Abbey Meadows, Redditch

It has been the most wonderful Spring I can remember in Redditch and I remember 50 or so now. Is there

any better place anywhere than England in May?

This photo features the gentle rise up to the crematorium which is just out of sight on the upper left, which I

always think of as a ‘green hill far away, without a city wall’. More like close to home, in reality. Whoever

chose this sight for the ‘Crem’ knew what they were doing. I’ve already booked my half hour with the view

through that impressive plate glass window when the time comes!

In my years working at HDA Forgings, only a few hundred yards away in Windsor Road, I often used to walk

these meadows at lunchtime, maybe picking up a few shiny conkers to admire at the right time of year.

There used to be lots of sheep around in those days – on the fields where the houses opposite the Abbey

Stadium are now, and the sight of sheep has always appeared to be a calming infl uence in the landscape to

me.

I’ve had to revise my views on sheep a little since reading CJ Sansom’s book about the East Anglian

enclosures in the 16th Century. No doubt there would have been views about the malign influence of sheep

in the Cotswolds and Scotland, too.

We walk through history wherever we go in Britain – and Redditch is no exception. My photo takes in the

wooden bridge said to span the original red ditch, and the fence towards the back surrounds the site of

mediaeval Bordesley Abbey. Just out of shot on the left was the 12th Century St Stephen’s Chapel –

gateway to the Abbey, where there are still some very old gravestones. Some have details on both sides as

the stones were repurposed.

 

Done