Well, apologies for the radio silence: as usual things have been hectic, and I've also been on holiday for a while. Which foes someway to explaining the title of this post!
Whilst I've been away, Loughborough has not been far from my mind, and this has been particularly evident as almost everywhere I go I see something that reminds me of our little town. Places we visited were Tiverton (so many connections here, this warrants a separate post), St Ives, St Agnes, Penzance, Zennor, Newlyn, Mousehole, Lamorna, Wookey Hole, Wells, and Bristol. So, below I shall share some of these reminders with you!
Always on the lookout for something to read, when I get to my holiday location I buy the local newspapers, so I can get a feel for what's been going on in the area lately, and I also try and find an interesting magazine that I don't regularly read. So, finding myself in one of the most interesting WH Smiths I know of, I chose a couple of magazines, Scientific America: Mind (because it had a feature on dementia) and Evergreen, a magazine I've bought once before, so I knew would be a light, but interesting read. Imagine my surprise when I opened Evergreen in my holiday home and on the first page was a lovely picture taken near Beacon Hill!!
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| Beacon Hill from the summer issue of Evergreen |
Talking of Beacons, one of the days we decided to walk around St Agnes's Head, where we passed several old tin mines, a couple of coves, a derelict church, and took a climb up to St Agnes's Beacon, from where we could see for miles around, much like a our Beacon Hill.
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| The toposcope on the Beacon at St Agnes |
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| A view from the Beacon at St Agnes |
And whilst we were in Wells walking around the Bishop's Palace, we happened upon a wood carving, another reminder of Beacon Hill.
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| Carved wooden hand at the Bishop's Palace, Wells |
Also from the Bishop's Palace at Wells, we could look over from the prominent walls and see the deer park that was created by ... which reminded me of our very own Bradgate Park.
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| Information board about the creation of the deer park |
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| A view towards the deer park |
Bradgate is very close to Swithland, and as we were eating our lunch in the cathedral cafe at Wells we had a perfect view of one of the slate tiled roofs: clearly not Swithland, which is characterised by being very thick pieces that are laid from top to bottom with the largest ones at the top, but slate, nonetheless.
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| Slate roof at Wells Cathedral |
Inside Wells cathedral there were very many alabaster carvings, which although not directly related to Loughborough (spar ornament makers in Loughborough used alabaster from Chellasdon to carve small items), the alabaster may well have come from Nottingham.
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| Alabaster memorial at Wells Cathedral |
Only related to Loughborough by name, I also spotted a memorial in Wells Cathedral to one John de Middleton: no relation of our own Edward Chatterton Middleton, banker, but ...
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| Effigy of John de Middleton |
Another name which rang a bell with me was Myrtle Cottage in Wookey Hole (actually, we passed several houses with the name Myrtle in them, either house, or cottage) which reminded me of one of the first houses to be built on Park Street.
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| Myrtle Cottage at Wookey hole |
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| Myrtle Cottage in Mousehole |
And then there was Tucker's Cottage in St Agnes
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| Tuckers Cottage in St Agnes |
Shops also featured a bit in my mind. So, there was Stuarts in St Ives, a lovely little leather shop selling bags, belts and various other items, almost identical to our Stuarts on Church Gate
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| Stuarts leather shop in St Ives |
as well as I Should Coco, a chocolatier and chocolate workshop, rather like our Chocolate Alchemy in Church Gate Mews
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| Chocolate shop in St Ives |
and a micro-brewery, called Pilchard Press, which reminded me of our Needle and Pin on Swan Street
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| Pilchard Press, micro-brewery, not publishers! |
Welbeck also featured, but in Newlyn
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| A shop in Newlyn |
It seems that everywhere has an interesting body in their window!
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| A mask in a St Ives window |
A bit closer to home, the view from the holiday house was very similar to the view from my own bedroom window!
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| View from the bedroom in St Ives |
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| View from the bedroom in Loughborough |
Then there were the longhorn cows in Wells, and the Leicester sheep at the Stithians Show.
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| Longhorn cattle at Wells |
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| Border Leicester and Roussin sheep at Stithians Show |
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| Border Leicester and Roussin sheep at Stithians Show |
This blogpost could go on forever!! I also spotted a couple of wonderful water fountains like our gorgeous Fearon Fountain, an interesting weather vane, like the one on top of Rigg-Rut, numerous war memorials, though none to match our carillon, loads of lovely lamp posts, small, independent cinemas that reminded me of our Odeon (formerly Reel, Curzon etc.), and a Warwick Arms in Bristol: oh, but we haven't got one of those any more!
But, before I go, let me tell you about one last coincidence!
Perusing the books in a charity shop in Penzance, I came across half a dozen fairly old ones. Picking one up, I opened it to the first page and was so surprised to see an inscription inside to a nine year old girl from Diseworth! Not only that, the book was printed by Wills and Hepworth!! If I ever remember, I was thinking of donating the book to the lady who helps out at Diseworth Heritage Centre: last time I spoke to her, her husband was writing a book about Messengers. Oops, I think I promised you an article on green houses - or was it red?
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| The book |
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| The inscription and the printers label |
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