we took a similar route in 2011, walking to Upper Longdon and driving to the Swan with Two Necks, so this is not entirely true.

The Annual Fish and Chip Walks

The Nth: Cannock Chase in Snow and Ice (Dec 2010)
The (N + 1)th: Cannock Chase a Little Warmer (Dec 2011)
The (N + 2)th: Cannock Chase in Torrential Rain (Dec 2012)
The (N + 3)th: Cannock Chase in Winter Sunshine (Jan 2014)
The (N + 4)th: Cannock Chase Through Fresh Eyes (Dec 2014)
The (N + 5)th: Cannock Case, Dismal, Dismal, Dismal (Dec 2015)
The (N + 6)th: Cannock Chase Mild and Dry - So Much Better (Dec 2016)
The (N + 7)th: Cannock Chase, Venturing Further East (Jan 2018)
The (N + 8)th: Cannock Chase, Wind and Rain (Dec 2018)
The (N + 9)th: Cannock Chase, Freda's Grave at Last (Dec 2019)
The (N + 10)th: Cannock Chase in the Time of Covid (Dec 2020)
The (N + 11)th: Cannock Chase, Tussocks(Dec 2021)
Dec 2020 - no walk
The (N + 12)th: Cannock Chase, Shifting Tectonic Plates (Dec 2023)

Mexico City (3), Kahlo, Rivera and Trotsky: Part 11 of South East from Mexico City

La Casa Azul, Trotsky's House and Dolores Olmeda

Mexico

Mexico City

We were pleased to see F again, even if he was half an hour late. After apologising and blaming the traffic he introduced his boss who had arrived with him. She apologised for our missed street food tour two weeks earlier - see Mexico City (1) - and promised we would be reimbursed for both the tour and the phone calls and texts on the day. The company, she said, would buy us lunch today in further recompense.

Coyoacán

Coyoacán

Happy with this we set off with F towards Coyoacán, once a Tepanec village on the south shore of Lake Texcoco, now a municipality in the south of Mexico City. The Tepanec had welcomed the Spanish as potential allies against the Aztecs, and Coyoacán became Hernán Cortés’ headquarters in his conquest of the Aztec Empire. From 1521-23 it was the first capital of New Spain and although now absorbed into Mexico City’s urban sprawl, many areas retain their original plazas, narrow streets and colonial buildings.

La Casa Azul, The Frida Kahlo Museum

Frida Kahlo, owner of the world's most celebrated monobrow
'Fulan Chang and I', 1937 self-portrait, Museum of Modern Art, New York

La Casa Azul (the Blue House) in the Colonia del Carmen district of Coyoacán was built in 1904 for German-Mexican photographer Guillermo Kahlo. Frida Kahlo, the third of his four daughters was born here in July 1907 (or perhaps at her maternal grandmother’s house nearby.)

La Casa Azul, The Frida Kahlo Museum, Coyoacán

Frida Kahlo spent her childhood here and then lived here with her husband Diego Rivera from the late 30s until her death in 1954. Rivera died in 1958 and donated the house and contents as a museum in Frida’s honour. The inscription in the courtyard claiming Diego and Frida lived here 1929-54 invokes some poetic license, they lived in rural Mexico and the USA (1929-33) and in Mexico City’s San Ángel neighbourhood for much of the rest of the 30s.

Inscription, courtyard, La Casa Azul

Like most local houses, La Casa Azul is built round a courtyard. The courtyard contains a garden, a collection of pre-Columbian artefacts and other sculptures.

In the courtyard, La Casa Azul

Frida’s life was dogged by misfortune. At the age of six she contracted polio which left her right leg shorter and thinner than her left. In 1925, aged 18, she was returning from school when her bus was involved in an accident. She was impaled on an iron rail which fractured her pelvis, and she also broke several ribs and both legs. Three months later an investigation of her continuing back pain revealed displaced vertebrae. She was placed in a rigid corset and confined to bed for another three months.

