Good news for the Canalside Garden

Following a fruitless appeal for volunteers, We are pleased that, thanks to Carl Gurney’s intervention, the Canal and River Trust are to take over the main-tenance of the garden we created in 1993 at the Coleshill Road Bridge. We are particularly grateful to staff at North Warwickshire Borough Council for clearing the garden so that we can hand it over in a tidy state. Pictured are Jacqui, Ian, Rachel and Becky, all of NWBC who spent a morning clearing weeds and debris to reveal the plants beneath.

Part of the garden in the 1990s.

Sadly both the Barge and Bridge and the Hat Shop (in the old Wilson & Stafford factory) are currently subjects of re-development as flats. Whilst Britannia Works keeps the best of the old and blends it with a well-designed scheme, the proposed design of the Barge and Bridge is abysmal. It shows the great dif-ference between investing in a good architect and trying to manage without one.

Forthcoming events

Tuesday, 24th November 2015, 7.30 pm. ‘George Eliot and her Local connections,’ by John Burton, Trinity Church, Coleshill Road.

Thursday, 21st January 2016, Festive Meal, at the Unicorn, Orton-on-the-Hill . Details from Pauline. Email carlandpauline@talk21.com. Tel.: 01827 713976

A full programme for 2016 will be sent out soon.

Atherstone Civic Society was formed in 1990

to stimulate interest in, and action for,

the improvement of the local environment.

Hon. Secretary Judy Vero

Grendon Lodge

Long Street

Atherstone CV9 1BA

Tel: 01827 712250

secretary@atherstonecivicsociety.co.uk

Website: www.atherstonecivicsociety.co.uk

Subscriptions by standing order As you will know, with no-one to take her place, our membership secretary, Cathy Charles-Jones’s retire-ment has forced us to look at simplifying the way we handle subscriptions. As a result we are now asking all new members to complete a standing order form on joining. This will remove the need to chase overdue subscriptions and the handling of cash and cheques and will make life much easier for our treasurer, John Con-nell, who despite having moved to live at Market Bos-worth, very kindly continues in this role. We regret the need to do this but other societies are moving in this direction and, already, the greater proportion of our membership pays by standing order. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Cathy for her long ser-vice to the society, which she was instrumental in set-ting up. Like John, she has continued in her role de-spite moving away, in her case, to Nottinghamshire.

On 9th October, Atherstone Civic Society com-pleted 25 years of service to the local environment.. Over the years we have campaigned to save treas-ured buildings and countryside, spoken at a number of planning inquiries and appealed to the Ombuds-man three times. But the fight goes on!

Value for money?

We regretted the need to increase subscriptions, but speakers and events are becoming more expensive, and we do not want to compromise on our standards. We aim to bring you the best speakers and most inter-esting events, and they do not come cheap! We have resisted the idea of admission charges. But to give you an example, the recent tour of Tamworth cost us £80 but was free to members. We had two hours of an excellent Blue Badge guide all to ourselves. We hope you agree that this is good value for money.

‘TOWN AND VILLAGE’

THE NEWSLETTER OF ATHERSTONE CIVIC SOCIETY

No.89 Autumn 2015

Welcome to our Autumn Newsletter.

We are pleased to report that Margaret Hughes is now at home convalescing following her operation at Papworth Hospital. Meanwhile, Judy continues as temporary editor. The Society has had a good season for events, thanks to the social committee, Pauline Gurney, Rita Poulson, Margaret Bell and Jenny Quy. It is also good to have recently-co-opted committee member, Pat-rick Woodcock on our planning team, adding to existing members, Roy Taylor and Judy Vero.

Summer 2015

Summer began in June with a guided tour of Donnington le Heath Manor House, by Eddie Smallwood. This is a rare once-moated upper hall house of c.1280 (below), now re-

stored by Leicestershire County Council, with a period garden, lovingly maintained by volun-teers. Afterwards we enjoyed a buffet supper. The Garden Party in July was held in the gar-dens of Oldbury Hall, by kind invitation of the Morris family who looked after us very well and gave us a talk on the history of Oldbury Hall which was pulled down around 1948. It was fas-cinating to be able to see the inside of the in-triguing little tower which can be seen from the Hartshill Hayes Country Park. It turns out to have been a gardener’s bothy and apple store.

In August we returned to Bletchley Park, five years after our previous visit (report on p.2).

