Pub gone to the dogs

 

The Talbot in Cheadle has now closed, possibly forever.  It's a shame; it was just an old boozer, but a great old boozer.

'Talbot' was the family name of the Earls of Shrewsbury, who owned lots of land in and around Cheadle, even into the last century. 
The dogs that you can see in the shield of arms are of course hunting Talbots, and it could be that this breed of dog is so-named because the family adopted them for their arms some 600 years ago.

 

 

Queen's birthday in wool

As is well known to confused foreigners, the Queen has two birthdays, one her actual birth-date and the other an official day of celebration. 
The official birthday fell on a rainy June 11th this year - and is her 90th.

The town of Cheadle decided to eschew the usual (and rather tired) idea of having photos of the Queen and Union Jacks everywhere.  Instead they chose to fill the town with newly-knitted red-white-and-blue items - mostly long scarf-like strands, but also eccentric bollard coverings and others...   Apparently this concept is called yarn-bombing.

In the picture you can see the knitted bits and bobs festooning the town's famous & ancient market cross.

Late on Xmas Day

It seems strangely redundant to inform us all that the person in this Cheadle churchyard grave is, umm, the "late" Ralph Ratcliffe.  I'd have thought that was fairly obvious ... by his being actually buried in the grave!

Poor old Ralph had the misfortune to die on Christmas Day.  I wonder if he got a chance to open his presents?

And so - Merry Christmas one and all...!   (which is not exactly the quote from Christmas Carol)

Knot in a twist

This rather handsome iron girder holds up the roof of the Cheadle Indoor Market - the manufacturer is Silvester & Hopkins, a firm which specialised in iron winding machinery for the area's coal-mines.

As a nod to the locality, S&H placed a Stafford Knot in their maker's mark.
Trouble is: they have the knot upside down.   (Yes, I know: only I would care about this!!)

Walking on pigeons

When you walk along Cheadle's pavements, you walk on pigeons.  It was hard to find out why exactly, but after some enquiries, it seems that one of Cheadle’s main claims to fame is that it was once home to the national racing-pigeon champion Palm Brook Lad (the fastest RPRA sprint champion ever, apparently, though I couldn’t find actual confirmation of that). 
The town felt it must celebrate one of its sporting heroes.

The artist was Ian Naylor.

Elvis Presley ... in Staffordshire

What's this?  The head-quarters of the Official Elvis Presley Fan Club of Great Britain?  Down a side-street in a small market town in North Staffordshire?
Yup.

I was completely bowled over to come across this small office/record shop (it only sells Elvis stuff of course, many limited items, and Elvis DVDs, books, memorabilia etc). Manager Vicky Molloy was very welcoming - and has even set up a (vinyl) record player so that people can bring in their favourite Elvis discs and sit about, on the sofa provided, talking about them.
Vicky, who now manages the fan club, lives nearby; and thought an Elvis shop would be a nice idea... She is there most times, at Cross Street in Cheadle.

This post was featured on the Friday Shoot-out Photo Blog

Clayhanger - book and cottage

Anyone from Staffordshire will immediately react to the word Clayhanger - it being the name of the first of Arnold Bennett's trilogy of novels of family life in the Potteries.
Why this cottage (just outside Cheadle) adopted the name, I don't know.  Maybe the owner is a Bennett fan.

They're great books of course.  Read the workhouse section by clicking here.

Four centuries of sunsets

Sunset on red brick is literally a warming experience.  Mill House in Cheadle is a seventeenth century building - it has seen nearly four centuries of the sun coming and going.

The other thing that struck me was that the sun went down today about eight o'clock - which, at first, I thought as terribly early... but of course, the season is turning.  Why do we human beings forget that the things we are experiencing in the moment - like cold, heat, summer, winter - do change?

Round house

Why anyone would want to build a round house is a mystery to me.  The 'Round House' in Cheadle is tiny. 
In the nineteenth century, it only served as a lodge to a bigger property up the hill, so maybe it was just a whim to build it.

It was lived in as a residence, amazingly, until just a few years ago (split into four minuscule rooms!) - and then a local benefactor bought it and restored it.

Walking ... football !

Over-50s want to play football too, even if they don't necessarily want to be sprinting around for ninety minutes on a large pitch.
So... that's why Walking Football has been invented.  Basically, the rules are completely the same except that running is not allowed.

Amazingly, Staffordshire seems to be one of the national hotbeds of this form of the game.  Cheadle Leisure Centre has three sessions of walking football a week.  It's pretty competitive too...

