My Merry Midlands Moments
There were still two weeks to kill before I could move back into my accommodation at Oxford, and I spent them at the house of two friends in Hampton in Arden, a quaint village just outside Birmingham. Until writing this blog post, I often wondered but never bothered to find out what exactly an Arden is and why anyone would want to build a Hampton there. It turns out Arden was once a large forest in Warwickshire that gradually gave way to settlements like Birmingham, Coventry, and Stratford-upon-Avon. It is thought the word would have meant something like “highland” in Brythonic (meanwhile, the name “Hampton” derives from the very pedestrian words “home” and “town”).
Tom and
Elva were gracious hosts, and (apart from the sequence of evenings when they
force-fed me the entire extended version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) they
granted me the relaxed environment I needed to write the bulk of my grad school
applications. My sojourn with them was punctuated by an occasional visit to the
local Aldi and a few excursions around the neighbourhood. There is a stately
manor house in Hampton in Arden, whose premises now house a hotel and a quaint
café, and the town itself abounds with picturesque timber frame houses.
On one
occasion, Tom and I met Luqman in Birmingham, which I found to be a much more
normal city than its reputation made it out to be. Indeed, there are parts of
Birmingham one might even describe positively. The area around Chamberlain
Square has quite a few pretty historical buildings, with the City Council House
acting as a natural focal point of the entire collection. I later returned to
Birmingham by myself on a sunnier day and made a broad excursion of the trip,
walking as far west as the Roundhouse (a former local authority depot, stables,
and stores) and as far east as the Old Crown pub, Birmingham’s oldest secular
building, which dates to 1368.
On a
different day, Tom, Elva, Luqman, and I attempted to make a trip to Kenilworth
Castle. Despite not having intended to make many stops along the way, Luqman
and I ventured into Saint John’s Baptist Anglican Church in Berkswell at the
recommendation of an elderly couple that had just been there for a funeral.
They told us we would find carved mice in the woodwork, a signature by the
furniture maker Robert “Mouseman” Thompson. Having found but one on the altar
(granted, we did not look very long or hard), I later discovered there were
supposed to be nine altogether!
The journey
reached its zenith shortly after with a hot chocolate at a local café. Upon
resuming the walk, we found that the paths we had intended to take were blocked
off by the HS2, leaving us to trudge across muddy fields and climb through
blackberry brambles. From what I can understand, this megalomaniacal infrastructural
project intends to connect Birmingham to London with a high-speed rail, making
the outskirts of the former yet another satellite for the metropolis. So far,
it has only succeeded in giving me very nasty blackberry sores on my ankles. We
canned our ambitions, therefore, made a picnic, and took a train back to
Hampton in Arden just as it began to rain.
Nevertheless,
I could not stomach the thought of abandoning my Kenilworth plans, especially
as my English Heritage Membership entitled me to free entry and I had just
received an offer to take another person for a 50% discount. On the 23rd,
therefore, when the weather forecast was favourable, Luqman and I made our way
to the castle by an alternative route.
We met in
Birmingham for lunch following my solo excursion through the city. Then, we
took the train to Coventry, a city known for Lady Godiva and for once being
bombed beyond recognition. The walk from the train station to the centre leads
past a few interesting churches directly to Broadgate, a major square where the
naked noblewoman sits atop her bronze horse. The pedestal of the statue is
inscribed with the words “Self-Sacrifice,” presumably an allusion not only to
her story but to the history of the entire city.
Admittedly,
Coventry does not have a reputation for being a pretty or exciting city. Upon
finding out where we were headed, our waiter in Birmingham asked somewhat
incredulously what there was to do. Nevertheless, Coventry is not entirely
without attractions. A few gates remain of its medieval walls, and extensive
timber-frame buildings dot the urban landscape. Also, its Church of the Holy
Trinity boasts a doom painting from the 1400s, in whose undarkened patches one
can clearly make out sinners being bundled up and delivered to a massive
hellish maul.
The most
famous sight of the city, however, is its austere and futuristic cathedral,
which stands right next to the ruins of its predecessor destroyed in the Second
World War. From the outside, the Cathedral’s most outlandish feature, the
Chapel of Unity, has the air of a space shuttle or nuclear bunker, but on the
inside, the stained glass and narrow windows allow for a subtle interplay of
light. At the end of the Cathedral’s transept stands perhaps the most comically
oversized set of organs I have ever seen.
From
Coventry, we took a train to the town of Kenilworth, whose train station is
about twenty minutes away from the castle if you know the way and half an hour
if you don’t. We, of course, belonged to the latter category of visitors. Winding
our way past Abbey Fields, we walked around the castle before finally finding
its entrance on the south-eastern side. To be quite honest, the heavily advertised
royal abode did not live up to the price of our discounted second ticket. It is
big, to be sure, and it is historic, but at the end of the day, it is a ruin.
One finds it difficult to imagine Queen Elizabeth making love to her courtier
in its bedrooms, as they lack ceilings and are inhabited by poop-smearing
pigeons.
We thought
we would walk to Warwick and take the bus or train to Leamington Spa from
there, but night started falling sooner than we had expected, so we decided to
take the bus to Leamington from Guys Cliffe instead. We were anxious to arrive
on time, as we were due to meet our dearly departed friend Harry. Having graduated
last year, he is now living in “Leam,” a clean little spa town with all the
architectural accoutrements thereof.
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