First of all I’d like to apologise for my lack of posts since I arrived in September 2017. Part of it was due to lack of internet, some due to ill health due to anxiety and stress which I hadn’t anticipated from my family. It seems we’ve all changed alot over the last 28 years, not just got older.
Anyway. I’m going to do a catch up with images from where we’ve visited so far. Of course I’ve been to more places due to my job, and they’ve been mainly in the south of England, Kent, London, Susex, Berkshire & Dorset.
I am going to be updating posts which should have gone out nearly a year ago. You’ll see images of places we’ve visited, family, friends and old buildings. Look out for churches, cathedrals, castles, animals…we can’t forget them, and you may also see Oxford Bear who generally travels with me when I’m away from my family.
Thank you for your reading this blog and I hope you enjoy the posts which will start with Lichfield, when I was visiting my best friend Tina.
Yep we are getting back to normal…well as normal as life can be when you are getting used to a new country.
This week the girls and I are at Tina’s place along with her three adorable dogs. Spud and the pups are lovely and lively to say the least. It took a couple of days for them to calm down. Spud is the same …still stealing things and four years older. The pups are four and a half months and bigger than Spud.
Had some time out with Tina at a little village called Pelsall after dropping her mum off at a meeting. (Mum is as adorable as ever).
Pelsell is a wonderful little village with the typical village shops and cafes. We had a late breakfast in one cafe. It was lovely and friendly with great food. Then we walked around, going into a few shops, buying a few things. Of course i forgot to take photos however google is our friend. This village even has little museum. They also have a huge village green which reminded me of Cambridge in New Zealand. It is a lovely place, though so much older.
Here is a little history about the town from Wikipedia: Pelsall
Pelsall was first mentioned in a charter of 994, when it was among various lands given to the monastery at Heantune (Wolverhampton) by Wulfrun, a Merciannoblewoman. At this time it was called Peolshalh, meaning ‘a nook’ or ‘land between two streams belonging to Peol’. The Domesday entry of 1086 describes Pelsall as being waste, still belonging to the church.
A chapel of ease was built in about 1311. The medieval population was small and a return of 1563 lists only 14 householders. The original centre of the village was the area now known as Old Town. In 1760 the remaining open fields were enclosed, but some holdings survived into the next century in Hall Field, High Ley, The Riddings Field and Final Field. The tithe map of about 1840 records some evidence of the medieval strip farming system.
In the second quarter of the 19th century clusters of houses were built on the fringes of the extensive commonland and at the Newlands. The greatest concentration was in what is now the village centre. This area gradually developed; a Methodist Chapel and school were opened in about 1836, in the modern day Station Road and a new St Michael’s Church was built in 1844 – the old one in Paradise Lane had been considered too small for the growing population. Towards the end of the 19th century shops became established in Norton Road and High Street. The population in 1801 was 477 and by 1901 had grown to 3,626.
Pelsall had become a mining village; in places deposits of coal were found only a few yards from the surface and by about 1800 the shallow and deep seams were ‘much worked’. The cutting of the canal in about 1794 opened up the area for industrialisation, with entrepreneurs and landowners quickly exploiting the mineral wealth. Nailmaking, traditionally a cottage industry, was also carried out locally; in the census of 1841 thirty men stated this as their occupation.
On 14 November 1872, 22 miners died when the Pelsall Hall Colliery was flooded.[2][3] 21 of the 22 miners were buried underneath a polished granite obelisk in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels Church.[4]
An ironworks[5] was established on the North Common which grew into a sizeable concern under the ownership of Messrs. Davis and Bloomer. This, together with Yorks Foundry and that of Ernest Wilkes and Co. at Mouse Hill, gave Pelsall a share of the heavy iron trade during the 19th century. Ernest Wilkes and Co. survived until 1977, but the others ceased trading in the 1890s and the pits became unworkable, mainly due to continual flooding problems.
Several working farms survived in the village until after the Second World War. Since then much land has been used for housing development but the ancient common remains.
Pelsall previously had a railway station and line that ran along the fringes of what is modern day Pelsall, though these have now closed. Only the main road bridges survive as evidence.
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