Shelving her ambition to become a doctor, she had an easel constructed that allowed her to paint in bed and a mirror positioned to facilitate the first of many self-portraits. She began to think of art as more than a mere hobby.

Frida Kahlo’s paintings are in galleries all over the world but La Casa Azul retains a few, including her (unfinished) family portrait - not perhaps her best work.

Family portrait, Frida Kahlo, La Casa Azul

Frieda y Diego Rivera (Thanks Wikipedia)
The original is in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

In 1927 Frida’s bed rest was over. Ignoring her physical disabilities as much as she could she set out on a demanding social life. She joined the communist Party and in 1928 met Diego Rivera, 20 years older than her, a well-established artist and Communist Party member. She asked him to look at her paintings, his encouragement became a relationship and they married in 1929.

[Kahlo was christened Magdalena Carmen Frida but always used her third name, spelling it Frieda until the late 1930s when (for understandable reasons) she felt  a need to dissociate herself from her German heritage.]

Over the next couple of years Rivera worked on his mural ‘The History of Mexico’ which we had seen in the National Palace ( Mexico City (2)).

The History of Mexico (part). Diego Rivera, National Palace, Mexico City

They spent 1931-33 mainly in the USA. The marriage was tempestuous, Rivera was a ‘self-confessed womaniser’ and Kahlo also had several affairs. Kahlo’s medical history meant it would be unwise or maybe impossible for her to have children. She had two abortions in the 1930s and a miscarriage later and dealt with the problems in her art. A curled foetus appears in many of her paintings, including her family portrait above.

Frieda and the Caesarean, 1931, La Casa Azul

Frida left Diego in 1935 after discovering his affair with her younger sister Christina, but they were soon reconciled. In 1937 they persuaded the Mexican government to grant asylum to Leon Trotsky, and he and his wife moved into the Casa Azul in 1937. Trotsky and Frida Kahlo had an affair, probably among the reasons the Trotsky’s left in 1939.

Leon Trotsky and Frida Kahlo, La Casa Azul

The affair may also have been a major factor (or final straw) in Frida and Diego’s 1939 divorce. The divorce was not a success, they remarried in 1940.

Amid all this mayhem it almost surprising to find their Casa Azul kitchen so very normal – and very Mexican.

Kitchen, La Casa Azul

Most of the remaining exhibits on the ground floor concern Frida's clothing. She favoured the Tehuana traditional dress of the Zapotec woman from Oaxaca. The flowing dresses covered up the physical imperfections caused by polio and her bus accident, but, equally importantly, her maternal grandfather had been a Zapotec, and their matriarchal society reflected her feminist ideals.

Frida Kahlo's dresses

Always frail, her medical problems continued throughout her life - she had an appendectomy in the 1930s and two gangrenous toes were amputated at much the same time. In 1950 she had more back surgery, which resulted in an infection, after which she spent much of her time in a wheel-chair. Gangrene caused the amputation of her right leg in 1953.

Frida Kahlo's medical appliances, La Casa Azul

Upstairs is her studio with her wheel-chair in front of her easel.

Frida Kahlo's studio with her last still life on the easel, La Casa Azul

In 1954 bronchopneumonia led to a pulmonary embolism and Frida Kahlo died on the night of 12th of July aged only 47. Her death mask rests on her bed….

Frida Kahlo's death mask, La Casa Azul

…while her ashes sit in a pre-Columbian urn on her dressing table.

Frida Kahlo's ashes in the urn on her dressing table. La Casa Azul

During her life Kahlo was largely known as Diego Rivera’s wife. Her work was reassessed in the 1970s and she is now regarded as a serious artist in her own right. Whatever her quality as an artist, it is impossible not to admire the spirit and commitment with which she lived her life.

