Of sandstone and cockleshells

  You can’t be a Barrovian, born, bred or both, without Abbey Road holding a place in your heart. Driving, walking, bussing, cycling, there’s not much option but to include it in your journey. I walk parts of it nearly every day, especially the bit my son christened Conker Alley . If you’ve walked between St. Paul’s and Monk's Croft at this time of year, you’ll understand why. Monk's Croft.... there's a name to conjure with. From the sandstone drinking trough, to where the iconic White House Hotel used to stand, the houses- those still in evidence and those long gone- tell a story. And quite a compelling one.  These structures aren't linked by time, but by sandstone. If you live here, you know. But the bigger houses that line this route into the town have their own story to tell.  Our family lived, for a short while, in the house that William Gradwell Jnr. built for himself. His father, William Gradwell Snr. was perhaps the most important man in terms of the building of...

  Early autumn day, dove-grey skies, 15 degrees centigrade, ash leaves down and beeches turning.  Boots on and time to walk in the fifteen acre, man-made patch of woodland at the top of Ormsgill Quarry.     It’s a broad-leaf woodland, only twenty-one years old, so isn’t mature by any means- it was planted over an area originally a wide expanse of school playing field. It was possible to walk right to the edge of the sandstone quarry in those days. That’s been screened off with fences and clever planting now, thank goodness. On the first day of a teaching practice at Ormsgill School, a pupil lifted his shirt and showed me a scar running from neck to belly-button from when he fell off the quarry and landed on a washing machine! Walney could be easily seen from the edge, back then. Not so easy now, but the views are still stunning.  Early autumn has been full of heavy rain and softer temperatures, so nature’s die-back isn’t in full swing in How Tun Wood. The p...