August 25th – I loped back from Alvecote through Seckington, Clifton, Darlaston and Whittington. It was a lovely evening ride marred only by my stomach troubles.
At Haunton, the beautiful little Catholic church there remains a hidden gem, the rows of graves of nuns from the local convent still sobering and very sad. Here I noted cyclamen, another sign of Autumn, and darkness fell what seemed to be cruelly early bit with a gorgeous orange moon.
Autumn is tapping me on the shoulder now…
May 6th – Riding back through Haunton to Whittington via Elford, I passed the derelict Royal Observer Corps bunker post at the top of Willow Bottom Lane, just in the corner of the field.
Someone has made a half-hearted attempt to lock it again: It won’t stay locked for long, it never does.
This underground nuclear bunker was intended to house 3 volunteers in the event of nuclear war; they would monitor damage after a blast, and report back on conditions if possible. Their monitoring was on a crude ‘If we survive’ basis, and this bit of Cold War history is obscure and grim.
Since being stood down in the early 90s, these posts – hundreds over the whole country – have been discovered, raided, trashed, demolished and sold; few survive intact and this one itself has been burned out.
But it remains, a grim memorial to a very paranoid time.
July 17th – In spite of some grim mechanical problems and slow initial progress, I made it to Rosliston for tea and cake, and then pootled back through Coton in the Elms, Lullington, Clifton Campville, Haunton and Syerscote, calling at Hints and Weeford in the golden hour.
The villages glowed in the summer evening warmth, and even though I was battling a keen westerly, my England was right here – in a view familiar to Peter Cutler, in the flower-adorned villages, and in the sad but tranquil churchyard at Haunton, with it’s ranks of gravestones to nuns from the nearby convent.
It doesn’t get much better than this.
April 18th – Between Harlaston and Clifton Campville, there’s a small, Catholic hamlet called Haunton. There’s a church, a small convent, a huge old folk’s home that used to be a private school and a lot of odd architecture. This is a tiny place, but it has surprising corners.
In the churchyard today, I noticed this railing remnant being consumed by two separate trees engaged in a slow, determined tug of war. I was fascinated in the distortion, and wondered how old the railings were.
I swear that if you put your ear close, you could hear the trees grunting…
April 9th – Another leisure run out around Staffordshire and south Derbyshire. Plenty of buzzards, kestrels, rabbits and songbirds. Sadly, unusually high levels of roadkill at the moment. Oilseed rape is coming on, and the air is beginning to smell of pollen and green. Blossom is well advanced with cherries, apple and the continuing blackthorn showing well.
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