Flash - further interruption of holidaying in Brittany. This time to display snaps of our recent visit to the historic county-town of Shropshire, birth place of Charles Darwin. We arrived on Tuesday, the rain soon giving way to beautiful autumn weather, if rather chilly for we northerners.We left on Friday, so our reading had to include the coalition government's Comprehensive Spending Review (Times and Guardian for balance).
We were pitched-up in a Morris Leisure (buy 2 nights get 1 fee) campsite at Oxon on the very out-skirts of the city and next to a park-and-ride. Very convenient too especially for those with bus passes valid in England. A remarkable system of three P&R sites bring the aged of the county into town for free and let them 'hop' on and off of the buses that whizz through the narrow, crowded thoroughfares. Photography has enabled me to nigh on eliminate the automotive transport that totally dominates this town. ICE is de rigeur for all under 25 year old motorists here, with windows down and dreadful sounds at volume 11.Above is Rowley's House, now the home of the most surly tourist non-information local government employees I have ever encountered (still it was the day before the CSR). Very nice museum with a Darwin slant or theme - obviously. And so we took our Darwin in Shrewsbury guide and set off.
This is Darwin gate, above, which I don't pretend to understand. I did wait for the school children to move off, clip-boards in hand an nicely marshalled by prefects.
The important spots of Darwinian interest are marked by these handsome roundels, sponsored by Royal Mail - it was a kind of quiz to find them all.
The new St Chad's church is in the classical style favoured down south during the 17 & 18th centuries. So it's round with a pediment and portico stuck on the front, which doesn't face west.
A most interesting war memorial is sited opposite St Chad's overlooking The Quarry (parkland down to the Severn). I'd been told about these South African war memorials by Liz Stanley who was researching that period both here and in South Africa itself. I had not seen one before. These are the very first war memorials that name casualties and as one can see differentiates between 'killed in action' and 'died of wounds or disease'. Later memorials do not do this. Liz discovered that, in the Imperial War Museum, there is a man whose job is to list all the nation's war memorials.
This is Darwin gate, above, which I don't pretend to understand. I did wait for the school children to move off, clip-boards in hand an nicely marshalled by prefects.
The important spots of Darwinian interest are marked by these handsome roundels, sponsored by Royal Mail - it was a kind of quiz to find them all.
The new St Chad's church is in the classical style favoured down south during the 17 & 18th centuries. So it's round with a pediment and portico stuck on the front, which doesn't face west.
A most interesting war memorial is sited opposite St Chad's overlooking The Quarry (parkland down to the Severn). I'd been told about these South African war memorials by Liz Stanley who was researching that period both here and in South Africa itself. I had not seen one before. These are the very first war memorials that name casualties and as one can see differentiates between 'killed in action' and 'died of wounds or disease'. Later memorials do not do this. Liz discovered that, in the Imperial War Museum, there is a man whose job is to list all the nation's war memorials.
And within The Quarry is a little gem of a garden, The Dingle, where Darwin caught newts as a lad.
Bandstand by an ironfounder in Glasgow, obviously. When you've got Coalbrookdale just up the line by GWR, why not go hundreds of miles by LNWR for your iron.
Town's full of vernacular architectural interest.
And a Roman Catholic cathedral by Pugin.
Some exquisite Arts & Craft style stained glass work by Margaret Rope.
This terra-cotta base-relief is on an apartment block!
So round to Darwin's old school, obviously Shrewsbury school, but now the town library.
We climbed up to the Norman castle to view this magnificent working signal box controlling Severn Bridge Junction: 180 lever frame - with a preservation order! How do GWR fanatics achieve that kind of thing?
There was controversy after this statue of Darwin was erected outside his old school because co-incidentally something or other (prolly a church) burnt down.
Bandstand by an ironfounder in Glasgow, obviously. When you've got Coalbrookdale just up the line by GWR, why not go hundreds of miles by LNWR for your iron.
Town's full of vernacular architectural interest.
And a Roman Catholic cathedral by Pugin.
Some exquisite Arts & Craft style stained glass work by Margaret Rope.
This terra-cotta base-relief is on an apartment block!
So round to Darwin's old school, obviously Shrewsbury school, but now the town library.
We climbed up to the Norman castle to view this magnificent working signal box controlling Severn Bridge Junction: 180 lever frame - with a preservation order! How do GWR fanatics achieve that kind of thing?
There was controversy after this statue of Darwin was erected outside his old school because co-incidentally something or other (prolly a church) burnt down.
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