Sometimes I comment on your blogs after you have visited me, however the comment you get from me may not be from the site you visited. That’s because I have more than one blog.
So here is a list of my other ones. 😘
If you get bored here over there on the right under pages there’s some more rubbish to read.
😊
Tilly
Blists Hill
Legges Way,
Madeley,
Telford
TF7 5UD
Admission adults online booking for December £17.95 child £10.90, Parking £3.00
Blists Hill Victorian Village is set up like a small industrial town in the year 1900. Queen Victoria has been on the throne for 63 years and the average wage is £42 a year.
There never was a village on this site but it was an area of blasting furnaces, mines, factories, mines and canals. After falling into disuse it was brought in the 1950s by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust who re-created the small industrial village. The canal and blast furnaces are original to the site, other original buildings have been brought brick by brick from other places and rebuilt on site.
There’s a lot to see at this museum however it’s not really for small children, unless they like history. As our trip here was in December the place was dressed for Christmas, there was a Santa at an extra cost and reindeer’s in the Saw mill, a nice touch was the snow that greeted us as we entered the village, a sort of foamy fluff that fell from the top of a building and stuck like snow.
In the Iron works they were holding Mr Morton’s Christmas Party which consisted of a Punch and Judy show which we missed, The Ragamuffins Choir who sang Christmas Carlos, (put me right in the mood), an alternative Cinderella story called Cinderfella and what I found extremely funny The 12 Days of Christmas in which Mr Morton invited people up from the audience to play the parts of the song, I would just like to point out that it was the adults that seemed to be having the most fun while the kiddies all looked rather bemused.
First stop was the bank to change our money into pounds, shillings and pence to spend in the shops, not essential as everything has two price labels, one in todays money and one in old money . The village has shops set out as they would have been, some so small we were unable to get in to see anything, one of the favorite shops seemed to be the fish shop which sold fish and chips fried in beef fat, we tried them and they were fabulous, yes totally unhealthy but oh so tasty. There’s a couple of small cottages to look around and a doctors house, also a school room which was that packed we couldn’t get in to see it. Demonstrations can be seen on different days, we saw pattern making for iron work, and candle making, we missed the lace making. We did manage to get on the last trip of the day on the horse bus, (a £1 a trip). For another £2 you can take a trip on the train into the mine which isn’t a mine but a pipe, once inside in the dark a film is projected onto the wall of a silhouetted father and son mining and trying to get away from the black dust, (carbon monoxide) which killed a lot of miners. Ok for kiddies, not really an adult experience but there’s nothing to suggest this before you get into the tunnel. There is a woodland walk up to the Hay inclined Plane which we started then turned back as the pathway was very muddy and quite slippery and we weren’t really dressed for that. I would like to go back in better weather mid week when it would not be so busy.
Food is available from the fish shop, the butchers who sells pasties and pies and the bakery who sells freshly baked bread. However I would stay clear of The Forest Glen Refreshment Pavilion, we queued for 20 minutes for a coffee and hot chocolate, both were cold and the chocolate was just like water, we handed them back and had a refund.
Baggeridge Country Park and Himley Hall grounds
Free
Car parking £3 a day
Another visit to Baggeridge, we visited here at the beginning of the year and wrote about it here so I won’t write about it again except to say this time we took the Topper scope trail to the top, up and down some very steep steps, saw the goats that have been brought in to tame some parts of the woodland and saw some beautiful Autumn colours. Got caught in a short but sharp storm that produced a rainbow and finished the walk with a rather naughty hot chocolate. These are the photos of the walk this time round.
A short walk from Blackstone car park to Bewdley along the river .8 mile each way.
Free
Bewdley is a small Georgian town in the Wyre Forest District area of Worcestershire. Sitting on the River Severn, its name comes from the French words Beau Lieu – “beautiful place”.
Bewdley town is home to some very pretty churches, a museum, 3 beautiful gardens, pubs, takeaways, restaurants and walks, something for every one.
The walk we did is a favorite for us when we want to go into Bewdley, we park at Blackstone car park and walk along the river into the town. On this walk you pass a llama farm before hitting the river path, sometimes this path can be very muddy, but short and relatively flat the mud is rarely a problem. The walk is around .8 mile each way so easy for even little legs, often ducks and swans can be seen swimming along. Always pretty no matter what time of year, on the day we walked the autumn colours were coming through and leaves were falling from the trees as we walk along. Once in the town there are lot’s of things to see and places to eat so if you have a day to fill or just an hour it’s easy to find something to fill the time. To get back to the car park you can retrace your steps or take the river path on the opposite side, however towards the end of this path there is a steep set of steps to climb up then a short walk along a very busy road, or up the steps, short walk along the road, down more steep steps and back past the Llama farm to the car park.
