Uses for redundant telephone boxes

A Defibrillator in Brockham

A History Box in Leigh

A Tourist Information Box in Slinford.

A Library Box also in Slinfold.

A joint Book and Game Swap Box with a Garden Centre with free plants in a box outside located in Petworth.

Another joint use of a Defibrillator and Library Box in Wisborough Green.

And a rare sight,  a box with a telephone in it! This one was in Nuthurst but I found another box with a telephone in Kirdford and another outside Horsham Railway station. 

Another Book Swap Box in Rusper but the difference here is that the top glass panel which would have read as 'Telephone' has been replaced with the name of the village and the crown above picked out in gold with The Star in the background, one of the two pubs in the village. 

A box without the windows being used as a giant flower pot in Russ Hill. 

A box next to St John's in West Green Crawley being used as a local community notice board and unusually, and unlike most former telephone boxes, it was locked.

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So over the last few weeks, the score is Telephones 3. Other Uses 9 (including a Book Swap in Colgate).

Rudgwick Brickworks and the Milk Churn

Rudgwick Brickworks and the Milk Churn 

It was a bicycle ride out to a local cafe, the Milk Churn, located a former brickworks and now  an industrial estate with a pretty landscaped  entrance despite its industrial heritage.

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Visitors to the Milk Churn can have snacks in the main building....

,,,or on the patio or in the Parlour at teh far end of teh patio.

There are of course other options for those that want to trade their coffeee and cake to something stronger such as the Firebird Brewery...

...with its Brewery Tap and shop.

Continuing the theme of different users for former telephone boxes, I passed through Slinfold and here is the local Tourist Information Centre....

...and in the village centre is the local library...

...right next door to the post box which has suffered from some guerrilla crocheting...

...but the community doesn't need to make the former telephone boxes into defibrillator stations as the local defibillator kit is right next to the local community shop n the yellow box.

  

And there may be something about Slinfold residents due to this art installation of a cone of dead twigs on top of the post that supports a post box.
 

 Brockham Village Green

Today was a cycle through the beautiful West Sussex and Surrey countryside on a circular route to reach the pretty village of Brockham where I stopped for lunch on the green...

                                        

...with a view across the village green to the North Downs beyond,,, 

                                       

...with my back to the village church with its stone steeple and whilst it looks old, it is only Victorian as Brockham only became its own parish in 1842 and the new church was only consecrated in 1847...

                                        

...but the timber framed and lathe and plaster walls Old Vicarage next door is obviously much older than the church.

                                                   

In the church yard is the village war memorial to those that fell in both World Wars. However what is unusual about the churchyard is whilst it has a remembrance garden and plaques to remember people, there are no gravestones in the church yard. The Brockham locals had used the church in the nearby village of Leigh to be baptised and married and they chose that church for their graves.

                                        

On the green is the old village pump, to the right of the picture with a porch over it to protect users from the rain, provided by Henry \thomas Hope, a local MP and benefactor of the area who also provided the clock for the church.

There are many other interesting buildings overlooking the village green...

,,,such as one of the two village stores....

...one of two pubs,,,

,,,an old building...

...another old building...

...the other pub, The Inn on the Green which also overlooks the green...

...the Old Inn Lodge...

'''and outside one of the shops, a telephone box that has been re-used as a store for a defibrillator for the village...

.. and as I cycled through Leigh where Brockham parishioners used to worship, there was another former telephone box and whilst many have been transformed into defibrillator stores or mini libraries, this one was a History Box with details of the history of the village and church.

A walk to Lambs Green

 A walk to Lambs Green, half way between Horsham and Crawley

I went for a walk with friends along several paths that I hadn't walked along before. 

Along Parsonage Road whichs leads nowhere is an unusual house converted from a former water tower and something that ough t to be on Grand Designs.

Another unusual building overlooking the main road but not  Victorian folly but a recently built facade extension to a former bungalow by an eccentric builder allegedly without planning permission but it had survived for years.

