Trip to Hereford

 A hot and sticky bus ride into Hereford today, made infinitely more bearable by interesting conversation with a friend I met at the bus stop.  I never realised she had such an interesting life!

I was trying new things today, so I went into the Asian supermarket near the Cathedral.  I had no idea what half the names on the packets were, but I came away with some Horse Gram (brown lentils), ginger and soy sauce, and I will return with a list after I've done some research!

As it was so hot, I went into the Eden coffee shop by the Old House to try their frappe - I used to drink frappes all the time (there should be an accent over the e - frapp-ay) when I was in Greece.  This was not much like the Greek ones I remember, but I'll certainly go back and try other things on their menu.

The town centre was full of interesting food stalls, with food from all over the world, though I don't know if they were doing much trade in the heat.  I was too hot to try anything.

On the way back, the bus was held up for a while for some sort of carnival parade from Peterchurch school.  There were a lot of children dressed as monkeys, for some reason! 

Searching for a Standing Stone

Easter Sunday is a bonus day off for me and the weather was, once again, glorious, so I decided to go out for a long walk.
I took the Hay Ho Bus to Peterchurch, chatting along the way to an older lady who regaled me with stories of her romantic entanglements over the years!
There are several bus stops along the main road through Peterchurch, and the last one is at the crossroads where the side road heads off up the hill, past Fairfield School, to Urishay. That's where I had decided to go. It's years since I visited Urishay Chapel, and on the map I'd seen a standing stone marked, further up the hill.
It took me roughly an hour to get to Urishay Chapel - the last hill nearly killed me in the heat, so I was very glad to see the chapel at the top!
It's changed since I last saw it - the Friends of Friendless Churches renovated it in 2009, re-roofing the east end, and building buttresses against the west wall, with a wall across the nave enclosing the roofed section. I sat on the side wall at the west end, near the base of the font, to have my picnic lunch.

Inside the chapel it was quite cold and damp, and they keep a book there with more information about the chapel. It was the first chapel to be built in Herefordshire for a castle garrison, in the 12thC.
I also picked up a leaflet for the Friends of Friendless Churches - their website is www.friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk and they take over redundant churches and preserve them. They run a joint membership with the Ancient Monuments Society, which is concerned with a wider variety of historic buildings.

The castle is just behind the chapel, but was not accessible. There was a notice on the farm gate saying "No Unauthorised Persons Beyond This Point". There was a pretty good view of the ruins from the chapel though:

The ruins only date from around the 17thC - and are only ruins because the owner in 1921 took the roof off because he didn't want to maintain the building any more! Before that, in 1908, one of the wood panelled rooms from the castle was sold to Baker University in Kansas, where it was rebuilt and is still used today to display some of their collection of Biblical art and books.

Then I headed further up into the hills, eventually finding myself on a dead end road. I crossed a little stream and went up the other side, and finally, in a field:

I thought that was well worth the long walk. It's on private property, so I didn't get any closer than that. Back home, I looked it up on the Modern Antiquarian website. It is known as the Wern Derys stone (that's the name of the farm), or the King Stone, and it stands on fairly flat ground looking out towards the Black Mountain ridge. Craswell is just across the valley from there, and the Offa's Dyke Path runs along the top of the ridge. It's the tallest standing stone in Herefordshire, and was re-erected in 1989.

On the way back down the hill, I came across this rather astonishing flower by a stile:

I got back down into Peterchurch in plenty of time for the last bus back to Hay, (the return ticket was £7.75), so I used the time wisely by going to the pub.
I needed something to drink by that time! I think I walked around 8 miles.
I hadn't been into the Boughton Arms since I first came to Hay. At that time it was run by a pleasant Italian chap - my ex-husband spent some time in Italy, so they got talking. Now it's got a big TV for sports, and a snooker table, and several trophies on display, and the only real ale is Butty Bach, among the tall taps for Carling and Guinness.
I moved on from there, once my legs could be persuaded to move again, to the Nags Head at the end of the village. There were more people in there, and they all seemed to know each other. I had a half of Lost Fossil brown ale from Wye Valley, which was very pleasant, and one of the regulars asked me where I'd come from. When I said I'd been up to Urishay, he said there were some hard-working farmers up that valley.
"No they're not, Rob," said a man at the bar. "You're not up there no more."
Another couple in the bar were very impressed by the new Gibbons' butchers in Hay.
And then it was time to head for the bus stop, and back to Hay.

Vowchurch Common

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year is to get out and do more walking.
I've never been up to Vowchurch Common, though I've been past on the bus very often, so I looked it up in a little book called 100 Walks in Hereford & Worcester. This gives a round walk which includes Monnington Court, which I thought was very interesting until I realised that this wasn't the medieval Monnington Court which was reputed to be the hideaway of Owain Glyndwr in his last years after he disappeared (that's at Monnington-on-Wye,), despite what the book says. This was a much later house, though it does seem to have a medieval motte right next to the house.
The walking book didn't even mention the hill fort which is clearly marked on the OS map by Poston Lodge (I'm beginning to think it is of dubious usefulness), and this looked far more interesting, especially since both the Lodge and the hillfort are described in Pevsner. Poston Lodge was built as a hunting box in 1780.
So I designed my own walk.

