Vurry Stroinge

Sometimes you end up feeling like a complete plonker. Today was one of them. We set-off for home from Worcestershire thinking about where to stop for lunch. Rather than grind up the M5 and M6 we opted to skirt to the west of Birmingham and visit parts of North Worcestershire and Shropshire that we had never visited before. So here was my lunch-stop suggestion. Stourport on Severn. It was, according to Hoskins, a canal boom town, thriving in the early 1800s as the place where the newly constructed Shropshire/Worcestershire canal meets the river Severn. Lock 'staircases' were constructed, wharves, canal basins and Warehouses were built, and a handsome Regency period high street built alongside the new canal hub. Sounds wonderful I thought. I was expecting Cheltenham with narrow boats. What Hoskin's learned book on landscape failed to mention was that following the demise of the town's fortunes on the arrival of the railway, the place re-invented itself as a place for working class people from the Black Country to have a bit of a day-out. The resultant mix is strange to say the least. The canal architecture is wonderful, but it co-exists beside a big fun-fair that seems straight out of Blackpool, kiss-me-quick hats and all.

This was probably a fun place to be in 1952, but Stourport has gone the way of most of the rest of English traditional resorts and is looking distinctly run-down. Not just along the river, but the town itself, though still full of lovely early Victorian buildings, has definitely seen better days. The high street has all the tell-tale signs of impoverishment - lots of charity shops, discount clothes shops, fast food places and chip shops, but we wanted to buy  bread buns to make some sandwiches. Nowhere sold bread buns. There was a bakery, but it sold only cakes and pies.

All that being said, the place was packed. It felt slightly rough, and some of the teenagers hanging about the skate park looked distinctly menacing. Now I'm not usually easily menaced, especially by teenagers. I spent 30 years in Further Education working with all kinds of young people and my experience was, that even the scariest tended to be gentle misunderstood souls at heart who just needed a bit of attention and friendly support. I also got pretty adept at spotting the odd exception to the rule and developed an intuition as regards characters who were less than benign, There seemed to be a few of those hanging about. Fine for a Monday afternoon, but I bet the place is pretty lively come Friday night.

Narrow boats and waltzers - an odd combination.

It must have been a hive of industry in its heyday.

Here's where the canal joins the Severn

All the fun of the fair.

Next to historic river craft

Gill above, barge below.

Many a strange burger, but not a bun to be had.....

So, all in all I don't think either of us were at all regretful about jumping into Maisy and escaping Stourport. I had spotted a Forestry Commission Country Park on the edge of Wyre Forest, a tract of ancient woodland near Kidderminster. This place was packed out too, mainly with young families. The place had all the trappings of a Forestry Commission developed site - a bit like Delamere Forest - complete with 'Go Ape' adventure area, waymarked trails laid out especially for kids to find the Gruffalo in the woods. Even more bizarrely - a reminder, in case you were under any illusion, 'there is no such thing as the dog poo fairy....

Time to go home, the strangeness of Albion, it's baffling.

Fancy getting in touch with your inner primate?

If you go down to the woods today

you're in for a big surprise

Glad we cleared that up.....