We have spent a whole week at Kings Bromley Waterside and Marina, it’s a very pleasant marina with probably the best facilities we have (in forty years of caravanning, five years of narrow boating and eighteen months of motor-homing) ever come across. The showers and toilets are unisex but comprise not showers and toilets per se but shower rooms, each (large) shower room has a toilet, basin, huge shower, hot towel rail, chair and lots of clothes hooks. All the shower rooms were sparkly clean.
All our laundry is up to date and as the system is the same as at Trinity we were able to log in and use this weeks free wash and dry.
This marina is very isolated but there is an on demand bus service that accepts our bus passes.
We went into Litchfield City twice on the first occasion we strolled around, visited a couple of excellent coffee shops, looked around the market and in the late afternoon went to dinner at Ego Mediterranean Restaurant and Bar.
On that first visit to Litchfield we hadn’t time to visit the cathedral so we returned Saturday to get a few bits and bobs of shopping and have lunch and, most important, visit the cathedral.
Lichfield Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary and Saint Chad is a Church of England. It is the seat of the bishop of Lichfield and the principal church of the diocese of Lichfield and holds daily services. The cathedral has been designated a Grade I listed building.
The diocese of Mercia was created in 656 AD, and a cathedral was consecrated on the present site in 700 AD. The relics of the fifth bishop, Chad of Mercia, were housed at the cathedral until being removed in 1538 during the English Reformation. In 1075 the seat of the diocese was moved to St John the Baptist’s Church, Chester and then from there to St Mary’s Priory in Coventry. Lichfield gained co-cathedral status in 1148, and became the sole cathedral in the diocese after St Mary’s Priory was dissolved in 1539 and the new diocese of Chester created in 1541. During the English Civil War the Cathedral Close, Lichfield was besieged three times; the church was severely damaged, losing all of its medieval glass and many monuments.
The cathedral was built between early 13th century and c. 1320 in the Decorated Gothic style. The work probably began with the choir at the east end and progressed west through the transepts, chapter house, nave, and south-west tower. The lady chapel, central tower, south-east tower, and three spires followed. The building was restored after the Civil War under bishop John Hacket and several times in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of the details of the building date from the restorations undertaken by George Gilbert Scott, owing to the soft sandstone of which it is constructed as well as war damage. (source – Wikipedia)
After watching the march past we went to The Wine House for lunch before wandering back to the bus station for our pre-booked bus which was due between 2.30pm and 3.00pm, you book a time and depending upon traffic and how busy it is it can be up to 15 minutes either side of the time requested. We arrived just before 2.30 and waited till 3.25, still no bus so we rang an Uber which was there in 5 minutes, the bus still had not arrived.
The CRT true to their word re-opened the canal system (at least the parts of interest to us) on Friday 10th October but as detailed above we wanted to spend a little more time in Litchfield and we wanted to let those who had been stuck at lock flights for weeks to go through and hopefully lessen the queues we anticipate on our way back.
We plan to leave on Monday next week.
No miles this week so no progress map 😳