England 2005 Photo Gallery #3

Birmingham, Shrewsbury, and Slimbridge

 

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Anne's Trip Log for this Segment of the Trip

 

Monday, July 4

We bid good-bye to the Marshalls and headed north for sightseeing and visiting in the midland areas of Anne’s Loud and Harding family history. We drove to Stratford-on-Avon and visited several Shakespeare sites.

Then we headed out of town following map directions to Sweet Knowle Farm where Harding relatives live and run an aquatic and garden business. We are not sure whether the connection is biological or more ‘adoptive’; and family research may or may not answer the question; it really doesn’t matter. Our families both connect with sons of the William and Betty Hardings of Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. Thank-you Dan, and Rex, Rosemary, Zoe and Elizabeth for the time and the hospitality!

Tuesday, July 5

This was a Harding-Needham-Goodbehere family exploration day which took us to Lichfield, Hall Green, and Birmingham. It was a rainy day and slowed us a bit but not too much. One of the Harding sons from Slimbridge, GLS headed to Birmingham in the 1830’s, settled at Lichfield, and was an ironmonger there until 1861 when he had business problems and went to Birmingham. Lichfield is an ancient town with Roman ruins just outside. Its heritage center has a set of beautiful needle work hangings depicting the history! Our time was too short to find actual Harding sites but we walked on Market street knowing that one of the shops on the Cathedral side had been Anne’s great-great grandfather’s store and that her great grandmother and several brothers and sisters were born and lived above the shop very near Samuel Johnson’s home.

It was raining too much for us to actually go into the site of the Roman ruins so we headed south to the Needham-Goodbehere and Tolkein area of Hall Green/Sarehole Mill. There is an 1898 letter from Anne’s grandmother at age 9 saying they had just visited Hall Green. The Goodbehere home of Moorland is presumably long gone but family members are buried in the yard of the picturesque Church of the Ascension. The church warden was around and let us into the church! Footstones for several family members are in the yard and were easily found albeit much eroded at this point. It is not known whether they originally had actual burial markers. Then we looked and looked for the one actual marker that was supposed to be there. It was not immediately found. Anne went back to her notes and found the names of the adjacent markers. Still no sign of the Needham marker until Jeff began exploring under a holly tree between the other markers – a slightly flattened area mostly covered by fallen leaves. It took some digging and scraping but he and Carol found and exposed the marker to two of the Needham sisters!

We then drove up Stratford Road where Anne’s great grandmother lived from 1861 to 1877 when she married and left England for Montreal, Canada. She married John William Loud of Merevale, WAR who had been working for railroads first in Birmingham and then from 1872 for the Grand Truck Railroad of Canada and the US. She waited 5 years for him. In later years through his railroad work they were able to make frequent trips back to England. We drove up through Birmingham and back to our motel.

Wednesday, July 6

Anne’s Loud family lived in an area east of Birmingham. Over the weekend, Joan Marshall had called a cousin in the Coleshill area to ask if he might be available to show us around. We met Charlie Bull at the Maxstoke church yard about 9:30 AM and can not thank him enough for taking the day to take us to Loud-Alcock sites in the area. We could never have done as much with our driving ability and lack of knowledge of the area. His doing the driving allowed us enjoy the scenery rather than Anne being fixated on the driving and Jeff on the maps for navigation (which is how we spent much of the trip).

Most of the locations of interest were easily identified on maps, but there was one house where Loud family lived and farmed from about 1890 to 1913, that Anne’s grandmother had sketched in 1907, and that her grandmother wrote about in letters between 1910 and 1913, whose actual location and whether it still existed was unknown. We have always referred to the house as Marston Hall but locals did not know its location. We went driving around a general area where it might be and saw a sign saying Marston Rd. At a bend in the road with a high brick wall there was an entrance gate. Anne happened to be looking that direction as Charlie drove by, and saw what appeared to be the house thru the gate. Charlie turned around and went back. We drove in though the entrance and became quite sure that today’s Yew Tree Farm was the Marston Hall of family notes and letters.

Although there were cars around we did not immediately find anyone. As we were getting ready to leave, a vehicle arrived. We spoke with the driver, who agreed that the picture we had was of the Yew Tree farm house. Turns out that his mother had recently begun tracing the history to the house and perhaps a week before found the name LOUD! For people dropping in without a hint of notice they were wonderful to us; showing us around; telling us about changes to the house; taking us out back to where the canal could be viewed. I am in the process of sending them sections of my grandmother’s letters which discuss visiting Marston and particularly when the family had to leave the farm due to the death of an Uncle Fred who actually did the farming – the process of getting out of the lease; auctioning the farm goods and many belongings; and making the move. What a day.

Would have loved to spend another day in the area but we had reservations at Shrewsbury in Shropshire west of Birmingham where some of Anne’s dad’s family lived until 1857. And so we drove on.

Thursday July 7

Shrewsbury is not a fun place to drive! Narrow, curving streets, and many one-way! Anyway we spent the night south of Shrewsbury then had to drive all the way around to the north to find our way to the areas of interest. First we visited the beautiful St. Mary’s church with a Jesse window. Turned out to not be the one where Billington family members are buried but absolutely worth the time! Then we headed towards another area of town. Anne got mixed around and tense over the driving so ended pulling into a park and pay that was really too far from the area of interest but we had a good walk through part of town. Due to the driving really taking Anne at the wheel and Jeff navigating we had done everything together on the trip instead of splitting up and Jeff and Carol going to see sights of more general interest to English history or heaven forbid just relaxing while Anne did more of the family history items – all her side because she has not been able to get the information to take the Dooley connections ‘back across the pond’ so to speak. Anyway, here we split up and Carol and Jeff went to explore the Shrewsbury Castle. It did not work as well as had hoped because the Shropshire Archives was not quite where Anne thought it would be so she waited then Jeff and Carol went along – always set up a contingency plan! Anyway Anne’s great-great-grandfather was a surveyor and map maker and family information talked of a Shropshire map that he had drafted. Turns out that about a fifth of the original map is held at the archives and Anne was able to get in to see it. Also from other records we know that we were in the general area of town where he lived.

We were due in Slimbridge GLS in the middle of the afternoon to meet Julia Trew, another Harding side relative so again had to leave an area earlier that would have liked. Oh well. We had to drive back towards Birmingham to get on the road south to Gloucestershire. The motorways have electronic signs giving information on road conditions and such. Part way along one of the signs said to avoid the London area and a later one said that roads around London were closed. We turned on the radio and learned of the bombings and were much saddened by the news.

We met Julia at St. John’s the Evangelist in Slimbridge and spent a couple of hours exploring the church and Harding-Phillimore-Parslow burials in the church yard. This was Jeff’s favorite church because the inside had much more of a sense of belonging to a very alive and ongoing congregation. In the church yard many of the burials were easily found; one was a buried curb; and for one of interest we found that we had been standing by and walking around but not noticing. Late afternoon Julia had to leave and return to her family in Wiltshire and we did some driving around the area. In later years Dan and Julia’s relative had been proprietor of the Shepherd’s Patch hotel by the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. We ate at the Tudor Arms pub immediately across the road and would absolutely recommend it. More driving around and Anne is now quite sure that she saw Gossington Hall where some of the Hardings lived until the early 1900’s and her grandmother had visited at least once.

 

 


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