Railway ghostliness

 

Stafford railway station has been empty (ish) and a little ghostly over the last twelve months. It'll be interesting to see if it returns to its former numbers.

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Wet wet wet marshes

 

Rain, rain, rain. Although the skies have been variable - sometimes blue, sometimes grey - and the temperature relatively mild for winter, it has been WET.

These are the Doxey Marshes, near Stafford.

Knot turns to flames

On the Weston Road roundabout north-east out of Stafford is this splendid steel metal structure.  If you face it straight-on, as in the pic above, the strands of it assemble themselves in your vision - to represent the Stafford Knot, the symbol of the county.


If you stand slightly to one side however, the strands get mixed up, and could be the leaping flames of a fire.
The visual illusion (see pic right) is very clever, and has something to do with the nearby industrial zone. 

Balloons & cars

Balloons always seem to make for interesting photos.
That's it.

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.

White lady mystery

The ‘White Lady’ print has a central pride of place in this reception room in the old part of the county council buildings. 

The lady is clearly of the eighteenth century but – despite her prominence in this room -, no one is quite sure who she actually is.

I rather like these history-mysteries.  There are far more of them than people think.

Heart is 'knot' in it

Stafford College is trying to combine two symbols here - a heart and a Stafford knot - in order to make its slogan "The Heart of Staford" work.

The trouble is that the Stafford Knot is not in this shape: its two loose ends in fact should emerge at the top, not the bottom of the design (there is good reason for this - see the legend of the knot).
Has the college deliberately decided to ignore the legend?

Miserable cemetery

By contrast to Stoke-on-Trent's main municipal cemetery (see previous post), Stafford's is a fairly miserable affair. It feels abandoned and only cursorily cared-for; while its cafe (in pic) resembles a public-toilet block.
You'd have to be dead before you'd want to come here.

Underwater path

The constant rains of the last months have caused flooding even in our relatively weather-untroubled county of Staffordshire.
Here at the Doxey Marshes Nature Reserve, you can only walk the paths so far before encountering water - and one has to turn back.

Sam Johnson is a favourite

There are a quite few figures that vie for the title of 'Staffordshire's favourite son', but Doctor Samuel Johnson is up there. 
Of course, virtually nobody in Staffordshire actually reads much of what he wrote any more - though, at Christmas, yes, one can buy little volumes that contain his collected witticisms.
Curiously, he had a lot of strange bodily afflictions in his life, including an incurable facial tic, and what we would now call Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. 

Anyway, he now has pride of place (a statue in the square!) in Lichfield and in Uttoxeter; and, as you can see,  his portrait has been chosen to hang in the grand 'Judge's Room' in County Buildings in Stafford.

All is not as it appears

It is always incredibly disappointing for me whenever I happen to pass this 'ancient cross'.  At first sight, it would appear to be the ancient preaching cross of the now-destroyed Chapel Of St Bertelin in Stafford centre - which would make it an astonishing 1000 years old.
In fact, it is actually a replica of the real cross, which is buried immediately under it.  The real cross was deemed too fragile to be left out in the atmosphere.

Incidentally, Saint Bertelin is a proper home-grown Staffordshire saint (though he may be just legendary....).  Also known as Bertram or Beorhthelm, he has a few sites dedicated to him around the county.
And the cross may actually not be a cross, it may even be a coffin.  Hmm.

Tommy turned round

This 'Tommy' soldier from World War One is facing in completely the opposite direction to when he was first put up on this structure, the Borough War Memorial in Stafford.  He used to face the railway station - but when the law courts were built in the way, he was turned around, and now faces St Mary's, the town's large parish church.
One wonders why he was built facing the station, and not the church, originally.  It could be that the huge County War Memorial is by the station; was he meant to be saluting that?

The story comes from the fascinating booklet Researching Memorials by Staffordshire Archives.

Hot wet marshes in 2014

Well, it is now virtually a certainty that 2014 will be Britain's hottest, and possibly wettest year since records began 350 years ago.  
The summer, without being outstandingly hot, was consistent and long, so I guess that's what it's about.

Doxey Marshes on the outskirts of Stafford (see pic) were completely impassable a lot of the year...

And, it's only going to get warmer in years to come.

It's fake, but I like it

The county doesn't have a lot of castles, and one or two have been over-restored, so we don't have a great list of them. All are ruins of course.

So people do get excited about Stafford Castle, one of Stafford town's outstanding landmarks - without realising it's a complete fake. 
Yes, there have been fortifications on the site down the years, including a Norman castle, but the one there today is what is left of a clever attempt in the nineteenth century to build a grand home in medieval style.  In its own turn, it too is now in ruins.

Strangely enough, I don't much mind that it's 'fake'.  To me, it's still an evocative place.

The whole site is open, so you can walk the dog there at all times, but the interior is only open over the summer.
The best time to be had there though is in July, when they stage outdoor Shakespeare plays.

This post appeared on the My Town Shoot-Out Photo-Blog

Sun dial gets busy

At last this sun-dial has some work to do! Yes, it's properly Spring at last, with three days of warm sunshine in a row, and the croci and daffodils blooming.

The sun-dial is quite special, being dated 1624, as you can see - though the central gnomon is clearly much newer than that.
You can see it on the side of Castle Church in Stafford, just 100 yards from the Castle itself. Curiously, it's always called Castle Church, rather than by its dedication of St Mary's.

Flood blocks path

The constant rain of the past few weeks has not caused the same level of problems in Staffordshire as it has in the south of the country - but this photo shows how water-logged the ground has become even here.

This is my usual path across the Doxey Marshes - but, as you can see, it's flooded.  It's a foot deep at the worst; I'd have needed wading boots to get along it and still have had dry feet...

Spreading the word

'Hedge-hopper' preachers are not seen as often on our streets as they once were, which I think is a shame.  Agree or disagree with them, they always provide an interesting debate for the public; and some of them are very fine speakers.

This preacher comes to Stafford now and again though I believe he lives in the north of England.

The term 'hedge-hopper', in this sense, refers to those peripatetic pedagogues who once walked the countryside, literally 'hopping over hedges', spreading the word of whatever they believed in, in whichever village or town they came to..

Trainspotter's delight

The art of the trainspotter is not dead, thank goodness, though nowadays they have more than just a pen and paper and a log.

Apparently, according to RailForums, Stafford is quite a good station for trainspotting.

Strangeness in Stafford centre

The strange designs and skilful workmanship that can be found at St Chad's church, in Stafford town centre, are really fascinating. The early-medieval carvings, both inside and outside the church, are so intricate that they could only have been done by professional, travelling masons.

The masons' names are forgotten now, but the founder of the church, a man called Orm, has his involvement inscribed in the stones inside.

As I said, the church is slap bang in the town centre, and is usually open on Saturdays.  If you go in then you'll find that the external stone pillars shown in this photo are just the start of some amazing & strange sights.

This post was featured on the City Daily Portal 'Creative Artisans' theme

Stoke ladies top the Midlands

Turned up to see the Midlands Ladies League Cup Final at the Marston Road stadium in Stafford, and quite a match it was.
Stoke City Ladies (who have already won the league by a long margin) were clearly the stronger side, but Leafield Athletic played their part too.  Stoke (in red & white) won 8-4 in the end before a crowd of around 400.

I was well impressed with the pace, power, skill and bravery on the pitch, and surprised at how much women's football at this level has progressed.
Amazingly, the World Cup referee Howard Webb (you can see him in the left of the photo) turned out to oficiate at this game, and that is quite a compliment.