Woolly says – We’d had day after day of miserable wet rain with Jo and Handsome Jack shuffling outside for walks and arriving back dripping and soggy. I was getting desperate to get out and do something, anything in fact.
I’d spotted a Scarecrow trail not to far away and thought that this combined with a wander round the small town would be ideal, the weather gods seemed to agree as we woke to a watery sunshine, before they could change their minds we hurried out and hit the road to Montgomery.
Montgomery (translates as the town of Baldwin) is a town and community in Powys, Wales. It is the traditional county town of the historic county of Montgomeryshire to which it gives its name, and it is within the Welsh Marches border area.
The town was established around a Norman stone castle on a crag on the western edge of the Vale of Montgomery, more about that shortly. The town was used for many of the filming locations in Dylan Thomas’s ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’s TV adaptation 1987 and it was also home to the actress Julie Christie, who lived for a long time on the outskirts of the town.
Having parked at the town park area we wandered up hill spotting our first scarecrow on route before arriving at the town hall.
The last remaining Georgian town hall in Montgomeryshire, built by William Baker of Audlem, (1748 to 1751), for Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, for whom Baker had also in 1745 provided designs for a new Town Hall at Bishop’s Castle. In 1828 Thomas Penson, at the expense of Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis, raised the roof level over the first floor with the clock tower being added in 1921. Inside was its weekly market but as it involved a lot of food, we didn’t think that young Jack would be welcome. We did however pop our heads into the local convenience store to get a map of the scarecrow trail.
Number two scarecrow was Flameproof Fred who was just outside of the store, having taken his picture, we followed the road round and found on having a sit down in a shop window.
We admired the small cottages and churches as we wandered finally arriving at a bat man straw shape.
A few metres away was another one on the trail this time a nurse in the uniform of the early 1900’s which was very fitting as she was in the memorial garden from the first world war.
We climbed up a steep road arriving at the main church of the town, St Nicholas’ Parish Church. The parish church was founded in the 1220s, with later additions including late 13th century chancel and transepts and a 19th century tower. The walk to the front door seemed very grand as the banks rose above the path.
Inside was warm and far better than I could have hoped with the most remarkable ornate rood screen, misericords and stalls which were transferred to the church from Chirbury Priory in Shropshire after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. We stood admiring the craftmanship of the carpenter before taking in the beautiful flooring and stained glass window above the altar.
The south transept shows evidence of Montgomery’s close association with the Herbert family. The centrepiece is the Elizabethan era tomb to Richard Herbert (died 1596) of Montgomery Castle, father of poet and Anglican divine George Herbert. The canopied monument also held his wife and children.
Next to it was a further two monuments but with no information we left not knowing who they might have been.
Having admired the decorative wooden ceiling and said hello to some wonderful, knitted figures we headed outside.
The graveyard was large and became famous for the grave of John Davies. In 1821 John Davies of Wrexham was sentenced to death by hanging at Montgomery for highway robbery. Throughout his trial, and after the sentence, Davies declared his innocence and prayed that God would not allow the grass to grow on his grave for a hundred years as a sign of his innocence. His grave remained bare for at least a century, giving birth to the legend of the Robber’s grave. Sadly, no matter how much we looked we couldn’t find it so headed back towards the town hall.
Passing spiderman in his web a closed museum and the beautiful Tudor building that houses the bookshop we found ourselves at a memorial plague for a gentleman called Arany Janos. János (2nd March 1817 to 22nd October 1882) was a Hungarian poet, writer, translator and journalist. He is often said to be the “Shakespeare of ballads” – he wrote more than 102 ballads that have been translated into over 50 languages, as well as the ballad the ‘The Bards of Wales about the fights to save the towns castle.
Passing the towns biggest pub where there should have been another scarecrow we started the steep walk uphill, giving us the chance to admire the autumnal colours which looked rather good when next to the Corgi.
Pausing to catch our breath we looked over at the former Montgomeryshire County Gaol, designed by Thomas Penson, the county surveyor, and built of brick faced with stone, between 1830 and 1832. The gaol was closed in 1878 and now provides four homes for local people.
The steep lane ended in a pathway directly to the castle. We had visited the castle nearly five years ago to the day on one of our first trips out during lockdown in our new base in Wales (https://traveltalesofawoollymammoth.com/a-small-but-wonderful-castle-montgomery/ ), our big eared boy however hadn’t seen it so it would have been rude not to show him round. It was still as lovely as before and Handsome Jack seemed agree as he raced up and down the empty moat.
Back down the lane we went, I was feeling rather disappointed as we didn’t seem to have found many of the scarecrows which was when I found another one, Robin Hood, who looked as though he had been on a good robbing spree. Suddenly the sky darkened, and the rain started to pelt down, being the sensible sorts that we are we shot straight into the nearby café and managed to grab the last table as more people had the same idea. A coffee and lemon drizzle cake is always a good remedy to the rainy blues, and it worked a treat this time as well, as we sat watching the rain sliding down the windows, we discussed our upcoming move and what still needs to be achieved.
With a break in the rain, we headed back to the car and the packing of boxes, dismantling of decking and clearing of the shed as we take not just me, Jo and Handsome Jack but our whole home on wheels to our new home in Herefordshire.