Monthly Archives: July 2012

Temple Grafton, Warwickshire, England

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We visited Warwickshire for the first time at Easter and when I blogged about it Debbie at ExUrbanis commented that she had had relatives who had lived in Warwickshire years ago and she mentioned Temple Grafton. Well I had never heard of the place but when I looked it up I realised that it was just four miles away from where we had been staying, the small town of Alcester. I told Debbie that the next time we were in that area I’d take some photos, and here are some of them.

Temple Grafton is a tiny place, but absolutely ancient, it’s mentioned in records as far back as 710, it does have a few modern houses but there are also thatched ones, like the ones below. They are leaning and bulging every way you can think but, it’s quite something to think that William Shakespeare might actually have been in these houses as this was the village where he ‘courted’ Ann Hathaway and it’s thought they got married in the church here. Although I think that to say that he courted her might be just a touch too romantic as they obviously weren’t your typical love’s young dream couple as Ann was so much older than William and was pregnant. Methinks she took advantage of the poor lad!

thatched cottage

thatched cottage

This is the very church, St Andrew’s – it’s big for such a small place but of course there might have been a lot more houses way back in Shakespeare’s time.

Temple Grafton church

The photo below is of the front view and gateway, it’s really a very pretty church and it has quite a lot of gravestones in the churchyard, I walked around checking them all for names linked with Debbie’s family but didn’t find any.

Temple Grafton church

This photo is of the First World War Memorial which is situated just to the left when you walk through the church gateway. Not many names really but no doubt each one was a disaster for the family involved.

War Memorial in Temple Grafton

This is a close up of the names, just in case anyone is interested in such things. I’m sure you will be Debbie, there are two Odells on it and they were in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment so you’ll be able to look them up in military records.

War Memorial in Temple Grafton, Warwickshire

I still have a few more photos of buildings in Temple Grafton but I’ll keep them for tomorrow, or I should say – later today as it’s almost 2 o’clock in the morning.

Road Trip to Warwickshire

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You might have noticed that it has been a wee bit quiet here recently. I’ve been away in England again, just for a few days and quite spur of the momentish as we had been planning to go later, then we remembered that everywhere gets very busy once the school kids are on holiday down in England, which won’t be happening for another week or two. So we dashed down, just for three nights this time, which was long enough as we were beginning to miss our own bed by then.

As usual I added my Netbook into the luggage, intending to blog whilst I was away – and as ever, I didn’t get around to turning it on.

We stayed at Alcester, Warwickshire again, it is a nice wee quaint place, and we also visited Temple Grafton, Great Malvern, Worcester, Haye-on-Wye and Ross-on-Wye.

We had intended visiting Blenheim, but the weather wasn’t great so we decided to leave that for another time so that the gardens would look their best. Coughton Court is actually just a hop and a skip from Alcester and is a National Trust property so we went there. Then on the way back home we dropped in at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. So I’ll be putting some photos on ‘pining’ very soon.

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

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What’s she doing reading Charlotte’s Web? – I hear you say. Well it was another one of those tumbleweed moments for me and for some reason I never did read the book when I was wee. Why – I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t fancy it because of the inevitable spider content.

Anyway, I rectified matters and read it and my copy has now been passed on to some wee people of my acquaintance. I think it’s probably just as well that I didn’t read the book as a youngster because it might have turned me into a vegetarian, for a while anyway, until the smell of bacon got too much for me. It would have driven my mother round the bend if I had gone vegetarian. I obviously missed a trick there.

It’s an enjoyable read at any age I think and I didn’t realise that it had been turned into a film too. I think it was called Some Pig. Another surprise was that it was written by an American, I had thought E.B.White was a Brit, you live and learn. He was a farmer and he lived in Maine.

When my boys were wee, we did have a pet spider which lived in our kitchen, at the bottom of one of the window frames. He – the boys decided it was male – was named Cornelius by them, after a footballer. He was small, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to put up with him, and he eventually disappeared to pastures new – or died, which is more likely I suppose.

If you’re lucky enough to have any grandchildren, this might be a book they would like to read.