A Church in a Meadow

 

Two miles from us stands St Peter’s church.

A Faerie Fortress

St Peter’s Church was already 300 years old when the young future Henry V was hunting boar in the forests of Monmouth. An ‘old’ church was mentioned on this site in AD 735 and was probably founded by Tydwg, a monk of the small Welsh kingdom of Archenfield, a stronghold of the early Celtic Church. In 1054 the church was destroyed by the Welsh prince, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn who devastated the river settlements along the river Wye. The church was rebuilt and dedicated to St Peter by the Normans in 1080, who went on to occupy the small Welsh kingdom of Archenfield.  Soon after that it was appropriated by the Benedictine Monastery of Monmouth and placed within the Hereford Diocese. 

Original Saxon 'herringbone' pattern stonework

Building work continued. The tower was completed by 1300. In 1420 they acquired a church bell cast in Worcester and transported downriver. No rush then. By the late C16th the church was falling into decay and it fell upon a local man, David the Hermit to repair it. In 1740 the vicarage was located in Wyesham across the river, and vicar and parishioners on that side of the river arrived for service by ferry and boat, the steps still in evidence on the riverbank.

Over the years, the river has proved both a blessing and a curse. The watery highway allowed monks to travel far  inland and establish the early Celtic churches along its banks. Wood, stone, and even cast-iron bells were transported via the river. The river though, sometimes went its  own way. Heavy rain often saw the surrounding  meadow flooded, the church built upon a small bump then appearing to float on water. Very heavy rain saw devastating floods when pews and pulpits crashed into the walls and each other as forceful torrents rushed through the church. Brass markers record the height of the varying floods, 1947 marking a flood level well above head height.                                                

And finally, one wonderful curiosity, a handwritten and hand coloured Bible.  The story behind it is so beautifully bizarre I simply invite you to read the accompanying information and wonder at one man's eccentricity. 

                                                                       

Footprints in the Sand.

There is mystery in a family tree. Who were these people? What were they like? What feuds and quarrels lurk there? What broken hearts to they hide? Family trees are very much like footprints in the sand. Nothing else is shown.

We have traced our family tree as far back as 1770,  the entire Keyton clan never straying far from Cork, but the longer I stare at their names, the more I want to know about them. Who were they apart from names and dates? Even so, dates reveal a lot. Look at old Jeremiah Keating 1770 - 1880 and  check the 1830 generation, you can see—surprisingly—they sailed through the Great Potato Famine and lived to a ripe old age, a mystery in itself. If you compare this to later dates, Keytons begin dying off like flies—that though is less of a mystery and summed up in one word.

Liverpool.

In 1865 John Keyton moved to Bridgend. It may have been to gain mining experience before moving on to Liverpool and then America, where wages were much higher than here. It was a well-worn path for those Irish born with a sense of adventure. 

In Bridgend, my grandfather was born and by the slip of a pen John Keating became John Keyton because the Welsh registrar wrote it how it sounded to him. 

Fortunately for me, unfortunately for John’s immediate family, instead of moving on from Liverpool to America, they stayed, living in a disease- ridden slum. 

And in tribute to them I wrote the book, determined that these at least would be more than ‘footprints in the sand.’ 

The Pierhead from where so many sought a better life in America

Why should anyone else read the book? I could say it’s beautifully written and packed with evocative photos. I could say that. The truth though is much more. The Keytons and Parrys are  illustrative fragments of a far wider picture.

The former Walton Workhouse where my grandmother died

Five people were killed here during the Blitz

But ideal playgrounds for children- before ‘Health and Safety.’

A Liverpool Childhood is a spotlight on a moment in time. It’s a personal memory integrated into the social and cultural history of Aintree based on hearsay, gossip, ghosts from the past, a period of turbulent change. It examines the impact of war, the complex family culture dominating local factories, recession and renewal, schools, music, murders, and ghosts.

And where do you find local pubs like these anymore?

The Beatles 

The famous Aintree Institute built by the jam maker Sir William Pickles Hartley in the 1890s as a Christian community centre‚ the venue for many, many Beatles concerts,  and demolished in 2006  by worthy councillors for houses that twenty years later have still not  been built. A piece of history replaced by a pay and display car park.

In geological terms we are here and then gone. Some call it renewal. But here and now we have life and we have meaning, a shared history and one to be celebrated—even if, as George Harrison once observed, ‘All things must pass’—but not before reading this book 

The story of a cold church and a warm inn.

