A day of culture (our sort)

Sunday dawned foggy but yet again not too cold.  Once we were up Karen prepared a goulash to cook in the slow cooker for at least nine hours.  As we were having a day of culture we walked to the abandoned village of Braunstonbury in the  morning. We found many mounds, banks and ditches but nothing that really shouted out to us, “Abandoned  medieval village”.  

On the way we passed a turnover or roving bridge which allowed the towing horse to cross the canal without the tow line getting caught up in the bridge.  I always think these are ingenious, but what made this particular one more interesting is that it was a double bridge.  There was also an accommodation bridge built into it so there were three parapets and two bridges. An accommodation bridge is one that was built to allow farmers access to their land when the canal cut through it.  Unfortunately it is not clear in this picture but as it is double the normal width there are stanking planks stored under it.

We went home and took up Jake’s offer of using his Sky online account to watch Saints play Manchester City - nothing more to say about that.

We then went for another walk to yet another abandoned medieval village.  This was called Wolflhamcote and, to us, was a lot more interesting than Braunstonbury.  Not only were there several fields of mounds, ditches and banks there was an unused church still standing.  Unfortunately it was late in the afternoon so was getting dark and not easy to take photographs.

 

We found it fascinating walking round an old building that is no longer used and then traipsing round the outside which seemed to have a disproportionately large number of gravestones. Mind you the church was large so maybe it was a large village originally.

It made us chuckle that the church is opened once or twice a year by a group calling itself, ‘The Friends of Friendless Churches’.  The other fascinating thing is that it is in the middle of fields, there are no roads leading to it any more.  Also, at one boundary you can see the intersection of two abandoned railways running perpendicular to each other.

There was also one house remaining, albeit in a bit of disrepair.

Whilst on a churchy theme (but not seriously I hasten to add) we were impressed with the way that Braunston church was lit up on our walk back.

On our return home we decided that the goulash needed another hour so retired to the Admiral Nelson for a rewarding pint.  Having spent the weekend in Braunston we are looking forward to heading off on Monday.  Next stop Rugby as Karen's phone needs repairing.