What a difference, after days of blue skies and warm sunshine! At least it’s dry – we can get our leg-stretch. Tomorrow it’s going to rain…
Day out with a Baldwin
26 April 2014: the Industrial Railway Society’s AGM was to be held at the Leighton Buzzard Railway – and before the meeting, we were to enjoy a ride up the line to check out the railway’s extensive workshops at Stonehenge. The train was hauled by a locomotive built to operate in the war which began 100 years earlier – Baldwin 4-6-0 no. 778 (44656 of 1917). The trip was reported at the time in “Geoff’s Rail Diaries” (see http://geoffspages.co.uk/raildiary/buzzard.htm); here are a few reminders of the rail trip up the line.
Avoncroft
26 April 2009: a visit to the museum of buildings near Bromsgrove, which is much more interesting than it sounds! One of those places we’d intended to go to for several years.
Afterwards, we appear to have driven on to Evesham, where five years and a day after the visit posted yesterday, we had another brief look at the railway. The locomotive in use on this occasion was “John”, built in 1921 for the Rhyl Miniature Railway
Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings
Dudmaston in late April
25 April 2010: It’s a popular National Trust property just the other side of Bridgnorth, and it was looking good on this showery spring day ten years ago. There are all the usual trimmings – quirky clock tower at the entrance, stable block, modern art statuary, rhododendrons and azaleas, lake, dingle… What more could one ask? Ice creams?
Evesham Vale
25 April 2004: It’s a super little 15″ gauge railway, running through fields and orchards beside a retail centre just outside Evesham. I’d read about its development a year or two earlier, and we paid a first visit in June the previous year. The locomotive in use is a 1946-built 4-6-2 “Prince William” – quite a substantial machine.
Red Lane and yellow fields
We’re walking through the grassy mounds around the former Caughley colliery, enjoying (yet again!) the sunshine and the colours in the fields and hedgerows. The soil in the fields beside Red lane provides a clue to its name. In the short damp lane, the bluebells are variable in colour, and the garlic is abundant and pungent!
Home again
24 April 2003: St Malo to Portsmouth. It’s an early start from our Brittany base, and a long crossing follows. The sun is low in the sky when we dock in Portsmouth – three hours later, it’s good to be home again.
A different approach
There’s been little change since we last walked this way – perhaps I can do something different with the photos…
La Roche-Bernard
23 April 2003: Our last day in Brittany – a wander around La Roche-Bernard, where the river is busy but the streets are quiet, followed by a visit to the Arzal barrage. Tomorrow it’s an early start – we’re sailing from St Malo, on the long slow crossing to Portsmouth.
Antlers
That’s what those wispy clouds resemble. Some of the old oak trees have antlers too. We’re walking down the Dean Farm lane again, enjoying the warm sunshine (again!), though there’s a bit more cloud today.
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