The debonair Basil Marigold's

Yes, I know. Technically there was no part 1 to the Annesley Hall story. But there was and so, here it is. Annesley All Saints 'New Church'. For those that know the area there is a large spired building as you drive along Derby Road. This is the New Church, established around the late 1800's. It was to provide for the growing populations of the villages of Newstead and Annesley, as coal mining really took hold in North Notts.  As the new church was consecrated, the old church was abandoned. What old church, I hear you ask? Yes. The Norman church founded by the Norman Lords who swept through England after 1066. It is pretty well hidden. Partly because it is away from the mining villages and is stepped back from any major road. But it is there. This was my second destination on my Saturday walk. It is a Grade I listed building and a scheduled Ancient Monument. The Current ruins date back to around the 1340/50's (the Reign of Edward III). This replaced the orig...

Today was a strange day you could say. It started with the best intentions. My wife and children had disappeared to the town centre for some of the Queens 90th Birthday celebrations. I, an ardent republican, since my late teens took the opportunity to then go for a walk in the opposite direction. I knew i had about an hour or so. Feeling enthused. Following my week of essentially eating steamed vegetables (another, depressing, story). I calculated that I might well be able to head out to visit, or pass near a place that has always fascinated me but I had never really visited before; Annesley Hall.  For those who don't know the area. One of the most important families were/are The Chaworth-Musters. The Chaworth's inherited Annesley Hall, when Sir George Chaworth married Anne Annesley, who brought with her the Annesley estate. Descendent's followed until the last Chaworth, Mary married a Jack Musters. This began the Chaworth-Musters family who continue to this day to ...

I had a clear out of clothes today. I have stored for them for long enough. I know I shall probably not wear these things again. Items that are either too old or too small went in the sack. Sadly, more so the latter it would appear, according to the Health Check Nurse yesterday.  However, I enjoy this process when the mood takes me to do it. I do, however, have a rather large sentimental streak. I blame my mother for this weakness in me and the books I read as a teenager that further influenced it. At the bottom of a very small box I found a fairly old, technical (running),T shirt. It was won in the heat of the South of France. It took 10 miles of running from Martigues to Carro to get one of these shirts. Incidentally, even after running the race, the shirt never really fitted. It was always too small to begin with, yet I have still got it after about 8 years. I have never thrown it away. It meant something to me. It meant a hot summers evening spent running under a bli...

I love facts; Little ones, large ones. The more obscure the better. Profundity is also great too. I came across a fact, via Twitter. Twitter is a source of wonderful facts, every now and again. This fact was a jaw dropper. For what reason? Because it marks the beginning of the end of a British tradition. What, for Many years, powered the empire and its military Jewel, the Royal Navy. Both consigned to  the past in importance and influence. It flows from this graph. A relatively harmless looking graph. It shows where from the United Kingdom took its energy source to power its daily life of; lights, televisions, factories and heating. It drills the information down to hourly. As you can see we are 'gas' hungry with nuclear and wind following. However, why this graph is a profound graph and marks the beginning of a new era is in the time from midnight to 05:00 in the morning. This marks the first 5 hours in British history since 1882, when the first steam powered ...

I have reached forty. In age. Not yet in IQ, according to some closer friends (I think that's in a few more years!). I have not, as of yet, reached my mid-life crisis. Who knows what that'll mean. Possibly a tattoo, and a motorbike or worse, a tattoo of a motorbike! I dread to think. Though maybe not as much as my wife, I suppose. However, with the onset of physical pre-middle age I have found that my body is not quite as supple as it has been over the last decade. There is a reason my nickname during my thirties was 'Mr Rubber band'. This elasticity is beginning to fade. To enable me to return to my former glory I have recently signed up for Pilates! (Yes, I know, I didn't believe a Roman Governor invented an entire form of training. - Could not have been all bad then, who knew? I came across Pilates a while ago. A lady at my previous workplace was a practitioner of the art and recommended it to me. This was a few years ago. It never materialised tho...

For those of us who have a passion for maritime research and let's be honest, who doesn't! Today's news marks a very sad day for us all. For a couple of reasons; one, forever amusing. The other, an actual scandal! For some peculiarly British reason, people who run major companies seem to have a massive over-optimistic belief in the sensibility of the British public. This was again proved by the building of a £200m polar maritime research vessel. Some marketing genius; One imagines them sat, sipping Starbucks coffee and oiling their hipster beard and having a thinking shower in an office; painted in primary colours. no chairs, just beanbags. The wizard thinker decides to hold a public contest to name this £200m vessel. Let's through it open to the public, he/she says. You see the problem already? No boundaries.  That's great in a sterile think space. In the public sphere and with the record of British public - have you ever driven down the Lara Croft way, in ...

For the past few years we have, oddly, found ourselves visiting Abbeys. A lot of this has been driven by our Englih Heritage membership. Yesterday, we visited Roche Abbey. It is nestled, like many Abbeys are, deep within a valley. This valley happened to be in South Yorkshire. Not far from the town of Maltby. I am not sure what Maltby is famous for, if anything (it had a munitions factory during WW2. When Londoners from Enfield came to work, created a district of housing called, little London). Again, like some of the other Abbeys the approach is narrow and descending. The added bonus to the access to Roche Abbey, is that this approach is 'cobbled'. A marvellous, unplanned, test for our aging vehicle!  The impressive transept remains at Roche Abbey. Car, intact, arrived at the car park. A term used loosely. We then went further down the pot holed path/road to the gatehouse of the abbey. There was also a visitor centre, a house. I'm not aware of the history of the house. It ...