September’s visit to Tamworth was a revela-tion to some of us who had never seen the town’s historic quarter. Our guide, Caroline Proud, showed us buildings which had escaped the 60s bulldozers , especially the old town hall with its statue of Robert Peel (below). We

also learned that it had been funded by Tho-mas Guy of Guy’s Hospital fame, who later had a row with the town and banned locals from his almshouses, built in 1707 and still standing. Another visit is planned for 2016 to explore the interior of St Editha’s Church.

We had a last-minute change of speaker for October, as Tony Wallis of Hinckley Ar-chaeological Society stepped in for Philip Wells who was ill. He spoke about Hinckley Priory, which existed until 1414. Its property was transferred to Mount Grace Priory in north Yorkshire, who also owned the Manor of Atherstone from 1463 until 1538 when it was dissolved by Henry VIII.

We are very grateful to Tony for stepping in at very short notice. (Father Philip’s talk , ‘Polesworth’s Literary Connections’ has been re-scheduled for Tuesday, 16th February 2016.)

Visit to Bletchley Park In August, we re-visited Bletchley Park, known as ‘Station X’ during WW2. It was a top secret establishment where intercepted German messages in code were deciphered by a team of clever mathematicians. A new exhibition at Bletchley has many examples of the equipment used, in-cluding the variants of the ‘Enigma’ encoding machine with ‘how they worked’ examples displayed. A notable person in breaking the codes was Alan Turing. He de-signed a machine named ‘The Bombe’ to beat ‘The Enigma’ and go through the millions of permutations of the letter settings. Even then, it was not that simple, the code breakers had to ‘best guess’ what the message could be to give the machine a clue and the German codes were changed daily. The codebreakers were highly intelligent, though many were odd and eccentric. One notably drank his coffee outdoors and then threw his cup into the lake.

The photo (above) of Alan Turing’s office shows a mug depicting him chained to the radiator! It was a worthwhile visit with so much to see. We came out mesmerised try-ing to work out how they actually did break those codes! Bletchley Park’s wartime role remained a closely guarded secret until the late 1980s. It narrowly escaped the bull-dozer a number of times. Some scenes of the recent film ‘The Imitation Game’ about Alan Turing were shot in the mansion and parts of the set have been included in an exhibition there . Patrick Woodock

Boudica Revisited With the Roman Mancetter project of 2013/2014 still vi-brant, two recent media items have brought fresh interest to the matter of Boudica’s campaign. An article in Current Archaeology (No. 308) opens with: “GOLD! Today I had the good fortune to uncover a collection of gold and silver jewellery.” To his obvious delight, archaeologist Adam Wightman unearthed a hoard of treasures during the reno-vation of a Colchester department store, personal items ap-parently buried in panic-driven haste ahead of the Boudican onslaught in AD60. In the remains of a wooden, silver-sheathed box he found valuables: a silver bracelet, a mili-tary-awarded armlet, two gold bracelets, two pairs of gold earrings, five gold rings (all but one set with emeralds) and a bag of coins worth about five weeks’ pay for a legionary. But it also contained sentimental keepsakes: a glass disc carved with a panther, dating to long before the attack on the city (perhaps a family heirloom?) and a protective bulla - an amulet of the type given to boys under 16, after which it would be treasured, and brought out to wear on special oc-casions. Those who could afford gave their sons gold; this bulla is copper-alloy.

The article caught my attention for two reasons. First, the author suggests that Boudica’s rebellion should be re-named a War of Independence; the tag of ‘rebellion’ represents the Roman viewpoint. Second, his account of this war is ac-companied by six maps, the sixth of which begs the big question. A crossed-swords battle-sign marks an unspe-cific area some fifty or sixty miles north of St Albans as be-ing the site where the Romans “ carefully chose a battle site”. So, exactly where? The question the ACS project sought to answer remains unresolved. More to be done?

John and Jo Connell, and Howard Vero on site in 2011

It happens that the Colchester hoard is recognised in the

second media item, (“…what we’re witnessing is a moment

of sheer terror!”). This is a three-part BBC programme pre-sented by Neil Oliver and Alice Roberts: The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice. The third part, on October 19th, focused on the story of Boudica, so again that same outstanding battle-site question had to be addressed. There was suspense as to its choice, until, late in the programme, it most hearten-ingly came out in support of Mancetter: “a favoured loca-tion”. However, that good news also brought some frus-tration. We were shown a wood, then a meadow with

Obituaries

We are saddened to report the deaths of three of our long-standing members, all of whom made a signifi-cant contribution to the Society. Mike Trye was a key member of the HART project. As a member of the buildings survey team his work can be seen in our book, ‘Atherstone: A Pleasantly Placed Town’. Sue Naylor was a former committee member and tireless campaigner on Green issues, and Betty Ste-venson a staunch supporter over many years. Al-though not a member of the Society, we also miss Tony Wright, former lock-keeper and town council-lor, who worked so hard for the town and the canal, and died tragically young.

