dry-valleys:

Sybil of months, and worshipper of winds,
I love thee, rude and boisterous as thou art;
And scraps of joy my wandering ever finds
Mid thy uproarious madness – John Clare.

Leaving Lichfield along the wonderful Abnalls Lane and onto Cannock Chase along the Heart of England Way, routes I hadn’t crossed since June 2016 and was delighted to return to. 

The route took me up and up until I reached Castle Ring, built more than 2000 years ago by the Cornovii tribe to guard the frontier of their lands, which were centred around the Wrekin. Sentries could espy the land for miles around, (sadly now largely obscured by conifers), and the unfolding plain of the River Trent where Rugeley Power Station now lies.

Cannock Chase has a long and varied history which I’ll return to in the next post, but I was most interested here to note its life after World War 1- in which it played a leading role.

After 1919 the landscape was planted with conifers and as you can see (9,10) it is still very much a work site still, as well as a place of nature and leisure. After its designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1958 efforts were made to sensitively restore the area with heathland and deciduous forest breaking into the monoculture of conifers, and I hope you can see from this series of posts that this has been a great success.

So I give the last word to local poet Nancy Foster, commemorated in the museum, who died in 1933 at the tragically young age of 20.

O’er hill and dale, through brake and heather
In August sun or April weather

Yes, Beauty and Industry both dwell here 
On Cannock Chase, in Staffordshire…

Author: BrownhillsBob

I told the truth - but told it bent. Wandering around bemused and ranty since 2007. View all posts by BrownhillsBob