Tag: Tamhorn Park

May 29th – in the seemingly unnamed, orphaned strip of woodland that lies wedged between the River Tame and the canal just north of Hopwas Wood Bridge, the largely disused southern driveway to Tamhorn Park provides a nice green route for walkers and cyclists. Vehicles used to come through here, but not for a few years and the wrought iron gates remain locked, rusting and blocking the track to most motorised traffic. This fallen branch – surely snapped by the weight of the parasitic creepers bound around it – now provides an additional obstacle. 

The cyclists and walkers, however, just wore a path around it…

May 1st – The Tame and Trent through Staffordshire are littered with the remnants of the Second World War, mostly old concrete blockhouses like this one in a field between Tamhorn and Hopwas. It took me a while to work out the logic of the seemingly random placements, but they all cover strategically important bridges. I guess those miltarians who planned gravely for the possible invasion of Britain recognised the value of pinch-points that rbridges formed.

Many of these fascinating structures are now listed, and there’s lots of information including a live gazetteer in Google Earth provided by The Defence of Britain Archive, a project by the University of York.