Thursday, May 28, 2009

Worsley Park & Kirkham, England 5-27 thru 28-09

This is Kirkham, Lancashire. I believe that this is the ancestoral home of the Kirkham branch of my family. Ted and I spent about an hour and a half in the town library reading the history of the place. We discovered that it was a Briton settlement and then the site of a Roman fort. A "kirk" is a church. The Doomsday Book in 1086 recorded a church in Kirkham. In 1296 King Henry III granted Kirkham the right to have a market and a 5-day fair. We found Kirkhams listed as vicars, teachers, clerks, and Henry Kirkham was the constable. I can't prove my lineage came from here, but it seems likely.
The town is well maintained, but not very remarkable. It is located just east of Blackpool. It was once known for growing flax. It is still quite agricultural. We saw a farm tractor pulling a cart through town.
The Roman fort was built here probably because of the hill that gave the conquerors a good view of the area.
The day after I wrote about this saying in our blog, I saw this. That is a train at the curb.
The countryside between Chepstow and Manchester was rolling and pretty.
The Stoke-on-Trent train station was getting a once over. Mid-size towns have glass covers like this one. Little towns like Walkden, our current nearest train station, are bare bones with a platform and a small shelter.
The train station in Manchester was busy and had many shops and eateries. We took a moving escalator that slanted to an upper level to get to our connection.
Now this Marriott outdid itself in terms of signage. We learned that it was cheaper to take a cab rather than the bus between the train station and this country club hotel. That is because you have to pay individually for the bus. The bus also let us off across a very busy road without an electronic cross walk signal.
This Marriott is really nice. We had the best meal here that we have had since arriving in England, we both had scallops with locally grown asparagus. There was a man reading his Kindle here. He had to be an American because there is no connection to Amazon available from Great Britain or Europe.
This was the view from our room window.










No comments: