Rather than a mad rush to the railway for the day, it seemed like a good idea to combine the day's picture taking with a week away in our caravan exploring the northern edge of the Cotswolds.
We set ourselves up at the Caravan & Motorhome Club site on the edge of Broadway. That would be Broadway in Worcestershire, not the one in New York, just in case anyone is confused. We thought we would try out our circus big top sized awning as well. Being a traditional awning utilising steel poles to hold it in place, rather than the more recent innovation of using an inflatable frame, these awnings are sometimes known as "Divorce in a bag" as they have a reputation to be "challenging" to erect. Ours is an absolute doddle - but we did cheat a little by assembling most of the poles prior to leaving home.
We wandered into Broadway, a typical honey coloured stone village with more than its fair share of tea rooms, antique dealers and souvenir shops. But it all looks in keeping with the area and is quieter than other Cotswolds hot spots such as Burford or Bourton on the Water. While walking into the village, we noticed a vintage Bentley being driven around the village. A little later, we spotted a second, this one had pulled up at the Lygon Arms Hotel (if you need to ask the price, you won't be able to afford it) where the driver declined the offer for the car to be valet parked. With a value in excess of £800,000, it wasn't surprising. It looks as though there was a Bentley Club event in the area.
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| The village centre at Broadway. Exactly how you expect a Cotswold village to look |
Then, the main event.... A day on the railway. Starting from Toddington, the headquarters of the Railway, we joined our train and the star of the show for the day, number 7903 "Foremarke Hall". To all intents and purposes, it looks like a Great Western engine, but was not built until 1949 by which time the GWR had ceased to exist and was then part of British Railways. But it is a GW design with every detail that company was famed for, was built at Swindon, spend most of its working life based at Old Oak Common running on services from Paddington and was finally withdrawn in 1964 and taken to the famous scrap yard at Barry to be cut up. Which obviously never happened and Foremarke Hall was fully restored to running order in 2004.
Let's have some pictures:
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| Pulling away heading northwards from Winchcombe, the slope and curve creates a challenge for 7903 and its 8 carriage train |
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| This young lady's quite picnic was interrupted by first by a horde of photographers and then by a steam train |
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| 7903 and train burst out of Greet tunnel |
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| Our lady picnicker waits for her train. |
On Saturday, Ann also wanted to visit the railway - so I had to go back for a second go. Life can be very hard and the things that we do for marital happiness :-)
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| Saturday's Motive Power is a more work a day 2-8-0 goods engine, more at home on heavy coal trains, number 2807 was built in 1905 and is thus 114 years old. Another to have been rescued from Barry. |
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| Rather more modern, D6948 is an English Electric Type 3 diesel-electric loco, later to become a member of British Rail's class 37. Quite a youngster - it is only 54 years old. |
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| At last - a former Southern Railway loco, this one being 35006 "P & O Line", a member of the "Merchant Navy" class and regularly used on express trains from Waterloo to the west of England. These magnificent locomotives were used on the last regular steam hauled express passenger services in the UK |
So, what should we do on Sunday and Monday? We've recently joined the National Trust and are suitably motivated to take advantage of our free entry into their properties. One local to Broadway is "Snowshill Manor", the former home of a certain Charles Wade who was an avid collector of stuff. The Manor house holds his collection, while he used a small estate cottage as his home and workshop. We thought we'd make a visit.
Well, that was the plan...
The sign at the entrance saying that they were expecting to be busy was a bit of a give away. The full and overflowing car park was another. It is Mothering Sunday, it is a bright sunny day and everyone has turned out for a visit. So we'll abandon that visit until Monday and visit Evesham instead. I always find it interesting that the locals pronounce "Evesham" with 3 syllables - "E-ve-sham". It was a regular stopping place for us when we had our narrowboat.
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| Not much of the Abbey remains, just this huge bell tower which still houses working bells. To the left and right are two Churches; the one on the right dating back to Saxon times |
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| A lovely black and white timber framed building that is now a branch of Nat West Bank. How on earth did they ever get permission to put that sign up? |
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| The Manor House at Snowshill |
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| and the small cottage that Charles Wade used as his home so that the main house could house his collection |
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| Just one of thousands of items in his collection |
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