Frida Kahlo in her corset with hammer and cycle (and a foetus), La Casa Azul

La Casa de Leon Trotsky

F drove us the short distance to the Leon Trotsky Museum on Avenida Vienna. He dropped us off and we waited for him, thinking he had gone to park. It was a surprisingly lengthy wait - he thought he was waiting for us to see the museum. We discovered the misunderstanding when he returned, sent him away again and entered the museum.

Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky, Avenue Vienna, Coyoacán, Mexico City

The display had some interesting photographs, but was mostly documents. We can read Russian, spelling out the words like a six-year-old but understanding nothing, and although our Spanish is better, it is not good.

We moved quickly through to the house. It is less forbidding seen from the garden but the watch-tower, top right, is an obvious reminder of Trotsky’s priorities.

The courtyard of the Trotsky House

Leon Trotsky had been a leader of the Russian revolution and in 1918 was head of the Red Army. When Lenin died in 1924 Trotsky was his natural successor, but he was outmanoeuvred by Josef Stalin. Intolerant of all opposition Stalin side-lined and demoted Trotsky and in 1929 exiled him from the Soviet Union. As a political hot potato Trotsky was a largely unwelcome guest in Turkey, France and then Norway where he was placed under house arrest. The Norwegians were delighted when Mexico offered him asylum in 1937.

After spending two years at the Casa Azul, having an affair with Frida Kahlo and so falling out with Diego Rivera, he had to move. Knowing Stalin wanted him dead he needed a house with better security and moved to the Avenida Vienna house in March 1939. He lived and worked here with his family and entourage.

Trotsky's bedroom

An ineffectual attempt at his murder in April 1939 led to increased security. The thickness of the doors shows how worried Trotsky was….

Security door and bullet holes, Casa de Trotsky, Coyoacán

…and the bullet holes in the plaster show those worries were justified. In May 1940 painter and muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros led an assault group comprised of men who had served under him in the Spanish Civil War and members of the Miner’s Union. They broke into the compound, sprayed the house with machine gun bullets, lobbed in some grenades and withdrew confident that nobody had survived. In fact, all survived uninjured except Trotsky’s grandson who was shot in the foot. That grandson, Vsevolod (later Esteban) Volkov, now in his 90s is still a trustee of the museum.

The Assassination of Leon Trotsky

Guile succeeded where brute force had failed. The American lover of long time NKVD agent Ramón Mercader, infiltrated Trotsky’s entourage as a secretary. Once she had his confidence, she introduced Mercader who posed as a Canadian sympathiser.

Sectretary's office, Trotsky's house, Coyoacán

He entered Trotsky's study on the pretext of showing him a document. As Trotsky perused the document Mercader took an ice-axe from under his coat and struck Trotsky on the back of the head. Trotsky fought back, his bodyguards rushed in and overpowered Mercader. Trotsky was taken to hospital where he died the next day and Mercader was removed by the police. He was convicted of murder and served 20 years. On his release in 1961 the USSR awarded him the Order of Lenin and he lived in retirement in Cuba until his death in 1978.

Trotsky's study, where the fatal blow was struck, Coyacán

Trotsky is buried in the garden of his Avenida Vienna house.

Trotsky's grave at his house in Coyoacán

The Dolores Olmeda Museum

F was waiting outside when we emerged. He drove us to the Dolores Olmeda Museum, not far away but just outside the borders of Coyoacán.

The museum is housed in a hacienda with extensive gardens giving a feel of the countryside, although it is well within Mexico City’s urban sprawl.

Garden, Dolores Olmeda Museum

Xoloitxcuintlu Dogs and Other Creatures

Outside there are geese, ducks and peacocks….

Peacock, Dolores Olmeda Museum

…and Xoloitzcuintli dogs. ‘Xolos’ are a native Mexican breed and are generally (though not exclusively) hairless. They were favourites of Dolores Olmeda and appear in photos with, and paintings by, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. I find them extraordinarily ugly – but I am no dog lover.

