Saturday took us through the Cotswolds - an area renowned for its gorgeous villages - we had already visited many of these and on this occaision went to Bourton-on-the-Water where Benjamin Bedome had ministered during the Evangelical Revival; he was one of a handful of Baptists who were involved and he was greatly used at that time. We also visited Stratford-on-Avon, the birth place of Shakespeare which was quite a delightful spot. We saw the half-timbered house where he was born and brought up; Quite a large house with diamond pattered lead-light windows.
That night was spent with a couple who live in the country near Hatton where we saw the 27 locks that work together to lower barges a long way over a very short distance. Next morning at` Emmanuel church at Leamington-Spa we met Sharon and Bill James and then had lunch with them before travelling due West to the ancient town of Ludlow in Shropshire. And it truly is incredible with so many half-timbered houses 500 and more years old. There's the huge castle where Catherine of Aragon lived and stone bridges. We're staying in a stone house 200 years old; the walls are so thick and we're sleeping on the 2nd storey but there's a huge cellar as well where the servants used to live, launder and cook.
We took a trip today to Worcester where my Great-Great-Grandfather was the lock keeper and he took the draught of the barges to calculate how much weight was in their load and what the tax would be, so we went to see the lock, built again of stone and it's still in operation, probably more than 200 years old. They built these mechanisms to last. We also got some good blackberries today.
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