Planning Matters - Our countryside disappears Hot on the heels of the biomass plant on the old shale heap, Jaguar Landrover are developing a major vehi-cle distribution centre on the old Baddesley Colliery site which will operate 24/7 generating more HGVs on Merevale Lane and depriving local people of peace and quiet to enjoy a country walk, even at weekends. Across Merevale Lane just below 21 Oaks a five hec-tare solar farm has been given permission, despite our plea that it was too close to the historic sites and would impact on the views from 21 Oaks across to Leicestershire. We have been assured that it will only be visible from the upper floor of Bentley House and Merevale Hall, though it will be ‘glimpsed’ from the road in winter. It is undeniable that one of the Bor-ough’s most treasured views has now been damaged. There was very little local opposition, probably be-cause the developers are offering local cash benefits. Atherstone Civic Society has not objected to the fourth major development which is destined to de-prive us of a huge swathe of countryside between Holly Lane and Whittington. We appreciate that people need homes and that we have had very few family houses built in recent years. Therefore, when the planning consultation came out last year our re-sponses were restricted to the importance of achieving the restoration of the neglected buildings in Whitting-ton. Apart from a couple of agricultural dwellings this small estate hamlet has remained undeveloped and its repair and enhancement would be a reasonable quid-pro-quo for the loss of the countryside. The Merevale Estate will do very well from these four major devel-opments and it is only fair that some benefit to the wider community should accrue.

trees on three sides, but not a single a place-name was

mentioned; no field name, no wood, no known path, no

bridge.

At the time of writing, efforts are being made to contact the programme-makers for more information. It would seem that the programme was made without contacting Warwickshire Archaeology or Warwick Museum. So, can any reader throw light on the specifics of the locations shown? That would be most helpful.

Is this the battle site at Mancetter?

Given that this was a wonderfully dramatic representation of Boudica’s campaign, laced with conflagrations and whirling sword-play, it would be churlish to grumble at the programme’s unqualified presentation of Mancetter’s claim. But it offered as established fact such hypothetical statements as: “the final showdown is today known as The Battle of Watling Street”; “the two armies marched towards each other from opposite ends of Watling Street”; the Romans were “at the top of a slope”. It showed no wide plain, as mentioned by Tacitus, but de-picted the British chariots entangled in trees. So the de-bate on Mancetter’s candidacy must continue, alongside those several other sites that – for the time being? - claim the same distinction. Yes, Blood, Iron and Sacrifice was in-deed a cracking good watch. A lot of buckles were swashed: (“barge, stab, boom, smash, stab, mash…. re-lentless”, recited Neil). And for ACS members in particu-lar, it was a most excellent encouragement to retain our interest in the question “Was it here?”.

Footnote. See the website www.Academia.edu for The site of Boudica’s last battle, a paper examining the range of claims presented at the ACS conference On Boudica’s Trail (June 2013). The same paper is also on the website of the Na-tional Battlefields Trust, accessible to NBT members.

A further paper on Academia.edu focuses solely on Man-cetter’s claim: Boudica’s Last Battle: Mancetter’s candidacy (M. Hughes). This paper underpins the information (accessible via QR code) on the ACS Battle Trail informa-tion board 5, on the canal towpath close to Hartshill Wharf. Margaret Hughes. We are hoping to feature the BBC film at a talk on Boudica on 18th October 2016.

‘NO’ to chicken broiler plant The people of Mancetter are campaigning hard against a 40,000 chicken broiler plant close to homes on Nuneaton Road. The Environment Agency is propos-ing to allow the operator a licence, so we are depend-ing on NWBC to refuse planning permission. With help from committee member, Roy Taylor, who was a local authority officer with a long experience of pollu-tion issues, we wrote strong representations to NWBC and the EA.

Former Daw Mill Colliery, Over Whitacre Plans by Harwood Estates for an industrial develop-ment have been rejected by NWBC. The site is in the Green Belt and no ‘very special circumstances’ have been proven for its development. The borough coun-cil is insisting that Warwickshire County Council must now enforce the restoration agreement so that the site can be returned to countryside.