Welcome back, ale-houses

In the miniscule village of Dodsleigh, which is off any beaten track, one will find a whitewashed building facing its tiny village green.   On it is this stone plaque, which reads:
Walk in my friend and Drink with me / Here Ale as good as e’er you fee* (see)
Refresh yourself is no CRIME / Stay not too long to spend your time 
Francis Sherratt 1751
(When Francis says “stay not too long”, he means “hesitate not too long”)

So I’m guessing that the building was once an ale-house.
It was opportune spotting it, as the government recently allowed pubs to re-open (after three months!) and many of us have missed them.

In England (mostly because of the weather), pubs are the only public spaces in which local people can freely meet and talk and socialise at any time. 
There is a sociology thesis to be written on how this fact has influenced English society.

* in the English of 300 years ago, an s was often written in an f shape

Rest from The Great War

It’s the number on this plaque that makes one stop and ponder.  The text says that the club formed here at St Chad's School Room in Stafford had to deal with forty thousand soldiers.
Stafford was just a regular market town; and to think that the numbers, in such a relatively small place, were as great as this over two years shows how enormous the effect of World War One was in provincial England.

Robbie Williams lived here...

The city of Stoke on Trent has recently been celebrating the fortieth birthday of the pop singer Robbie Williams.  Robbie was born in Stoke.

For a while he and his family lived on Victoria Park Road in Tunstall, opposite the park - and now a blue plaque on the park's gate-posts marks the fact.

I always thought that the best local tribute to Robbie came from the BBC Staffordshire website, which depicted his life in a series of photos - in which a doll stood in for the pop-hero!  You may agree (or not) - click here to see the life-story.

'Heroic' Minton tiles

You can see Minton ceramic tiles all over the world to this day.  Their great era was the ninetenth-century, and many great Victorian buildings, especially in the British Empire, used Minton tiles for floors and for wall-decoration.
Minton's factory was based in north Staffordshire of course; and each time I see Minton work, wherever it is, I get a glow of Staffordshire-satisfaction.

Minton work can be seen at the so-called Postman's Park in London in the 'Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice' loggia.  The memorial remembers some forty 'ordinary people' who died trying to save others. 
It's actually very moving.  Poor Frederick was killed exactly 146 years ago, but the prosaic dedication still has a resonance.

And the Art-Nouveau tiles are very fine indeed.

Charity (except for Tamworthers)

As befits the day of the year when we all should be charitable, it's good to remember Thomas Guy,  one of Staffordshire's greatest philanthropists.   
And here is the plaque over one of Staffordshire's most famous charitable institutions - Thomas Guy's Almshouses, in Tamworth.   Even to this day, 'worthy folk' who have fallen upon hard times are housed in one of the cottages on the site.

However, Thomas Guy was not, erm, totally given over to feelings of Charity.

On learning that his home-town of Tamworth had rejected him as MP, he had a fit of fury; and insisted that the rules of admission to his almshouses (which lie in the centre of the town) were changed.
He insisted that NO resident of Tamworth could ever qualify for a cottage thereafter! 
Only his relations and people from the hamlets & villages around Tamworth ("hamleteers") would ever be allowed to live there ... as you can see from the plaque, which is over the entry gate into the almshouses.  The rules stand to this day.

Hmm.  Oh well.  At least the almshouses still serve their purpose.

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)