Woolly says – Burpday season has officially started which means its not that long until mine. Jo had added another year to her total which makes her completely ancient now, although currently she is still able to meet all of my needs and dress herself even if it takes her longer.
Cheeky mammoth, I’m faster than him in getting ready!
Woolly says – Zoe had joined us the night before the main celebrations and I had carefully planned a day out that would suit the more elderly in the party. With presents opened and burpday cake consumed we headed through the Herefordshire countryside to the small town of Leominster.
Leominster is a market town located near to the of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town takes its name from the English word minster, meaning a community of clergy and the original Celtic name for the district Leon or Lene, probably from an Old Welsh root ‘lei’ to flow.
During the Early Middle Ages, Leominster was home to Æthelmod of Leominster, an English saint, during the 8th and 9th Century, Danes (or Vikings) frequently raided the area and evidence has been found of their stays. Leominster is also the historical home of Ryeland sheep, a breed once famed for its “Lemster” wool, known as ‘Lemster ore’. This wool was prized above all other English wool in trade with the continent of Europe in the Middle Ages. It was the income and prosperity from this wool trade that established the town.
Having finally found the carpark we headed through the time taking in some of the lovely buildings and wall murals.
Our first stop was to The Grange. Grange Court is a Grade II* listed timber-framed market hall built by John Abel in 1633, the building has had many different functions in its 400 year life, and every new owner has adapted the building to make it fit for their purpose. The building originally stood at the top of Broad Street in the town centre and housed the weekly butter market, selling chickens, eggs, and butter, it was then known as the Butter Crosse.
By the mid nineteenth century, the market hall was proving a traffic hazard in the town centre. The building was dismantled and lay in pieces in a builder’s yard until 1859, when the building was bought by John Arkwright (of the spinning jenny family). It was then rebuilt on the park known as the Grange and, with some modifications, leased to the Moore family. Grange Court remained a family home until 1939, when Leominster District Council made a compulsory purchase to save it from being dismantled and moved to South Wales to become the gatehouse to St. Donats Castle.
It was a wonderful building with a range of fascinating carved decoration on the exterior which were mainly based on figureheads usually associated with ships.
There were four plagues by the front door which showed how many royal visitors it had received.
Unable to walk all the way round we headed inside which looked very modern. A café held cloches of yummy looking cake but my attention turned to the missing staircase, a piece of wall showed the very edge of where an original stone staircase had once taken folks to the upper level had been removed as the stone had become too sloping over the constant footfall.
Each room as we peeked in was full of people, some knitting, some just catching up with friends and the largest room on the upper floor filled to overflowing with a conference. Sadly this meant that we couldn’t really look at the rooms and instead admired the displays that were on each level.
I was delighted to find that more cake were on the agenda and quickly followed the women to the outside seating area to consume and to take a closer look at a small piece of the original Leominster Priory which dated from 1859.
With crumbs brushed away we wandered across the green allowing Alfie the dog time to run round and sniff out the local doggy area passing an incredibly tall gent flattening the grass. We headed into the grounds of the church.
The Priory Church is an Anglican parish church dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The building was constructed as a Benedictine Priory in the 13th century, although there had been an Anglo-Saxon monastery in Leominster, possibly on the same site. In 1539 the east end of the church was destroyed along with most of the monastic buildings, but the main body of the church was preserved.
We gazed up at the huge windows admiring the wonderful décor and wondering if the stained glass inside could live up to the outside décor.
The doorway had carved pillars which looked incredibly well preserved.
Inside was split into two sections making it easy to see where the original priory had been added to in later times. Large pillars supported the archways and many windows, now bricked up, lined the upper parts of the walls.
Two sections had plain wooden ceilings but the older part had a wonderful flower painted motif across it, my neck started to ached as I peered upwards.
A ducking stool stood next to a very fine looking lion. This piece of history had been stored in an aisle of this church since its last recorded use in 1809 (and the very last recorded use of a ducking stool in all England) when a Leominster resident, one Jenny Pipes, was paraded through the town and ducked in the River Kenwater for ‘using foul and abusive language’, as ordered by the local magistrates. Apparently, with the town mayor in attendance the culprit upon her release again committed the same crime, somewhat undermining its effectiveness as a punishment. It was made in 1634 when a John Gwatkyn was paid £11 5s for ‘making a cage, pillory and cucking stoole’ for the town. I didn’t fancy being on the end of it and quickly moved on.
All manner of things seemed to be housed in the Priory from carved wooden chairs to stone seats that the monks would have chilled their bottoms on.
The stained glass wasn’t as good as hoped but the large windows were still fascinating to view.
We headed back into the town centre finding a small café allowing us to feast on homemade chips for Jo’s burpday lunch, very yummy indeed. Once full we set off for our last stop of the day the local museum. Opened in 1972 it was home to many artifacts found in the town dating from the Saxons onwards.
A glass display cabinet showed us the skeleton of child dating to around 4000 years ago.
A 600 year old chest caught my eye which made me realise that maybe Jo isn’t as ancient as I first thought. A range of mammoth sized hats caught my eye before we moved into the old stable which was filled with all things horse.
Next door was a traditional cider mill and press which only seemed to be missing the apples and a horse to grind the pulp down.
Heading upstairs we found displays linked to the local police who had once served the town as well as medical instruments and all sorts of fascinating historical items.
A strange box caught my attention, inside the box was a Chelsea bun that had been to war, not any old war but the first world war. Sent to the front in 1916 by a local girl for her brother he missed the arrival due to injury, the bun however wasn’t deterred and was returned to sender arriving back in Leominster where it was stored in a drawer until it was donated to the museum. It didn’t look very tasty but it did remind me that there was still burpday cake to eat back at base.
As we ambled back to the car we all agreed that Leominster was a lovely town and that you couldn’t beat homemade chips, and that more cake would be a great idea as soon as we got back.