County Towns of England Part 2

 

Church on Bridge.

Warwick was a stop off for us on the way home from Oxford. It's definitely a town, a county town no less. It's quite a grand little town with a fine extensive medieval castle, much visited by tourists who take lots of pictures of this very photogenic and much restored structure. The remains of the town walls include Eastgate and Westgate which for some reason that I have not been able to discover, have churches built on top of them! This photo is of Eastgate and maybe the congregation didn't enjoy worshipping above the street because St Peter's was only used as a church for about 150 years -from the 16th Century until around 15 years ago it was a school. You can now rent the building as holiday accommodation! And note the red pillar box standing between the pedestrian arch and what was formerly the archway for wheeled traffic which has been standing there since 1856.

Here's another 1856 pillar box in Warwick, this time at Westgate, where again there's a church (St James's) on top of the entrance arch. The two post boxes in question were among the first to be erected in Britain and are very rare examples of the very rare 'Doric' style named for its  fluted design as found on ancient Greek columns. Vicky was very happy because she was wearing her pillar box red shoes that day. Curiously despite not having a cathedral there is a Bishop of Warwick (or rather there isn't at the moment because the post is vacant.) The position is actually that of an assistant bishop (or suffragen bishop) at Coventry Cathedral. I know a little about suffragen bishops having met the Bishop of Oswestry earlier this year at a church in Northamptonshire - it's a long story which I'll maybe expand on another time.

And guess which new up and coming band are coming to Buxton this month. Just two weeks ago they'd released their first LP  'Please Please Me' and they were riding high in the charts (girls were screaming!) Of course this all happened 61 years ago in 1963 and that year The Beatles hit Buxton for a second time returning in October. That must have been fun, and quite a late one by Buxton standards as it was scheduled to finish a bit before midnight. How did they all get home, and who went to these early gigs? (And who remembers The Trixons?) Buxton is neither a county town nor does it have a cathedral but it is a rather special. In April 2024 we ourselves returned to Buxton for a long weekend involving pottering round Buxton Brewery pubs and generally re-exploring old haunts. We found this Beatles poster on the wall at our AirBnb, a handy apartment close to the Pavilion Gardens, handy because it was less than 5 minutes from the start of the Pavilion Gardens parkrun which turned out to be a pleasant saunter round the park on an early chilly spring morning.

Thanks for the photo Eamon!