Walking the Water Meadows and Bloody Meadows of Tewkesbury

Finding myself at a loose end in Gloucester for a few hours the other day, I went on a long-standing pilgrimage to Brockhampton-by-Ross (more about that anon), before making for Tewkesbury. 

I've been to the abbey as recently as 2010 - which isn't recent at all, come to think of it - but I'd never explored the historic centre of the town, so that's what I decided to do. 

It's the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Severn that informs the town, of course, so I headed there, crossing the Mill Avon (a 12th century diversion by monks of part of the Avon to power their mill) onto Severn Ham, an area of water meadow that reminded me very much of the Lammas Lands in Godalming.

Here's a glimpse of the Avon ...

... and here's a man singing where the two rivers meet. Maybe he's serenading the goddess, Hafren/Sabrina.

The Abbey is ever present as you walk around the town.   

It was all very pleasant but I was on a bit of a schedule as far as daylight was concerned, so I headed back for town, crossing the Mill Avon by the mill itself. 

It's here you start to get an idea of how the town floods so easily. How this ... 

... becomes this.

Or indeed this. 

I had another inundation on my mind, though - that of the Yorkist army of Edward IV who in 1471 routed the Lancastrians here, killing Edward, Prince of Wales, while his father, Henry VI, languished in the Tower. 

Henry was (probably) murdered shortly afterwards, and Edward IV re-crowned king.

The battlefield is rather predictably known as Bloody Meadow. I doubt even these magnificent oaks were there then. Just the Abbey and the little River Swilgate lined by the ancestors of the scrubby willows there today.

My route led me through the local cemetery, where the light was spectacular. 

Life casts a long shadow

Then it was back onto the battlefield by another entrance. 

Getting dark now, though, and time to head back to Gloucester. I'll revisit the Abbey next time. 

'Is this a sonic screwdriver I see before me ... '

Yes - the long awaited trip to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Niamh Cusack (again) and Christopher Eccleston in the Scottish play. 

Only a flying visit, on account of the dog, whose care had been contracted to my son during our absence. But long enough for a wander along Shakespeare's Avon before the play started, where we encountered this guard swan. 

It was interesting to see flowers on the grave of a woman, Mary Ann Page, who died in 1879 ... 

... and this female blackbird, just as unafraid as the swan, scrabbling about in the leaf litter at our feet ... 

... and chucking leaves all over the place. 

We popped into the church quickly to pay our respects to Master Shakespeare, but I'm not going to write about that because I've done it before at length. 

Then there was just enough time at the Dirty Duck for a swift pint.

After the horror of the RSC's Antony and Cleopatra last year, which was so awful I didn't even write about it, it was a relief to be watching a production that worked, albeit at a rather too frenetic pace.











We both liked the child witches, who were clearly channelling the Midwich Cuckoos and the twins from The Shining, but felt that Macduff was miscast - the whole pretty chickens scene was toe-curling and not in a good-but-harrowing way - but the two leading actors were as great as you'd expect, and the Northerner was only two seats away from having his hand held by Lady Macbeth, which would have made his day (though he'd have never got the spot out. Or indeed washed his hand ever again.) 

Floods and Mud

The weather's been so warm lately we've been sleeping with our bedroom window wide open - pleasant for us but a disaster for those up north, including a friend from university days who's been flooded out of his home, and Son the Younger's girlfriend, stuck in her village for a couple of days without electricity.  On my annual Leeds-and-back-in-one-day round trip yesterday, I took wellies in case, not least because we had to collect Kitten Nini and older step-brother Monstertruck from their Christmas lodgings in Kirkstall and take them back across the flooded River Aire to their home with Daughter the Elder. 

In the event, the only flooding we saw was on the River Avon (Shakespeare's) where it passes under the M5 near Pershore in Worcestershire.  

In Leeds the canal we crossed was full but contained, and Kirkstall Road was passable though sodden-looking.  The businesses lining the street were in darkness.  

This afternoon, back in Bristol, we went for a walk on Kingsweston Down, a ridge of limestone grassland that runs south west from Blaise Castle estate.  

The iron-age hill-fort

Unseasonal signs included daisies ...

... and there was also lots and lots of mud.  Ted's element, it would appear. 

 

  

You can walk along the ridge all the way to Avonmouth, but we were a bit tardy getting out so only got as far as the telly transmitter before it started getting dusky.  A pair of ravens passed overhead, cronking companionably.

It was lovely. 

Henry V in Stratford-Upon-Avon

And so to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Henry V, which I was excited about as I hadn't seen it before. Not without mixed feelings, though - I love the poetry, but felt worried by the perception of nationalism, and the victorious Henry's suggestion at the end of play that he and his conquered queen beget a son who 'shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard'. 

First, though, a wander along the bank of River Avon, where the already-drawing-in night produced some beautiful plays of light.  

What would Stratford be like without the legacy of its extraordinary son, I wonder?  A stolid, red-brick working town, I should imagine. (Like Devizes, maybe).  

Instead famous actors have memorial stones ... 

... and in the churchyard of the Holy Trinity, where Shakespeare is buried, there's the suspicion that we could be in Narnia. 

Even the doves seemed to be auditioning for Othello as they settled into their habitual roosting sites. 

By now it was time for us to settle too, into our front row seats for a play that has been described as the 'National Anthem in five acts' and thus apposite in a week when the refusal of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to sing 'God Save The Queen' was bigger news, according to the press, than the gravest refugee crisis in decades, the slashing of tax credits, and the continuing attack on the rights of working people.  

Yet there's nothing noble in Shakespeare's depiction of Henry's invasion of France, and in this production, the speech on the Eve of St Crispin's Day is delivered not vaingloriously or even patriotically, but as a rather forlorn attempt to rouse disheartened, outnumbered soldiers with no realistic hope of victory. A bit like this, in fact:

 

My evening was complete when Pistol, played by Antony Byrne, presented me with part of the leek from Fluellen's cap, with which the Welsh captain had beaten him around the head and forced him to eat.  Not quite enough to make soup, though.