Eastertide! And a l-o-n-g weekend! What to do, what to do?
We packed up last night and this morning, and Don trundled our pac
king up to Borehamwood in the car. Having managed to leave work early, Margaret came up by train, and we left Borehamwood at 16:30, heading north to Staffordshire. The weather was fine and the trip (taking Watling St up to the M10, then following the M1 to Junction 9, but abandoning it there for the A5—Watling St again: 130 miles, but getting to see more of the country than we would have on the motorway) was stimulating and uneventful. We arrived at Stone about 8:00 in the evening.
Stone is an old market town with a population of around 14,500. We’d picked it because we wanted to visit the Staffordshire potteries without staying in “the city” (i.e., Stoke); and a good pick it was. Stone, it turned out, is greatly diminished from its former glory; 1200 years ago, it was the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Nothing remains visible from those times; the oldest standing church in the town, St Michael’s, was built in 1758, following the collapse of its late mediaeval predecessor, which in turn had replaced a seventh century church raised (the legend goes) atop a pile of stones from the River Trent to mark the graves of two Mercian princes, murdered by their father King Wulfhere because they had converted to Christianity. It’s from those stones, the local story says, that the town took its
name.
We’d booked into the Crown Hotel, drawn by its description as “an 18th-Century coaching inn,” and its promise of free WiFi broadband in every room. Finding Stone, and finding the hotel, were not too problematic (thanks, Google maps!), and there was a substantial car park behind the hotel.
Our room was upstairs in the original building, as opposed to “the
Lodge” behind the original building; fortunately, we only had to lug the luggage (hey!—is that why it’s called “luggage”?) up one flight of stairs. This took us past the lounge bar, where a largish group of people seemed to be gathered to hear some Country and Western music going on.
We installed ourselves in our room (up a flight of stairs and along the corridor), then went back down and out through the front door, passing yet more live music, to investigate dining options in the High Street, which is for the most part a pedestrian precinct (some traffic is allowed, and in fact we’d driven down it on our way to find the hotel). Dining options were important because the next day would be our 27th wedding anniversary, and we wanted to celebrate it with a good
meal. We went uphill (north-westward in the High Street) and down (south-eastward in the High Street; see the map below), and decided that “Pasta di Piazza” looked promising (a much more extensive menu than its name might suggest), and booked ourselves in for 9 p.m. the next night—earlier options being a little too early, at 6 to 7 p.m.!
We packed up last night and this morning, and Don trundled our pac
king up to Borehamwood in the car. Having managed to leave work early, Margaret came up by train, and we left Borehamwood at 16:30, heading north to Staffordshire. The weather was fine and the trip (taking Watling St up to the M10, then following the M1 to Junction 9, but abandoning it there for the A5—Watling St again: 130 miles, but getting to see more of the country than we would have on the motorway) was stimulating and uneventful. We arrived at Stone about 8:00 in the evening.Stone is an old market town with a population of around 14,500. We’d picked it because we wanted to visit the Staffordshire potteries without staying in “the city” (i.e., Stoke); and a good pick it was. Stone, it turned out, is greatly diminished from its former glory; 1200 years ago, it was the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Nothing remains visible from those times; the oldest standing church in the town, St Michael’s, was built in 1758, following the collapse of its late mediaeval predecessor, which in turn had replaced a seventh century church raised (the legend goes) atop a pile of stones from the River Trent to mark the graves of two Mercian princes, murdered by their father King Wulfhere because they had converted to Christianity. It’s from those stones, the local story says, that the town took its
name.We’d booked into the Crown Hotel, drawn by its description as “an 18th-Century coaching inn,” and its promise of free WiFi broadband in every room. Finding Stone, and finding the hotel, were not too problematic (thanks, Google maps!), and there was a substantial car park behind the hotel.
Our room was upstairs in the original building, as opposed to “the
Lodge” behind the original building; fortunately, we only had to lug the luggage (hey!—is that why it’s called “luggage”?) up one flight of stairs. This took us past the lounge bar, where a largish group of people seemed to be gathered to hear some Country and Western music going on.We installed ourselves in our room (up a flight of stairs and along the corridor), then went back down and out through the front door, passing yet more live music, to investigate dining options in the High Street, which is for the most part a pedestrian precinct (some traffic is allowed, and in fact we’d driven down it on our way to find the hotel). Dining options were important because the next day would be our 27th wedding anniversary, and we wanted to celebrate it with a good
meal. We went uphill (north-westward in the High Street) and down (south-eastward in the High Street; see the map below), and decided that “Pasta di Piazza” looked promising (a much more extensive menu than its name might suggest), and booked ourselves in for 9 p.m. the next night—earlier options being a little too early, at 6 to 7 p.m.!We got back to the hotel for that night’s dinner, but it was just after 9, and they’d stopped serving. The barman sent Don across the road to Subway, but that was closed too, so—leaving Margaret with a book and the live music to listen to—he walked down to the bottom of High St, crossed the A520 into Lichfield St, and returned to the hotel with chips and an excellent (with onions!) burger.
So we sat there, and enjoyed the music, which—it was now pretty clear—was a folk club in session. Various people got up, sang and played, and were applauded; but no-one apart from us seemed to join in on anything (and we only did it quietly).
Time went on, enjoyably enough, and the organiser asked a few times for “anyone else?”—till, in the end, Don worked up the courage to give it a go. He picked Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye (fake Irish accent and all), telling the audience they had to join in on the choruses, and heckling them gently when they proved reluctant. This gave Margaret the confidence to work up her courage—but too late! The central group, who’d been singing when we arrived, launched into their final sequence
Chatting with the central group afterwards, we learned that they met on the second August of every month—and there wasn’t a lot either of unaccompanied trad, or chorus singing by the audience, going on. We counted ourselves lucky to have taken in around a third of the evening’s entertainment, and expressed the genuine hope to be back on some future occasion.
So we sat there, and enjoyed the music, which—it was now pretty clear—was a folk club in session. Various people got up, sang and played, and were applauded; but no-one apart from us seemed to join in on anything (and we only did it quietly).
Time went on, enjoyably enough, and the organiser asked a few times for “anyone else?”—till, in the end, Don worked up the courage to give it a go. He picked Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye (fake Irish accent and all), telling the audience they had to join in on the choruses, and heckling them gently when they proved reluctant. This gave Margaret the confidence to work up her courage—but too late! The central group, who’d been singing when we arrived, launched into their final sequence
Chatting with the central group afterwards, we learned that they met on the second August of every month—and there wasn’t a lot either of unaccompanied trad, or chorus singing by the audience, going on. We counted ourselves lucky to have taken in around a third of the evening’s entertainment, and expressed the genuine hope to be back on some future occasion.
You can see the full set of photos here.
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