Sewage in blue

It's not often that one is drawn to a sewage plant, but, in the early hour after dawn - tinged with blue, the Brancote-Tixall Sewage Works had a stillness all its own.

House in shape of bottle

A post about an octagonal house might as well follow one about a round house (see my Cheadle Round House post), but this dwelling is just as small as the Cheadle Round House.
This building is in Tixall, but, yes, it is another 'lodge' house. It is called 'Bottle Lodge' - for obvious reasons I suppose.

It's 200 years old.

Skull & crossbones flag

The pirates' flag flies proudly over this canal boat as it sails through Tixall along the Trent & Mersey canal.

Pirates are quite colourful these days, but seem law-abiding at least. Well, in Staffordshire anyway...

Tixall Church web

My photograph doesn’t show it as well as I’d hoped, but the thing you see in it that appears to be a piece of old hanging thin muslin rag, is in fact an enormous old spider’s web. It sways softly high up in the roof of Tixall Church.

It hangs just above the highest window in the west wall of the church. So it’s no surprise that the cleaner can’t get to it…

Wind on the water

The wind has got up to speeds of 40mph in the past few days, so it’s been pretty blowy – uprooting trees and barging at loose fences.

At this spot, known as the Broad Water, this section of the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal (at Tixall) is so wide it looks more like a river than a canal. Nevertheless, its surface should be as calm as a canal's usually is.

However, you can see here how much the blustery wind was whipping up waves on it today.