The Welsh Marches (1)

 Sep 5 - 7

The Village Green Preservation Society

We set off late morning of 5 September and had thought of stopping off at NT Berrington Hall near Leominster on the way. However, heavy traffic around Worcester extended the travelling time so we decided to go straight to the Moorhampton Caravan and Motorhome Club site as we had read that it was an elongated site and that the later you arrived, the more likely it was that you would be a long way from the facilities.

The reviews we had read of the site were not promising – apparently the facilities were outdated and the site generally needed an injection of cash.  Unfortunately, this all turned out to be true, and the site is heavily shaded.  However, one plus point is that it is really, really quiet, so on arrival we got out the chairs and put our feet up for the rest of the afternoon, enjoying the good weather and actually welcoming the shade from the trees.  Unusually for us we had our meal outside.

The main purpose of the stay at Moorhampton was to visit some of the black and white villages in the area.  We thought we would visit seven of the villages in total, targeting five of those on the Monday.  However, in the morning we only got as far as Weobley, where we slowly followed a trail of buildings, taking plenty of photographs before deciding an early lunch was in order.  The Green Bean Café proved to be an excellent choice.

Weobley

Broad Street, Weobley

Dilwyn

Dilwyn proved to be less interesting (Weobley was a hard act to follow) and didn’t occupy us for long.  We overshot the turning to Pembridge but knew there was a Cheese Dairy further up the road at Monkland (we had thought that might be a lunch stop) so went on to that.  We had expected something a little grander, but we bought a couple of portions of cheese and enjoyed an ice cream in the garden.  The Green Bean Café had definitely been a better stop for lunch.

From the dairy we went on to Kingsland, which again was less interesting than Weobley but this was compensated by the friendliness of the locals.  We had parked on the side of the road and a couple approached us and began a conversation about motorhomes, having one themselves.  (I actually thought the lady had come out of the house in front of which we had parked and was going to ask us to move!)  Before leaving Kingsland we drove up a side road, parked and headed towards the church.  However, it was cloaked in scaffolding and it didn’t look as though we would be able to go in, so we turned on our heels to go back to the van.  A gentleman enquired “were you hoping to look at our church?” and went on to explain that hundreds of thousands of pounds were being spent on it and that the congregation was currently meeting elsewhere.  How did he know all this?  He was the organist and choirmaster.

It had been another hot day so we decided that three villages were perhaps the limit and headed back to the site for a bit more relaxation and another meal outside, courtesy of John and the Cadac.

Our neighbours on the site had enjoyed a visit to Berrington Hall (NT) so we decided to pay a visit on Tuesday, another glorious day. You actually arrive at the overflow car park before the main one and it would have been better to have parked there as it offered more shade and was grassy.  However, we continued to the main car park and pulled up alongside another motorcaravan.  We like to stick together!  First stop was of course the café, where we were unfortunately plagued by wasps, followed by a circular walk to the man-made lake and then back to the house (I beg its pardon, the mansion!).

Berrington Gardens..

...and Hall

Capablility Brown and his son in law, Henry Holland were commissioned by Thomas Harley, a London banker to create his retirement estate in the late 1700s.  This was the final landscape created by Capability Brown (the first being Croome Park near Worcester).  Thomas Harley was a Lord Mayor of London and Harley Street is named after him.  Before going into the house we were fascinated by the house martins swarming around the roof; we were told that their activity was to ward off a predatory hawk. 

The mansion itself was impressive and there was an interesting display of clothing of the time featuring the mantua, ‘A dress fit for a King’.  We were less impressed by the contemporary art exhibition, whose works were dotted around the mansion and which did not sit well in the environment of the mansion (in my opinion).  The walled garden was huge, but did not excite.

We could have visited another black and white village on the way back from Berrington but the heat had sapped our energy and we needed a few bits from the supermarket (Morrisons on the edge of Leominster) so Eardisland and Pembridge were missed in favour of more relaxation at the site.  After dinner the neighbours previously mentioned (Ann and Martin from Bridlington) hopped across to our pitch for a drink and a chat, a rather longer chat that we had intended.  However, it was good to socialise for a change.