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Published: July 25th 2006
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Part III
26th May - Friday
Our First Wedding Anniversary
We were out on the road by 1000 - jet lag must have caught up with us, as we didn’t wake until 0830.
We followed ‘The Romantic Road’ around the Cotswolds - very appropriate! It is a route used by the tour buses but still very pretty. The best place we saw was Lower Slaughter where we encountered a group of Japanese artists painting the cottages and stream through the village. The road took us through Broad Campden,
Moreton-on-the-Marsh
Located at the head of the beautiful Evenlode valley, Moreton-in-the-Marsh is a thriving market town, which dates back 1000 years to the Saxon era.
Bourton on-the-Water
Probably the most popular village in the Cotswolds, and often referred to as the "Venice of the Cotswolds" because the River Windrush runs right through the centre. The combination of this clear sparkling water and the attractive low bridges crossing it create a charming scene, best enjoyed in the quieter times of day and quieter months of the year.
Stow-on-the-Wold
Famous as a centre for antiques, Stow-on-the-Wold, situated on the Roman Fosse Way, has a
long history and probably dates from a prehistoric fortified settlement on top of the hill. The Market Square is large and impressive and, surrounded by houses, shops and inns all built in the local Cotswold stone, it gives the feeling of being the focus of town life over many centuries. At nearly 800ft, Stow-on-the-Wold is the highest of the Cotswold towns, approached uphill from all directions.
The Slaughters
Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter share a fascinating name, which derives from "miry place" which it certainly is not now! The link (and the fascination) is the tiny River Eye that links the two small villages. Lower Slaughter is just off the Roman Fosse Way and a wonderfully conserved typical Cotswold village, with a Water Mill and ducks on the stream - a wander alongside the stream seems like a privilege. Upper Slaughter is equally attractive with old cottages and farmhouses, and a Manor House now a hotel.
After this we went to Stratford upon Avon where we parked by the river and walked up into town to look at the black and white Tudor buildings and call in at one of the many pubs before going to Warwick
to check out the castle. We didn’t go in, as there was not enough time to do it justice but found a great place to take a photo from a bridge on the river. We parked in a small road lined with lovely old cottages nestled under the castle walls. We returned to Chipping Campden via the Fosse Way - a Roman road and Shipston-on-Stour where we stopped at the 16th century Black Horse Inn.
Sue had done us proud with local fresh asparagus for dinner. It was the asparagus season and the Vale of Evesham is famous for it. Around here it is bought in ‘rounds of gras’
Total travelled 85 miles 136 kms
Today we were in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire saw the River Avon, River Stour and the Grand Union Canal.
27th May - Saturday
We left Brian and Sue at 0900 after having spent a wonderful two evenings with them and set off for our next stop in North Wales.
Howard was so pleased to see the M5 and to get his speed trip for the day. It was short lived as we left it at Bromsgrove to head
northwest to Shrewsbury bypassing Kidderminster and Bridgnorth and called in to visit Much Wenlock, a lovely old Shropshire town with more Tudor buildings.
From here we went to Telford, as Howard was keen to visit the first iron bridge in the world at Ironbridge Gorge on the River Severn. This is a fascinating place with ten different museums along the gorge as this area was so important at the beginning of the industrial revolution. We saw the remains of the Bedlam furnaces built in 1757 by the Madeley Wood Furnace Company to smelt iron from the local ore. These furnaces wee amongst the first in the country and built specifically to use coke rather than charcoal and therefore represent an important development in iron making technology. Water-powered bellows provided the ‘blast’ of air that enabled the furnace to reach the required high temperatures.
Coalport china was made in Ironbridge Gorge as were pipes at the Broseley Pipeworks, which made pipes here for 350 years. It was here that the skills of the Saggar Maker’s Bottom Knocker could be seen!
The iron bridge was the first cast iron structure in the world designed and built by Abraham Darby
III owner Coalbrookdale Iron Works.
It is now believed that the Bridge was built in the following stages:
Stage 1
Stone footings were built using local sandstone, and topped by iron base plates. The rest of the massive abutments were not built at this stage. A pair of 21m (70ft) wooden derrick poles were stood in the riverbed, which acted as cranes. They were angled slightly towards the middle of the river and were stiffened near the top by a horizontal timber brace, which provided further lifting points. The whole arrangement could be lent over in either direction, upstream or downstream, to reach different positions. Castings were brought to the site by boat, probably having been cast at Bedlam Furnaces located on the north bank of the Severn just 500m downstream.
Stage 2
During the building of the half-scale model, two half ribs were joined at the crown to complete the first of five arches.
The arch has five parallel iron frames, built starting with the upstream one and working back towards the centre. The first pair of Inner Verticals was slotted into the base plate, one on either bank. A Lower Rib was lifted from a
barge until its bottom end sat on the southern base plate and rested against the Inner Vertical. The top end was raised to the correct height, and the same process was repeated from the other bank until the two halves lined up.
The two arcs were joined at the Crown by a sophisticated scarf joint, which was secured by three large nuts and bolts. Balancing on a slender timber brace, this was a job for men with steady nerves and no fear of heights. Ropes stopped the castings tipping over at this delicate stage. According to a newspaper report, the first arch spanned the River Severn on 2nd July 1779.
From here we went to Shrewsbury where we had Shrewsbury biscuits and Shropshire Blue cheese. We had brought a flask and thermal mugs from home and usually had Cup-a-Soup and a local bread roll for lunch but often would treat ourselves to something from a pub we had discovered and this we did again in Shrewsbury. It was here that we bought two DVD’s of our favourite programme ‘Top Gear’.
From here it was a short drive back into Wales. As we had all afternoon we went to
Lake Vyrnwy, which is actually a dam built in 1892 to provide Liverpool with water. Howard thought a nice drive around the lake would be nice, but Linda had other ideas and we took a C road off into the hills halfway around the lake to explore a bit of Snowdonia. We were travelling near vertical with no passing places - great fun (after the event). We eventually reached Bwich y Groes (Hellfire Pass) at 1367 feet and wreathed in cloud. The highest pass in North Wales. It was here in the 1920/30’s that the Austin Motor Company tested their vehicles. We thought we might wait for the cloud to lift but we could have been there weeks! We dropped down the valley to the town of Llanuwchllyn and Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake) where there were a lot of yachts and very picturesque. It was then a short drive to Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and our overnight stay at Pen y Gerrag, a traditional Welsh long house.
Total travelled 168 miles (268.8 kms)
We were back into Worcestershire then Shropshire and into Wales at Pen-y-Bont near Oswestry and so to the counties of Powys and Gwynedd and also Snowdonia National Park.
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