Kenilworth, Ironbridge and New Year's Eve
Thursday, 28th December, 1989
Mac at Kenilworth
e went today to Kenilworth. Since we only had a brief glimpse last time we came here first today. It was really fascinating - bits from the 12th, 14th and 16th centuries. It is a ruin, but you can see how it would have been. There are two or three distinct styles. The keep is Norman - it overlooks the Tudor garden which has been reconstructed and the view from above it is really quite spectacular. The State Apartments, Great Hall and undercroft and the hall Lord Leicester put up for Elizabeth I's visit are later, 14th century for the hall and undercroft (John of Gaunt built those) and 16th century for Leicester's buildings. He beggared himself for Elizabeth but it did him no good in the long run - he is the only man who lost his head inside the Tower of London (as opposed to outside the wall on Tower Hill). Anyway it was well worth a longer look. We picnicked in the car park looking up at the castle and Geoff and I were delighted by the antics of some grey squirrels in the bare trees.
e drove back to Warwick, missing the castle this time but having a look at the town. There are some old Tudor buildings including Lord Leicester's hospital (a home for ex-servicemen and their wives, a purpose which it still fulfills today) I hope the inside is more comfortable than the outside appears even though it is extremely picturesque. We had afternoon tea at Warwick and drove home.
e called in on the elder Macs and found there had been a large earthquake at Newcastle NSW (5.5 on the Richter scale) and eleven people were dead. We worried about the Burgesses.
Friday and Saturday, 29 & 30th December, 1989
e spent these days (following a suggestion by Owen Shutt) at Ironbridge. This is an area of nine museums in the Severn Gorge twenty miles or so from Bridgnorth. It claims to be the birthplace of industry (which means blast furnaces, machinery, mines, factories, smoke and noise.) It is the reason the "Black Country" is black. They apparently developed the coke burning blast furnace there for working iron. Since there were deposits not only of coal but pottery clay and fireclay, natural bitumen and iron, the whole area became a hive of industry - iron foundries, china and tile works, canals, etc. They needed a bridge to cross the dangerous and fast river Severn and built the world's first iron bridge in 17 something. (The idea caught on).
ll the industry closed down this century and was left to rust until the museum people decided to do it up. They rebuilt a town with all the shops and industries and turned it into an open air museum (similar to Old Sydney Town) where all the people wear old time gear and talk as if they lived back then. Quite interesting, they even mint their own "old" currency, pennies, halfpence and threepenny bits. You can change your own money at the "Bank"and use the old stuff to buy things like sweets at the grocer, printed handbills at the print shop, bread at the baker's, pies at the butcher. It was fun to see how they used to live but I would not have wanted to live there.
Blists Hill Coinage
Minted 1987 - Replicas of 1920s coinage
hen there are the museums of the river, the Tile Factory, the Coalport china factory and the Tar Tunnel, where pure bitumen still oozes down the walls, and the museum of iron. It took two days to see it all. Very interesting.
omorrow is New Year's Eve, our last day here. We'll be washing, cleaning the van and packing. We are going to the elder Macs to see the new year in.
