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CHAPTER 5: HEREFORD, BURY ST EDMUNDS, BIRMINGHAM AS FOUND ON A VARIETY OF MAPS
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I own a very special book which I first encountered in the local library when I was a child. Entitled 'The Map That Came To Life' it describes the journey made by two children and their dog from the farm where they live to a fair in the nearby town. On the way they pass various geographical features such as rivers, lakes, roads and railways. They meet some gypsies encamped by a forest and help put out a fire. It's not much of a storyline but what makes it such a treasure is that alongside the drawings depicting each stage of their journey is a one inch to one mile Ordnance Survey map showing that portion of their journey. The book was my first introduction to the world of maps, a genre that I find so captivating that, whilst my wife takes a good novel to read in bed, I can be found salivating over OS sheet 105, 'York and Selby', or OS sheet 115, 'Snowdon'. Alongside 'The Map That Came to Life' are books with titles such as 'Mapping the Railways' or 'Old Maps of London' whilst the top two shelves are given over to my collection of Ordnance Survey Landranger maps that I began to buy when we started doing some serious walking. They replaced my one inch to mile collection which I donated to a good cause when the more detailed Landrangers began competing for shelf space. Sue finds it incredible that almost every time we go away walking or on holiday, I have to buy a new map. I try to explain that it's because we're going somewhere we haven't been before but she's not convinced. My collection contains one or two older maps in the series which I'm starting to find in secondhand bookshops. I now keep a list of the maps in my collection with me at all times in case I discover a new map on my travels. I was thrilled to find a copy of 'The Map That Came To Life' in one of the many bookshops in Hay-on-Wye. If you are interested in finding out more on the town's literary connections or Richard Booth, the self-styled 'King of Hay-on-Wye', don't bother looking at the town's website: there is no mention of either! It was Booth who turned this sleepy Welsh border town into the thriving Mecca for bibliophobes that it is today. In 1962 he bought the old fire station and began stocking it with books that he'd acquired in bulk in America. His eccentric ways and a gift for self-publicity resulted in others following suit. His greatest stunt, frustrated by officialdom, was to declare independence for Hay on April 1st 1977, making himself the king and his horse the prime minister. Pictures of him walking through the streets of Hay wearing a cardboard crown were beamed across the world. By the time of his death in 2019, it is estimated there were over 100 million books in circulation in the town.
It was after a day spent browsing in Hay that A and I, along with his friend Al, decided to take an indirect route home in order to visit Hereford Cathedral. To say the journey was enjoyable would be a travesty of the truth. There had been no indication of what was to come as we drove to Hay or whilst we explored a fair few of the town's twenty or so secondhand bookshops. But as soon as we embarked upon the last stage of our trip, A and Al began. Something must have sparked off a memory of a Monty Python sketch because what followed was probably the complete oeuvre, A and Al being not just aficionados of the programme but absolute addicts. As one sketch ended another began. I enjoyed Monty Python. I enjoyed it greatly. I loved the performances of Cleese, Idle et al but not so much A et Al. Their rendition fell woefully short, not only destroying the humour but filling me with despair as the miles rolled on. Although we'd purchased quite a few books, they were in the boot so it was not as if I could escape into the world of fiction.