Pershore Road
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B5 7RL
Admission adults £6.25 child £3.30
The name of the game here is conservation, the zoo works with other zoos to help with breeding programs.
The zoo itself is small and flat, there is a picnic area and a play area for little ones, some of the animals they have include European Lynx – a big cat that used to be native to Britain, and many groups are hoping to reintroduce
Monkeys, tamarins and lemurs and the rare species Yellow Breasted Capuchin Monkeys
Domestic animals – goats, pigs, guinea pigs and sheep from around the world
Cranes and ibises – wading birds
Snakes and lizards – including the amazing Rhinoceros Ratsnake, skinks, geckos and a very handsome Komodo lizard
Red Pandas – a few years ago one of these cheeky chaps appeared on the news after he escaped from his pen
Otters, antelope, wallabies, a very cute sloth, and ‘oh I want one’ little armadillos.
Bamburgh Castle
Bamburgh
Northumberland
Northumberland NE69 7DF
Admission Adult £10.95 child £5.00
There is archaeological evidence that there have been people living on this spot as early as 10,000 BC , close by are Bronze Age 2,400 -700 BC burials and pottery sherds dating to the Iron Age 700 BC – 43 AD, and possibly Romans sometime between 43 AD and 410 AD.
Entry to the castle is through two gatehouse towers which were altered in the 18th century, but parts of the Norman stone work can still be seen. On the Battery Terrace there is a row of cannons which range in size from 18 pound to 32 pound. Below the terrace is Battery Gate which allowed horse drawn vehicles access to the castle, however the Vale Tipping was far too steep and brought the horses to their knees.
The grounds contain the battery terrace, battery gate, State rooms which include kitchen with 3 huge fireplaces, a small room which was originally two medieval store rooms, this room also contains a 19th century air conditioning. The second small room was a buttery until the 1800s when it became the girls mistresses sitting room then a writing room followed by the second Lord Armstrong’s office. The Kings Hall ceiling is made from over 300 tons of Siamese teak and is held together with over 1300 oak pins the walls are also teak and the floor is sprung pine, it is truly a beautiful room. At the top of the Kings Hall is the Cross Hall, once there were huge folding doors to close it off from the main hall and the hinges can still be seen. The centre piece of the room is a fireplace with an ornately carved mantle. The billiard room again with a huge fireplace to keep the men warm as they played billiards and talked while the woman went into the Faire Chamber with a fireplace decorated with musical instruments. There is what is now an armoury and was once a chapel. There is also a court room keep hall, service areas, scullery and dungeon, although the dungeon never really existed it was a coal cellar. Also in the grounds are the inner wards, west ward, archaeology dig and Armstrong and Aviation museum.
The castle is a really interesting place to visit.
Craster to Beadnell
8 ½ mile one way.
Free
This is a lovely walk which takes in beach and coastal path, the walk starts at the quaint romantic harbour. A short walk from the village takes you onto the coastal, and after just a short way Dunstanburgh castle comes into view. Here you can choose to visit the castle or carry on, we carried on. You skirt around the bottom of the castle leaving the ruin behind passing through a field of cows, on the day we walked we had one very inquisitive cow who wanted to know what was in my back pack. Along this part of the walk you pass an old complete gunners post, I took a look hoping to be able to get inside, however the inside and the doorway have been blocked up. At Low Newton the walk drops down onto beach until you arrive at High Newton, where you leave the beach to walk the clifftops. You can continue this walk along the coastal path or has we did drop down the sand dunes onto the beach to walk the rest of the way. There is a small river that covers the beach on the beach walk, this can be wadded through or there is a bridge back on the road, we wadded and walked on to Beadnell
Around 9 mile round trip
This walk can be done either along the coastal path or along the seashore depending on the tides.
We decided to walk the shoreline as hubby’s knee was playing him up. The walk leaves the beach for a short time at Seahouses which if time allows is a lovely little village that is well worth a visit.
The walk starts at Beadnell from the road you walk a short way through dunes onto a volcanic beach. The hardened rock forms a landscape of huge ripples almost like another world, and there are some beautiful colours to been seen in the formations. This is also the place to see brightly coloured seaweeds and cove after cove of rock formations.
At seahouses you leave the beach for a short walk along the top before dropping back down, it is at this point the volcanic rock begins to disappear along with the coves and the beach stretches out straight as far as the eye can see in front of you. Along this stretch of the beach the wreak of a ship can also be seen.
Towards the end of this walk Bamburgh castle comes into view in all it’s glory, looming over the beach from it’s vantage point high on the hill. You can get to the castle by following the path through the dunes.
