I had never been to Lichfield, but had heard that the Cathedral was worth visiting, so catching a bus from Whittington to Lichfield and back seemed like a worthwhile morning's adventure. I had researched that a bus would leave at 9.51 from a bus stop in the village and Chris and I were there in plenty of time, to discover that the bus came pretty promptly AND our bus passes worked, so that was a double bonus.
The bus trip took about 15 minutes and we got off at the bus station so we knew where to come back from! The Cathedral was very easy to spot. It's a large medieval structure with three spires and can be seem from most of the town. We headed off in that direction and passed a building that had been where Samuel Johnson had been educated as a young boy. He was a son of the town and there were quite a few references to him there. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles was also born in Lichfield.
We approached the Cathedral from the back where there was a statue of St Chad, it's founder in AD700 ish. (He's the one on the right)
We then went round to the West End which was fantastic - so many statues and none had had their heads removed which was surprising since this was a much fought over area during the Civil War.
It was impossible to get anything other than a silhouette image when I photographed this at 1015am.
You can see the statues from this closer shot.
I also took this picture looking straight up to the left hand spire. What a lot of carving.
Inside we were regaled with an organist practising for her concert this evening. It was very splendid and certainly created a fantastically full sound. Like many of our cathedrals, this was built over a period of 120 years, completing in the early 1300s. The nave doesn't look completely straight as a result of the earth's magnetic field having changed during the lifetime of the project and so measuring North was not the exact science they perhaps thought it was.
Where the altar now is as shown in the above photo was excavated in order to instal the elevated area which can be dropped back to level with the floor. As a result they discovered a tomb from St Chad's time in the 700s with this angel on the top.
They also have a range of printed Bibles from the 14th century onwards, and also some manuscript Gospels from 700s. These include some Welsh as well as Latin writing. Quite amazing.
Most of the stained glass was destroyed during the Civil War, but this glass came from a medieval monastery in Belgium and was installed here in the 1880s. It recently has been cleaned and reinstalled and is very impressive with some lovely painting.
There were some lovely parkland areas around the Cathedral Close and this piece of open water was also very pretty in the lovely sunlight.
There are quite a lot of black and white Tudor buildings and an interesting church which had been turned into a community centre. It had the library and a business start up hub on the ground floor, and then on a mezzanine that had been installed it had a coffee shop, exhibition space and the resources to put on events and manage lighting etc. It was a great use of a medieval church, especially one so close to the Cathedral.
We left Lichfield after a 3 hour stay and had really enjoyed our time there. The logistics of getting to and fro also worked well, and so after having our lunch we set off down the Fazeley Canal to Fazeley junction where the Coventry canal turns to the east and slightly north, and we turn south towards Birmingham. The stretch of canal to the junction was something that we had done before. Much of it is green and lovely and for quite some time the canal is quite high up above the river Tame (as in Tamworth) down below.
We came to the junction after a couple of hours and it was good to remember it clearly from last time.
These birds were something I had remembered about the junction. This time we passed to the right under this bridge and came out next to a very large factory building which I think must be in use for accommodation either business or for housing. It seemed in really good order.
A little further on we came to this really odd bridge. Why it is like this does not seem to be known, or not recorded anyway.
For quite a lot of this route we were passing open countryside to our left which had been turned into country parks and walking areas from gravel or sand diggings. There was still the remains of one conveyor belt bridge, but otherwise you would not know that this industry had been there.
We had decided to stop at the Dog and Doublet pub which was after 4 locks on the canal leaving another 7 in this flight for the morning. I was on lock duty waiting for Chris to come through the bridge.
This is the last image of the last lock of the day - it looks very tranquil doesn't it. In fact it's about 2 and half miles as the crow flies from the M6 Toll Station on the M6 toll road avoiding the north of Birmingham. As I write, there is a dull rumble of noise, but nothing at all intrusive. We could still hear the birdsong. We sat and had a drink at the pub enjoying the peace and quiet after a very interesting day.
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