Heritage

We are so blessed to be able to just stumble across historic buildings in the UK. I'd had a typical few hours sewing with the lovely group here (ie much chat, a bit of sewing) and then met LH to pay a return visit to the paint outlet (20% off this week). Afterwards I took Poppydog for a wander and as we were at the Battlefield end of town, that's where we went.

Battlefield, surprise surprise, is the site of the Battle of Shrewsbury (and a good farm shop!).

Harry Hotspur (aka Henry Percy with a flaming temper!) had supported the Lancastrian Henry IV to the throne and had been busy quelling Owen Glyndwr at the monarch's behest. However, after a while Harry felt that the King had shown a decided lack of favour to him after all he'd done and chose to raise an army of 14,000 which included the Cheshire Archers, formidable longbowmen, against King Henry. Hotspur had now allied himself with Glyndwr and others and marched his forces to Shrewsbury to meet up with his new mates, but the King had got wind of the rebellion and met him at the rendezvous. Negotiations failed during the day and the Battle was fought at dusk in July 1403, notably the first time two lethal groups of longbowmen faced each other. Even I have heard how lethal this weapon was and the casualty count was enormous (5,000) and included Hotspur himself. When he fell, the rebels surrendered. Afterwards, an Abbey was founded on the site with chaplains to pray for the souls of those who died. Now all that remains is the Abbey church which I think has had a Victorian makeover. It disbanded at the Reformation and sadly it was deconsecrated in 1982. The door was locked so I couldn't see inside, but the church had amazing gargoyles (this chap is posing with a cannon and a pile of cannon balls - not sure what the Christian message is!) and some lovely tracery on the roofline. And it has a really charming but very dilapidated lychgate, well worth a blip. I'm short of extras so Cannon Man has to share his spot.

PS the farm shop cafe was very nice too ;-)