Positioned in the Cotswold village of Saintbury, St Nicholas’s Church is both forlorn and deeply loved: cared for by the local community who have been very proactive in maintaining a ‘decommissioned’ church, keeping it in good repair by finding other uses for it rather than allowing it to crumble and decay; forlorn because of its decommissioning into heritage rather than worship. It may also have something to do with visiting it on a bleak, wet day where it was colder inside than out. 

The face high above the door may have been a ‘grotesque’ beloved amongst masons, or simply the tradition of reminding those entering a church that there would be consequences for bad behaviour during the service.

Its history is almost geologically layered, from the original Norman door to the C18th  box pews, the intervening puritan period of white lime washed walls and plain glass windows, the Jacobean carved altar and altar rails. Catholic worship all but erased. The layers of history are best exemplified in the Baptismal font. 

The font possesses the early medieval star pattern along with the later dogtooth pattern associated with the mid to late medieval. It also has a pattern of large square roses increasingly common in the Tudor period, which indicates that it was presumably installed at around that time.

Fine example of a C15th nave roof

 

 

Confronted with a bier with its cheerful message we beat a hasty retreat to the Lygon Arms two or three miles down the road in Broadway. 

This was a small treat for ourselves, two nights immersed in history and log fires—immersion in the latter metaphoric. The inn itself was built sometime in the C14th but rebuilt as we see it now in the early C17th.  

Records in 1377  referred to it as the White Hart, which makes me wonder. Richard II didn’t adopt the White Hart as his personal emblem until 1383 and ten years later passed a law requiring inns to display a sign—many of which in a show of misplaced loyalty named themselves the White Hart. The 1377 date might be wrong, the innkeeper highly prescient, or perhaps just a lucky coincidence. Either way what became the Lygon Arms retained its association with Monarchy. 

Oliver Cromwell stayed there in 1651 before the Battle of Worcester; Charles I rallied his supporters there. King Edward VII visited as did his grandson, the unfortunate Edward VIII. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor have stayed there, and other guests include Prince Philip, Evelyn Waugh and Kylie Minogue. It is unlikely that future historians will record that the Keytons stayed there in February 2026.

From the C17th onwards the Lygon Arms was a coaching inn and in the C18th a staging post for mail coaches on a route that connected London to Wales. 

The inner courtyard from our bedroom 

Twilight

Night

Looking out of our bedroom window, my wife remarked, ‘It’s like we're staying in Wolf Hall.’

I nodded. But less dangerous, other than to our bank balance.

In between beer and log fires, we explored Broadway

And I wondered how much these houses cost.

Above all we ate well. I put on a kilogram that the use of the pool, hot tub and sauna failed to reduce. Even a brisk walk through Broadway failed in that respect though it might have been 2kg without it. But who cares when you can sit in front of a fire with a pint of Cotswolds Brewery Shagweaver. 

The Butcher has Turkeys!

 

I was born in the early hours of Christmas Eve, the process precipitated the previous afternoon by the shouting of an excited neighbour in the red terraced street below our front window—"The butcher has turkeys! The butcher has turkeys!” And thus my lifelong obsession with food began. ‘The butcher has turkeys.’ This was serious stuff. In 1947, Britain still experienced wartime rationing and continued to do so until 1951. I have no idea whether my mother was in the mood for a Turkey dinner that Christmas Day or who would have cooked it. I imagine I had other priorities.

These thoughts were precipitated by the discovery of a wartime Recipe Booklet. 

A week’s ration

It makes for pretty grim reading unless you’re a puritan, an ardent green or wear a hairshirt tucked inside your underpants. 

Wartime propaganda portrayed a picture of hardship shared, but rather like the recent Covid experience it was different for the rich or for those who lived in the country where game and fresh produce abounded. 

London clubs and hotels like Claridges and the Ritz continued to cater for the privileged via the black market and landed estates. Denis Wheately who popularised the occult in his fiction recorded treating his companions to regular lunches of smoked salmon or potted shrimp at the then famous Hungaria. This was followed by Dover sole, salmon, jugged hare or game, with Welsh rarebit as a savoury to finish. After their wine, they would finish with port or kummel.

With this in mind, enjoy the fruits of life while you can. Ignore the siren calls of those extolling the virtues of insects and beans; leave krill to the whales. No one is going to go into labour because the grocer has chickpeas. Go for chicken instead, lamb, pork and beef as money allows; do so in the knowledge that when ration books or their ‘nudge’ equivalent return, politicians will chew fried crickets with relish on TV before washing out their mouths with a fine Chardonnay and go home to a good steak. The rich will just ignore the whole sorry business.