Day 18. Branston Bridge to Fradley. 

Rather than just walking along the canal towpath towards Lichfield, I have found the Pilgrim Way Church Trail, A fourteen-mile route from St Michael’s Church in Tatenhill to Lichfield Cathedral. It follows an ancient path which may have been the route taken by Saint Chad on his journey to establish Lichfield Cathedral.

And how I’m enjoying it.

There are six churches on the trail, fine examples of churches from the Saxon to Victorian periods. The route takes you through some of Staffordshire’s finest countryside.

I’m back at Branston Bridge Inn, but I leave the canal to walk up lanes to Tatenhill. It’s already warming with the full sun.

Fortunately, there is a cycle path for most of the way.

Tatenhill.  St. Michael and all Saints.

  The squat sandstone Parish Church of St. Michael & All Saints Church is a 13th-century building which was substantially enlarged and altered in the 15th century. Around 1890, Bodley ‘restored’ the church.

The church is closed, so I walk on up the road. I stop to check where my footpath leads when a farmer appears. He has just been feeding his stock. He is happy to chat about all things rural. He runs a small farm with only 15 cows and 40 sheep, which he manages in an environmentally sound manner. He is a tenant on the current Lord Burton’s land. They tolerate each other despite being so different. Surprisingly, he knows Lancashire well from all his dealings, even visiting a blacksmith in Bolton-by-Bowland.

Whilst chatting, he points out a well across the road which I was unaware of. He calls it a ‘wishing well’, but it has possibly been a holy well in the past. Underneath its hood, there is clear water.

I take the path through the farmer’s fields, and thankfully, his cattle are out of sight. A wood alongside has won an award for forestry, but I can’t see why. Along the byway hedges berries are flourishing this year.

Over the valley is a large manor house, Rangemore Hall, previously owned by Lord Burton.

My way takes me through one of those places with accumulated junk, in this case, cars. There is a Morris Minor in there somewhere.

Escaping from the junk yard, I dive straight into a field of sweet corn where the path is not obvious, I just push my way through.

A lane takes me to my highest point and then straight down through varied countryside to the scattered houses and church of Dunstall.

Dunstall St Mary’s.

St Mary’s is a church built for the Dunstall Estate and stands alone. It has an imposing tower demonstrating the wealth of the benefactors, the Arkwright family, before they moved to Cromford. It was completed in 1853.

I enjoy the cool of the beautiful stone interior. The walls of the Chancel are particularly fine, lined with alabaster. The Church Warden is busy preparing for a wedding tomorrow.

The font is carved from Caen limestone with ornate panels, here Moses is striking the rock.

A fine alabaster Reredos at the altar was in memory of the Hardy family, who ensured the church was completed after Arkwright’s death.

Everywhere you look, there are delicate carvings.

The grandeur is completed with stained glass windows in memory of the Hardy family.

On a more mundane note. I eat my lunch sitting in the porch out of the hot sun.

The nearby listed church hall was once the estate’s school and has apparently a fine interior.

Onwards through the Dunstall Estate, past some delightful properties and across the land on a bridleway. The Dunstall Church stands out across the way. This is quintessential English countryside.

There are plenty of options through the fields.

Barton-under-Needwood has a busy main street, no more so than at the local Co-op, where I purchase a coffee and cake to be enjoyed on the seat outside. The church is only a stone’s throw away in a well-kept churchyard.

Barton-under-Needwood.  St. James’.

 Local boy John Taylor, the eldest of triplets, rose to prominence and riches under Henry  VIII. He decided to build a new church to replace the 12th-century chapelry, which existed in Barton. He was already a sick man and died in 1534, a year after the church was consecrated. 

Its exterior perpendicular style has changed little in seven centuries, but the interior has been altered many times. 

As I enter through the glass inner doors, I notice they are etched with what looks like a stylised conch shell, which is St. Peter’s emblem, found on many pilgrim routes.

I don’t find anything unique in the church, but there are some fine, mostly Victorian and modern, stained glass windows.

After a bit of newish estate wandering, I come across the Royal Oak. At last, a pub serving Marstons Pedigree on draught. I can’t leave the area without tasting one of Burton’s famous brews. And very cosy it is inside, top marks.. Out of town, I pick up a green lane leading straight to the church at Wychnor.

Wychnor St. Leonards.

The original church was a simple, small Norman nave, which was extended in the late 1200s. Over the next few hundred years, an aisle and a tower were added. Unfortunately, regular services are no longer held here, and it is not open today.

The adjacent fields show evidence of earthworks of a medieval village, which even I could make out.
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Suddenly, I’m back alongside the Trent and Mersey Canal. I’m not sure where the original tow path ran, but along here, modern walkways have been installed over the marshy areas.

I manage to catch this Heron.

I’m on the edge of the village of Alrewas. 

A couple are enjoying a picnic by a branch of the River Trent, where a ford used to be on trade and pilgrim routes. Interested in my walk, she spends a lot of time helpfully suggesting cafes I could visit, despite the fact that most of them were miles from my route. Car drivers have little conception of what it is to walk a long-distance route.

Alrewas.  All Saints

A church, connected to Lichfield, has stood on this important site from at least 822AD (some suggest St Chad himself founded it in the 870s), the first building being of wood. This, in due course, was replaced by a simple structure in local stone and developed over the centuries since then.  It is closed today.

I don’t see much of Alrewas except the village sports fields before quiet lanes into Fradley.

 I walk along nondescript housing estates. People I meet, in their front gardens, have little knowledge of where or when buses leave to take me back to Burton. My reading of the timetable is mistaken; there is no 15.35. Despite the buses running supposedly  every hour, they seem to miss this slot.

So that gives me time to walk along to St. Stephen’s church

Fradley.   St. Stephens.

St. Stephen’s was built in 1861 as a Chapel of Ease for Alrewas. Its unusual design and its position on the corner of Old Hall Lane have made it a landmark feature for the village. A pleasing modern building, again closed, but that leaves me to look around the well-kept graveyard. There are 34 simple war graves, many Australian airmen alongside RAF pilots from the nearby wartime airport. In amongst them is a sole headstone to a German pilot, Joachim Schwarz.

My bus turns up at 16.35 and drives around in circles to get me back to Burton. It’s been a long, hot day, The Weighbridge Inn is the grounds of my hotel, so I enjoy a pint there on the way in.

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