I took the twenty to ten bus from Hay, and got off just beyond Peterchurch at Poston Mill, where the caravan park is. A little way along the main road, I turned off up a driveway which was also a public footpath, which led up to Poston Lodge. The views of the Golden Valley are fantastic, and this morning there was sunshine with a slight haze in the air.
It was impossible to miss the hillfort - it's just in front of the house, with a high mound and two banks behind it, all within the private grounds of the Lodge, so I couldn't get a good photo. The public footpath is well-marked, and has been diverted around the Lodge through the forestry plantation. In one direction it heads for Stockley Hill and Peterchurch, and the other is Vowchurch Common.
The bridleway was well signposted until I got into the middle of the forestry plantation, where the path petered out somewhat. I knew I should be heading in roughly a straight line by then, and was able to follow recent hoof prints in the mud, so I knew I was on the right track.
This brought me out at the top of the long steep road that leads back to the main road. There's a scatter of houses down the hill, wherever it gets flat enough to build, and a lot of them seem to be old cottages that have been extended. About half way down the hill there's a track off to the side which leads to houses with the wonderful names of Quercwm, Little Reeve and Frogs Hollow. There's a derelict cottage at that turning, and across the lane from it land has been levelled and a retaining wall built - it looks as if a new house is about to be built there, and there was a family sitting round a campfire with their dog when I passed.
At the bottom of the hill I crossed the main road to go down to Vowchurch, which is only a little way. I sat in the churchyard on a bench facing the river to eat my lunch. It's a very charming spot, with the church, a big timber framed house beside the churchyard, and a little stone bridge across the river:

After lunch (one of the wonderful sausage rolls from the Wholefood shop, and coffee from a flask) I had a look round the church. It's lovely inside, with an early font and some beautifully carved 17th century benches among the treasures. It was also the parish church of Lewis Carroll's brother, Skeffington Hume Dodgson, from 1895 to 1910. There's no record of Lewis Carroll having visited, but they did write letters to each other, some of which have been collected. There's a leaflet and a small display of pictures at the back of the church, including one of Rev. Dodgson fly fishing in the churchyard, not far from where I had my lunch! It was a lot more open along the river bank then!

Since I was so close, I went across the bridge to Turnastone, where there's another little church. This one was locked when I visited, but I did see my first snowdrops of the year in the churchyard:

I also found this house/garage/shop/post office (though I don't think it's in use any more):

I still had plenty of time before the bus back to Hay was due, so I took the public footpath along a stream that runs parallel to the River Dore, back to Peterchurch. Along the way, I found this sign, about Rowland Vaughan's Waterworks at Vowchurch, and the 2015 dig that uncovered some of the evidence for the system he'd built to flood the meadows at certain times of the year to improve the pasture (I think it's just about legible if it's enlarged):

I got back to Peterchurch with plenty of time to spare, and peered into the windows of the police station, which is now for sale - the police are operating out of the fire station now. The bus home was about ten minutes late, but I had a very sweet ginger cat keeping me company while I waited.

The Hedge

I picked up the latest edition of The Hedge in Hay Wholefoods with the last of my Christmas food shopping. The sub-title is "A fund of information and inspiration from the wild edges", and it's a collection of articles on "alternative" issues in the local area. So in the latest edition there's information on fracking, and compost making, the disappearing hedgehog, shopping locally, and poetry and more. It's a not-for-profit publication, and any profits it does make is given to local small charities, a different one each time. This time, it's the Hay, Brecon and Talgarth sanctuary for refugees. The paper is recycled, and the printers are a small, local ecologically minded workers' co-operative, Footprints.
The "shopping locally" article is about a new sort of Farmers' Market in Peterchurch, The Food Assembly, where food is ordered in advance, and brought to a central point for collection on a certain day, in this case 4.30pm to 6.30pm on Mondays at the St Peter Centre - there is also a pop up cafe, with music, talks and storytelling. It all helps to build a stronger community. It's an interesting read, and links up with things that are going on in the area which are sometimes difficult to find out about.
They have also just launched a digital version of the publication, at www.thehedge.org.uk

Hero of the Zulu War

A book came into the shop recently called Zulu War VCs. Greg, the manager, remembered that there was a local connection, and showed me the pages relating to a local hero.
Robert Jones was a farm worker before he enlisted in the 24th Regiment South Wales Borderers - and he was at Rorke's Drift when the Zulu War began in 1878.
His job was to defend the patients in the hospital - in a desperate battle in which Robert Jones was wounded by Zulu assegais three times after he and his companion Private William Jones had run out of ammunition. They managed to get six patients to safety through a window, and Robert Jones was returning for a seventh man, Sergeant Robert Maxfield, only to see him being stabbed in his bed. The building was by then on fire, and Robert Jones got out of the window just before the roof collapsed. He was awarded the VC for his actions.
When he left the army, he moved to Peterchurch in the Golden Valley with his wife Elizabeth. They had one son and four daughters. Robert worked as a groundsman for Major de la Hay at Crossways House, and the family lived in Rose Cottage. As well as gardening, he was apparently a talented amateur poet.
However, one of the wounds Robert had recieved at Rorke's Drift was to his head, and he continued to suffer from pains in his head. In 1898, he borrowed the major's gun and shot himself in the garden.
The inquest was held at the Boughton Arms in Peterchurch, where it was decided he had committed suicide while of unsound mind. He was given a military funeral, and a marble headstone was erected, which can still be seen.

The Dancing Policeman

I went off to Hereford this afternoon to get some recycled printer ink at Cartridge World (that is, the cartridge is recycled - not the ink!). The bus stopped in Peterchurch by the hairdressers, opposite the side road that goes down between the church and the Boughton Arms. There was a group of lads there, and a couple of policemen were talking to them. One of the policemen was obviously miming something - and then he started hopping about on one leg!
I'm sure it made sense if you could hear what he was saying!