Taking tea in the graveyard

Garden furniture is not common in a graveyard, and I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable taking tea and cake on these particular benches.

The old Congregational Church in Cheadle is being used as a form of offices now though, so I guess the new inhabitants have just come to terms with the building's listed status.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

Camouflagued factory

The factories owned by JCB always fill me with admiration.  In Staffordshire we have three – at Rocester, Cheadle and Uttoxeter (all close to each other) but each is beautifully designed to ‘damp’ down their effect on the skyline.

The places in which they are sited (except for the Uttoxeter one perhaps) are deep in countryside, and I think it’s great how the company has been sensitive to the way that buildings can spoil the view – so they have done their best to keep them camouflaged.  Even the garish gold-yellow sign is almost sun-like.

This one is the Cheadle factory.

Tower crane immortalised

Tower Crane Drive, which you will find just outside Cheadle, is a new-ish road, on which an industrial estate is based.
This particular street-name strikes me as odd.

I wondered about the name of the road, but, rounding the bend on it, what should I see but – a tower crane! See photo, right.


Now I know streets are often named after the landmarks that stand out on them – but isn’t a crane-fixture too temporary to be considered enough of a 'landmark' for such a semi-permanent feature as a street-name?

I guess ACB must have sponsored the name of the road as well as the sign.

It's possible.

Rat immortalised

Modern art doesn't often depict rats, but this fine metal sculpture in Cheadle is a tribute to an underrated local resident living here in the Cecilly Brook.

Of course, it's really a water rat (aka a vole), so not a rat in the true sense. Still, it's close.

Greatest of Gothic Revival

Augustus Welby Pugin was, by any standards, a great architect and designer. In just twenty years of professional life (he died aged just 39), he built over a hundred churches in early nineteenth century Britain.
He led the so-called ‘Gothic Revival’ - and his greatest work is St Giles RC Church at Cheadle, aka ‘Pugin’s Gem', which is here in Staffordshire.

Which is why Cheadle is furiously commemorating the 200th anniversary of the man’s birth – even though he wasn’t born here, didn’t live here, and didn’t die here!
(To be fair he did contribute to, or create, a number of other great buildings round the town, including parts of Alton Towers).
For the rest of 2012, there will be loads of events, and Pugin’s Gem itself will be open more often than not to visitors. I would visit if I were you; it’s a knock-out church with an overwhelming eye-wateringly ornate interior.

Links: Pugin Anniversary Events in North Staffordshire  /  St Giles Catholic Church (Pugin's Gem)  /  A Look Round Pugin's Gem (BBC)

Cheadle in colour glass

This beautiful window reminds me that stained-glass work is not confined to the designers of many years ago. This lovely modern glass in Cheadle St Giles Cof E is a perfect riposte.

Its subject is the town of Cheadle itself. It must be unique in that it is a piece of church glass that shows, er, the other church in town as well! (In the top right-hand corner, you can just see a spire over the cottages – that’s the RC church in the town).

Both churches in Cheadle are named after St Giles, who is the patron saint of the town; and the hart/hind (or deer) in the bottom left corner refers to that.    (St Giles was a hermit, whose peace was disturbed when the King of The Goths went hunting after a hind. When the king chased the hind into St Giles' cave, he found the saint had been hit by the arrow intended for the animal. Strangely. in this window, it's the hind which has been shot by the arrow.)

Looney Lynne

Birthdays (especially the big ones, the ones that end in zeros) can be a difficult time for the one who’s at the centre of the attention.  You have to be able to take a joke, and the joke might be made very public and very embarassing…

I didn’t know who Lynne was before I read the community notice-board in Cheadle.
But now I do.

Fred Burton's hot water bottle

Fred Burton could only come from Cheadle (an odd, unique place…). He specialises in weird feats of strength, including blowing up hot-water bottles and having breeze-blocks smashed on his chest, some of which got into the Guinness Book of Records.

I saw him in action once, lifting a row of bricks just between his two hands.

This odd plaque to him – which looks like a battered old piece from a metalwork class but is in fact public-art – is one of a number of signs around Cheadle commemorating its favourite sons and daughters.
Another memorial is to a particular racing pigeon from the town.

Link: Fred does his stuff (YouTube) 

Rat rescue centre!

Yes, your eyes do not deceieve you: RAT rescue. Mo Webster, the lovely lady who lives in this house in Cheadle, takes in pet rats given up by their owners. You'll see her at fetes and so on across the district raising money for the venture - which is all self-funded.
Rats don't live long - 18 months is a long innings - so the neighbours don't object too much. The lady says "domesticated rats are loving and intelligent". So... now you know.