As we approached Hereford, the Monty Python fest thankfully came to an end as we found a parking spot near to the cathedral. A Saxon cathedral was established here in about 696 although the present building dates from Norman times. It is dedicated to St Ethelbert, another pre-Norman king beginning with the letter E. The story goes that young Ethelbert, the king of the East Angles fell in love with Alfrida, the daughter of the Mercian king Offa (or it might have been an arranged marriage but the love angle works best). Today Offa is chiefly remembered for Offa's Dyke, a defensive earthwork that runs from the north to the south of Wales, built to keep the Welsh at bay. Ethelbert made his way to Offa's palace but he didn't get quite the welcome he had imagined. Due to Alfrida' mother, the queen, being intensively jealous of her daughter's happiness, a plan was hatched to upset the love match (or it may have been because Ethelbert had minted his own coins and was showing too much independence for Offa's liking). As Ethelbert entered Offa's great hall, the doors were closed behind him and one of Offa's nobles by the name of Winebert stepped up to him and sliced his head from his shoulders. In time, Offa became very remorseful and had Ethelbert's body transferred to Hereford, causing a shrine to be erected. The shrine became a place of pilgrimage and survived until the Reformation when it was somewhat inevitably destroyed. We were very much looking forward to seeing a number of ancient documents during our visit because the cathedral was the repository for a copy of the Magna Carta, the only complete chained library in the country and, best of all, the Mappa Mundi, a medieval map of the world. Magna Carta was an agreement between King John and his barons that the king signed at Runnemede by the river Thames in 1215. It is one of the most important documents in Western history and forms the basis for much of the common law of our land. King John had not been the best of kings up until this point and the barons forced him to sign up to a number of demands that they put together in this great charter. Almost as soon as the deed was done, King John appealed to the Pope who annulled the charter, declaring it an illegal document. Armed conflict followed with the barons inviting Louis, the son of the King of France, to come over to England to claim the throne. The following year, in the midst of this turmoil and with London under the control of rebel and French armies, John died, leaving his young son Henry III in a vulnerable position being, as yet, too young to rule on his own. Fearing the barons may crown Louis at Westminster Abbey, Henry's supporters had him crowned at Gloucester and a new version of Magna Carta was issued, with 25 of the original 63 clauses removed. During 1217, the conflict continued with Henry finally emerging as the victor. Yet another slightly revised version was agreed and it is one of the four copies of this final version that Hereford has in its keeping, the others held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. We enquired of one of the vergers where we might see this great charter and were informed that it wasn't on general view. This was disappointing but we'd get other chances as two of the four 1215 copies were held in the cathedrals of Lincoln and Salisbury which we were yet to visit, the other two residing in the British Library.
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Never mind, there was still the chained-library and the Mappa Mundi. In Elizabethan times, books were precious commodities and institutions that held them took to securing them with chains to stop them from disappearing off the shelves. Hereford's collection contained the rare illuminated 8th century Hereford Gospels, along with 228 other medieval manuscripts. The books are arranged on the shelves with their spines facing inwards. This allows the book to be taken down and opened up without getting the chains twisted although it must be difficult to know exactly which book you were choosing. The Mappa Mundi dates from around the year 1300 and is the largest known map of the world that survives from that period. It is thought that it was created in Lincoln rather than Hereford because Lincoln appears in some detail whereas Hereford looks like it has been added as an afterthought. The author of the map is thought to be a certain Richard of Haldingham and Lafford, although experts consider the level of detail would have been beyond the work of just one man. Showing the extent of the known world, with a good sprinkling of fantastical features, it is centred on Jerusalem. The Garden of Eden appears near the edge of the map, along with Paradise in a position coherent with Japan on a modern map. There are 420 cities and towns shown along with 15 biblical events and drawing of plants, animals and different peoples. Strangely Europe is labelled as Africa and Africa is described as Europe. The map is inscribed on a single sheet of vellum, calfskin, and for years hung on the wall of choir aisle without anyone paying it much attention at all. During the turbulent times of the English Civil War and the Commonwealth that followed it, the map was hidden under the floor of a chantry chapel and in 1855 it was sent off to the British Museum for a good clean and repair. The restored map went on its travels again during World War II for safety reasons and then finally moved to the purpose built library where we headed for after hearing the disappointing news that we couldn't see the Magna Carta. The library was closed!