The best point of any walk, lunch at the Lambs Inn at Lambs Green and a chance to sit down for an hour. The menu choice and food is excellent and they had Punk IPA on draft from Brewdog to which I had had an recommendation to try from a friend

In the afternoon I passed the historic Ifield Mill and mill pond...

...which hosts a large flock of geese...

...and some colourful flowers nearby.

Tamworth and Tamworth Castle

On the way home from finishing walking Hadrian's Wall, I had just had to stop at Tamworth to visit the castle there as a strong contender for one of the best Midland castles in England.

An extract from 'Britain's top 25 Castles' although publication has been delayed due to COVID restrictions.

Tamworth became the chief residence of Offa, ruler of the expanding Mercian kingdom, perhaps remembered today by the 220 kilometres Offa’s Dyke to protect his kingdom from the Welsh and today known as a long distance walking path. He built a palace overlooking the confluence of the Anker and Tame Rivers. It was from here that there were various charters issued, the first dating from 781AD. Little trace of its former glory survived the Viking attack in 874AD that destroyed the town.

In 913AD, Tamworth was rebuilt by Æthelflæd, eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, who ruled Mercia  911 - 918.  She fortified the town with an earthen burgh. This, however, was insufficient to defend the place when it was attacked by the Danes in 943AD.

There is no more mention of Tamworth in records despite having a mint there that struck coins for later Anglo-Saxon kings and eventually for the new Norman monarch, William the Conqueror. After the Norman Invasion the town was granted to William's steward, Robert Despenser, who built a motte and bailey castle in the 1080’s.

When Robert died childless, the castle passed to his niece Matilida who married Robert Marmion, 1st Baron Marmion of Tamworth. The Marmion family, hereditary champions of the Dukes of Normandy, held the castle for six generations until 1294. It was during their occupancy that the castle began to be remodelled in stone.

Robert Marmion, 3rd Baron Marmion of Tamworth, deserted King John in 1215. The king ordered Robert's son Geoffrey to be imprisoned, all of Robert's lands were confiscated and Tamworth Castle was to be demolished. Only some minor demolition had occurred by the time of John's death the following year when Robert's sons were able to regain the largely still intact castle.

Numerous additions were made to the castle over the centuries, especially in the Jacobean period, from which time the arms of the Ferrers family and those with whom they intermarried came to dominate the interior. Despite being built as a castle and then used as a residence, the castle's defences would be used once again. During the English Civil War, it was captured by Parliamentary forces on 25th June 1643 after just a two-day siege. It was garrisoned by Parliamentary forces and so the castle therefore escaped the slighting ordered for so many others in that period.

After 1668 the castle passed through several families until 1891 when Marquess Townshend put the castle up for sale by auction and it was purchased by its present owners, Tamworth Corporation who opened it as a tourist attraction. They landscaped the castle grounds as a public amenity. It is a great place to visit, it has a lot to see with interactive exhibits but it is not sufficiently large to get into the top list

  

The old bridge over the River Tame. 

The grand entrance to the castle just across the road that crosses the bridge seen to the left with a glimpse of the river just north of the car park.

A view of the castle from the park between the river and the castle on the top of the motte.

A closer view of the castle from the same position.

An aerial view of the castle.

A view from the castle's entrances down the narrow path from the town.

A view of the little cafe at the base of the walk from the town up to the castle. 

A view back towards the entrance into the castle.

The opposite entrance from the courtyard into the interior of the castle itself.

A view of the courtyard and  on the left is the the large window giving light into the main hall.

The Dining Room.

An ante chamber. 

The lord's bed chamber....

... and the bedchamber of his man servant next door.    

                                           

Cooke's bathroom...

...just off his bed chamber. 

One of the many rooms furnished as it would have been when the castle was lived in by the family.

An d another room.

The Great Hall.

The castle isjust a two minute walk from the centre of the town.

The Market Hall in the city centre with a statue of Sir Robert Peel who was the MP for the town for 12 years until his death in 1850.

                                           

The local church, St Edith's.