Today's Canal : Coventry
We walked the short distance to the village of Fradley and St Stephen's Church, to attend the morning service. In fact, this church was built in the late 19C as a chapel of ease to the older parish church in Alrewas.
Until the 20C, Fradley was just a small hamlet not that far from Lichfield. A wartime airfield took over many of the farms and today there are no working farms in Fradley civil parish. As we noted yesterday, huge housing developments have taken place on the old airfield, but with the canal in between the old and the new.
The service was led by the vicar who is retiring in a couple of weeks and this was his last appearance at this church - there are three in the benefice, centred around Alrewas. There was a small, but enthusiastic music group. The first of the two photos above, alas, missed out the most interesting element - a lady playing a bass recorder! Guitars are common but not this. There were about 30 in the congregation. Afterwards there were refreshments - plenty of cakes left over from an event yesterday!
In the churchyard is a significant set of war graves, nearly all Australian airmen. One of the functions of RAF Lichfield during the last war was to act as a training centre for aircrews intended to carry out bombing raids in Wellingtons, with a strong emphasis on Australian and other Commonwealth recruits. It seems that quite a high proportion of the graves are of those who were killed during that training and who never flew on an active sortie.
By the time we had stayed to chat (and sample the cakes!) and then walked back to the boat, it was almost lunch time.
When we eventually set off, around 1.45, rain started, at first light but then very much wetter. It continued that was for most of our afternoon cruise - none of the promised sunny spells. As a result were unable to take any photos apart from just before we moored.
We only passed a couple of moving boats during the afternoon but around Streethay and Whittington there were plenty of moored boats so that progress was a bit slower than hooped.
At one stretch the canal has been allowed to grow extensive reed banks, such that at times there was barely a boat width of open water.
Approaching Hopwas, the land to the north of the canal has warning and no entry signs as this is still a military firing range, part of Whittington Barracks, These were established the 1870's on land that had previously been used as a very popular racecourse, being not far from Lichfield itself. The main use of the barracks today is the headquarters of the Defence Medical Service, covering work with all three services. It seems that actual firing is on the most northern part of the site but the woodland creates a very green corridor along the canal.
Shortly after Hopwas Wood Bridge we moored for the night.
7.4 Miles - 0 Locks
No comments:
Post a Comment