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As I mentioned earlier, Hereford cathedral is dedicated to St Ethelbert who was a king of the East Angles. The Kingdom of the East Angles, established in the 6th century and ruled by a succession of kings until Ethelbert' s murder by Offa, occupied the area we know today as East Anglia and it was to East Anglia that we next travelled, visiting the cathedral of St Edmundsbury in Bury St Edmunds. It will come as no surprise to discover that Edmund was yet another king of the East Angles, although probably no relation to the earlier Ethelbert. After a period of Mercian rule under Offa, the kingdom regained its independence and was ruled by six monarchs before Edmund acceded to the throne as a fourteen year old. He was the very last East Anglian King, being killed by the invading Danes. Now you would expect that a cathedral bearing the name St Edmundsbury would be the place where they buried St. Edmund, but you'd be wrong. He was buried next door in what is now a ruined abbey. There is little remaining of what was once one of the wealthiest abbeys in the country: at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the building was reduced to rubble. The ruins have been transformed into gardens and there remain two impressive gateways, one of which serves as the bell tower to the cathedral. Cathedral and abbey gardens were both on our list of 'things to do' that we assembled at the start of another Telegraph weekend. This was our first foray east and the opening of the A14 - M1to A1 link road - a few years earlier certainly helped speed us on our way. By now, we'd got into a routine for these weekends: finish work promptly, hand over excited children to visiting grandparents, pick up the other couple, stop for dunking doughnuts at a Little Chef ( we knew how to live), arrive at our destination and head out to a local hostelry to eat, drink and plan what we were going to do. According to the others, I became a little like football manager Brian Clough when interviewed by Michael Parkinson: we'd spend a long time discussing all the possibilities for the weekend and then I'd tell everyone what we were going to do. First on the list for Saturday were the abbey gardens and the cathedral.
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The cathedral only attained that status in 1914, having been the church of St James for most of its history, one of several churches that had been built in the abbey precincts. The abbey had a more impressive historical CV, being the location where the barons met to draw up the terms of the Magna Carta before confronting King John. Purporting to attend a commemoration of St Edmund, 25 barons and the Archbishop of Canterbury met in what was then a town surrounded by fens, forests and marshes and far away from King John, who was fighting in France at the time anyway, and his spies. King John had visited the abbey: it was a Royal stopping off point for practically every monarch from Henry I in 1132 to Henry VII in 1486. The town had been established by the monks, who had created a grid pattern of streets, and they held sway over the townsfolk. They also amassed great wealth, the shrine of St Edmunds being one of the most popular destinations for pilgrims. Resentment grew and finally erupted in 1327 when a group of about 3,000 attacked the abbey, destroying buildings and injuring or killing many monks and imprisoning others. The abbot, who had been away in London, returned home and was forced to agree to a charter which he immediately reneged upon once back in the capital. Hostilities continued for several months until finally a group of monks, fed up with no support from the King and church authorities, launched an attack of their own in St James church. The townsfolk were alerted by the bells of the two gateways and a massacre ensued with much additional damage to the abbey. Eventually an armed force arrived and restored order, executing the rioters' ringleaders and imprisoning others. Trying to envisage these violent times was really difficult for us as we wandered around what is now an area of tranquility. I have read recently that, following the discovery of Richard III's body under the Leicester car park, local archeologists believe they might now find St Edmund's remains under th3 tennis courts which occupy a part of the abbey gardens. We shall see.
Another Royal burial that survived the destruction of the abbey was that of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, briefly wife of King Louis XII of France and grandmother of Lady Jane Grey. She was originally laid to rest in the abbey but later her remains were reinterred in St Mary's, the church standing shoulder to shoulder with the cathedral and a fascinating building that we totally ignored. Unlike the parish churches turned cathedrals as Leicester and Newcastle, St Edmundsbury embraced its new status with a burst of building work that continues to the present time. A more recent visit to the cathedral had me scratching my head as it was not quite how I remembered it: it had sprouted a new tower.