Xoloitzcuintli dogs sleep beside a statue of one of themselves

Dolores Olmeda's Diego Rivera Collection

Businesswoman Dolores Olmeda bought the property in 1962 with the intention of creating a museum. She donated her art collection and, after her death in 2002, funds for the museum's upkeep.

The Dolores Olmeda Museum, Mexico City

Her collection is vast and covers pre-Columbian, colonial, folk, modern and contemporary art, though unsurprisingly she has the premier collection of the works of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Equally unremarkably she was Diego Rivera’s lover – he hardly met a woman who wasn’t.

We started in the Day of the Dead exhibition…

Day of the Dead, Dolores Olmeda Museum

…though Diego and Frida get in there as well.

Diego and Frida at the Dolores Olmeda Museum

The Diego Rivera collection includes preliminary drawings for the ‘History of Mexico’ mural.

Diego Rivera: preliminary drawing for the History of Mexico

Rivera never seemed to decide on his preferred style. ‘History of Mexico’ has notes of socialist realism, while the nudes below are anything but.

Diego Rivera nudes, Dolores Olmeda Museum

Other paintings flirt with late impressionism or resemble Picassos or Gaugins. And then there is ‘El Picador’ painted in 1909 which combines precise draughtsmanship with great sensitivity.

El Picador, Diego Rivera, 1909. Dolores Olmeda Museum

Pablo O'Higgins

Finally, we had a look at the lithographs of Pablo O’Higgins, an American-Mexican artist, muralist and illustrator. Born Paul Higgins Stevenson in Salt Lake City in 1904, he became a student of Diego Rivera in 1924 and spent most of his working life in Mexico.

The Brickmakers, Pablo O'Higgins, Dolores Olmeda Museum

Back to the City and Homewards

It was now two o’clock and time for our ‘free' lunch. F asked if we wanted it at the museum or at any of several restaurants he could recommend near our hotel. We decided to head back, thinking we would there about three.

The traffic had been bad in the morning, but it was much worse now. Roads were closed and intersections grid-locked; for long periods nobody went anywhere. Drivers accepted it all with resigned patience but we could see our lunch vanishing as the clock ticked past three, half past and then four. We were scheduled to leave for the airport at five.

We arrived, F insisted we still had time to eat and headed into the restaurant of a department store. Lynne & F ordered a spicy soup while I went for enchiladas and F explained the need for speed to a waitress in a folk dress. Lynne’s soup wasn’t spicy and my enchiladas were just tacos in a bland, sloppy, allegedly cheesy sauce. We had started with great expectations but had found Mexican food almost universally disappointing. This was not even that good but was eaten at such speed it hardly mattered.

Our airport transfer phoned to say he would not be able to pick us up any time soon so F volunteered to take us to the airport. ‘Twenty minutes normally,’ he said, ‘forty minutes today.’

I was sceptical but he was right and we were near enough on time for check-in. We were grateful to him and did not envy his long cross-town journey home.

The gate opened on time but were held there for ages and left an hour late. ‘Sorry for the delay,’ the senior steward said, ‘I could make excuses, but the simple truth is that some of the crew were stuck in traffic. Sorry.’

The remainder of our journey home was as planned.

[update: Our 'free' lunch turned out to be little recompense for the missed tour. However, on returning home we were pleased with the speed and happy with the size of the refund.]

South East from Mexico City

Part 1: Mexico City (1): Celebrating a Revolution
Part 2: Mexico City (2) Centro Historico and Teotihuacan
Part 3: Cholula, a Big Pyramid and Fresh Grasshoppers
Part 4: Puebla, Cinco de Mayo and Street Food
Part 5: Oaxaca (1): Monte Alban
Part 6: Oaxaca (2): Cooking a Mole
Part 7: San Cristóbal de las Casas. Chamula and Zinacantán
Part 8: The Sumidero Canyon and Chiapa de Corzo
Part 9: San Cristóbal to Palenque via Toniná
Part 10: Palenque and Back to Mexico City
Part 11: Mexico City (3) Kahlo, Rivera and Trotsky

THE END