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1997 was a wonderful year for three reasons. I got a new job after two years of writing incredible applications which I promptly followed up with dismal interviews. That's not quite true: I'd written one incredible application which I modified to suit the requirements of the post I was applying for and in some of the interviews I clearly gave a half decent account of myself, only to find they'd give it to someone already working there. The second major event was Labour winning the general election because, for the first time in my life as a voter, a party I had actually voted for actually gained power. The third was Leicester City winning their first trophy since I'd started supporting them. During the 90s, Wembley became like a second home to A and me. Before the decade was out, we'd have visited the old stadium seven times in ten years, the first four occasions being play off finals and the other three being League Cup finals. A little bit like the Henry VIII's wives rhyme, without the rhyme, I can recite the results: lost, lost, won, won, drawn, lost, won. It became a ritual - an early morning start with posters sellotape do to the car windows and scarves trailing behind; passing the other supporters on the motorway, waving as we overtook; parking in what became our usual parking spot and catching the tube into London. The 1997 match ended as a draw which required a replay in Sheffield one evening after work. It was a glorious occasion. I lost my voice for the first and only time - if only they'd had cup finals before my French oral examinations at school. On regaining my speech, I discovered that I'd lost three notes from the top of my singing range which have yet to return. The atmosphere after the game was brilliant as thousands of fans made their way singing and chanting to the supermarket car park where we'd all left our cars. Pretty soon we were tooting our horns whilst we waited to leave the car park. Unfortunately, the exit onto a main arterial road was traffic light controlled and, as it was normally only having to cope with shoppers' vehicles, only allowed a couple of cars to leave every three minutes. An hour later and we were all still sitting there, the hooting had died away, the chanting had fizzled out, the joys of winning a cup quickly replaced by despairing thoughts of spending the night trying to get out of the Godforsaken car park. Finally, one entrepreneurial fan went and stood in the middle of the road to hold up the traffic whilst the car park at last emptied.
August 1997 also saw A and I visit out 12th cathedral. It didn't take us long to get to Birmingham and to seek out its lovely 18th century cathedral. Originally a parish church, it became a cathedral in 1905. Our guides informed that it had been built in the English Baroque style of architecture and it certainly looked and felt different to any of the previous eleven we'd visited. From the outside, set on a hill that rises up from the central New Street area, it appears very much at ease with the slightly gentler pace of life of the quarter. This may be because it is set in what is known to locals as pigeon park, one of the few green areas in a city dominated by brick, concrete and tarmac. It has a dome, a bit like St Pauls in London, which is no surprise as Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St Pauls, was a great proponent of English Baroque. A curious feature, not found elsewhere in the country, is a balustrade on the roof that reminded us both of the Italian churches. Inside, that feeling of calm persisted. The ceilings were high and the main body of the cathedral uncluttered by pillars giving it a feeling of space which belies its position as England's third smallest cathedral after Derby and Chelmsford. Another individual feature was the large upstairs seating area. The architect, Thomas Archer, whose CV includes the magnificent St John's, Smith Square in Westminster and parts of Chatsworth House, was commissioned to built the original church as the population of Birmingham increased from about 6,000 in 1660 to around 17,000 by 1732 and the parish church of St Martin's struggled to cope. A lady called Elizabeth Philips donated some land, a gesture recognised in the dedication of the cathedral to St Philip. Many others gave materials or helped transport them to the site so the total cost of the building was only £5,000 (equivalent to about £700,000 in today's money).
The growth of Birmingham was phenomenal. It had begun life as a Saxon village but after being granted the right to hold a market in 1165, it began to attract traders to what became a thriving little town. When it was given the right to hold fairs, it became a magnet for the surrounding region with wool and leatherwork the main industries. The rapid growth of the town came with the industrial revolution when the close proximity of both iron ore and coal was a major factor. There were also many streams in the area where water mills could provide power to work the forges. By the end of the 18th century, the population had increased to 73,000 making it one of the biggest towns in the country (it didn't become a city until 1889). The first bishop of Birmingham, Charles Gore, was very aware of the poverty rife in the city and so, given the choice between constructing a new cathedral for the recently formed diocese, and using an existing church, he chose the latter.
Our exploration of the cathedral led us to four beautiful stained-glass windows, the work of Birmingham-born Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones was a member of a group of English painters known as the pre-Raphaelites. Another member was William Morris with whom Burne-Jones struck up a lifelong friendship when they were at Oxford together and it was Morris who manufactured the glass at his workshop. The pre-Raphaelites were a group of British painters in the mid 19th century who rebelled against the leading art authority, the Royal Academy. They promoted an idealised style of painting as seen in the works of the 16th century Italian painter Raphael and the artists who followed him. They wanted to go back to nature and for their paintings to be realistic. They caused quite a scandal when they first started exhibiting their works, using vibrant colours, often tackling subject matter that was controversial and painting in great detail. I'm not sure having three names was a requirement to join the group but maybe it helped. The three founder members were John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Burne-Jones was a latecomer to the group but, by the time he was commissioned to create a window in St Philip's, he already designed some glass work in St. Martin's and a church in suburban Acocks Green. He first window, showing Jesus' ascension into heaven, was completed in 1885. Like most things in this economically constructed building, it didn't cost anything, the costs being covered by a Miss Villers-Wilkes with her one proviso: there were to be no oxen in the design! When the artist visited later in the year to admire his handiwork, he was so taken with it that he decided to create new windows either side. Two years later, the Nativity and the Crucifixion were unveiled to flank the Ascension, with the final fourth window appearing later still and showing the Last Judgment.
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Our return journey from Birmingham was straightforward - that's not a phrase I've used very often. My worst journey had been on a coach when I'd been to the National Indoor Arena for an evening event. The coach set back off at about 11:30 at night. After driving for about an hour, I'd expected to be home, but then, in front of us, there was the National Indoor Arena again. The coach driver had got hopelessly lost in Birmingham's one way system and heavy traffic, then headed off in the wrong direction, returned, got hopelessly lost in the one way system again and finally completed a loop. Heading off in the wrong direction is easily done. When Sue collected our eldest and his friends from another event at the NIA, her car broke down on the top floor of the car park. The RAC van that came to rescue her was too big to get into the car park resulting in much running up and down stairs with tools and parts. Eventually, when all repairs had been carried out, and now running horribly late, she set off in the wrong direction and ended up on the M5 heading south. Realising her mistake, she came off the motorway and returned the way she'd just come. Now she missed the turn to the M6 south and joined the M6 heading north. Several minutes elapsed before she decided that this was also not the correct direction and finally she did an about turn and found the correct road. When I asked her what had taken so long, I had to duck for cover. There was even one occasion where I couldn't get out of Birmingham at all. Returning from one of Leicester's Champions League European games, I arrived at Birmingham Airport to find that, due to very high winds there were no trains running from the station. I finally managed to get an incredibly slow bus into the city centre, hoping to find a better service at the main railway station: I was to be disappointed. The concourse was a mass of humanity, all trying to fathom out how they were going to get to their destinations in the face of a 98% reduction in service. My only escape was by coach but by the time I'd trundled my luggage all the way to the bus station, the last bus for the day had departed and I ended up stopping overnight in a hotel. And now for the scariest journey out of Birmingham: yet another visit to the NIA, this time to watch a recording of the TV programme Gladiators. Gladiators had become a part of our Saturday night routine whenever there was a home Leicester match. A and I would head off to the game whilst Sue and H would take the children out somewhere. Then we'd all meet up at one of our houses for food and television. The two families twice watched the live recording of the show together, but on the night of the scary trip it was just us with one of our sons' friends. We'd got away reasonably quickly and the traffic wasn't too bad until we came to the M38 turn, our preferred route home: it was at a standstill. Ever resourceful and before the days of satnavs, I decided to put my extensive knowledge of Birmingham's road network to the test by driving in what I could be described as 'roughly the right way'. We were on the correct side of the city and it seemed only a matter of time before we reached the M42 to the east but then we found the road ahead blocked by a police car. Obviously there must have been an accident or an incident. I turned around and took a different road but this too ended in a police roadblock. I dived off down some side streets, away from the police action only to find yet another road blocked off, this time by an ambulance. We diverted again. Fortunately the children had all fallen asleep, but Sue and I were beginning to feel distinctly uneasy. What was going on? Every route we tried going north was closed off. Eventually we took a big detour to the south and escaped. It transpired that the police had found an abandoned lorry parked under one of the motorway bridges and suspected that it contained a terrorist bomb. It didn't, but better safe than sorry.
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