When the days are short and the weather is cold (or wet this year), it’s cheering to see Christmas lights in the streets. Here’s a photo of Black Jack Street in Cirencester taken on 12th December. Lovely!
Whoever you are, whatever faith you do or do not have, and whoever inspires you, I have some simple things to say to you:
Life is not always easy or comfortable – may you have strength, wisdom and courage to carry on despite it all. May peace and grace, joy and blessing always follow you and find room in your heart – whatever your circumstances may be.
For myself, I follow Jesus to the best of my limited ability, for more about what I do, think and believe, browse around this website. You are a welcome guest here. And here’s a true word from Jesus himself:
If you’re struggling and heavily weighed down, come to me, I’ll give you rest. Learn from me, the burden I lay on you is very light because I’m gentle and kindheartedly humble.
There would have been bargaining and haggling, tobacco smoked and ale downed
Modern residents of Cirencester may not know that the town once had a wharf where canal boats tied up to load and unload goods of all kinds, including coal, manufactured goods, and timber. There were small hand-operated cranes on the quayside to help with handling heavy items.
The wharf lay at the bottom of what is now Querns Hill, less than half a mile south of where Cricklade Street meets the Market Place. It was an easy trip by horse and cart for any of the businesses in the town in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and would have been a bustling hub of activity. The area was large enough to turn arriving barges for the trip back to Siddington; imagine the sounds and smells as horses were harnessed and roped for departure or released to rest and graze after arrival. Money would have changed hands as goods were loaded or unloaded from carts and dreys. There would have been bargaining and haggling, tobacco smoked and ale downed, jokes and banter and laughter, bread, cheese and meat passed around. People would have greeted one another and said their goodbyes because barges were used to carry passengers as well as goods.
Does anything remain?
Surprisingly, yes! Parts of the towpath remain as footpaths and can still be walked, though the canal has been filled in and there’s no sign of it in the area near the wharf. There are dry stone walls that were once the boundary walls of the canal; you can see these when you know what to look for. And it’s not hard to trace the route of the canal on foot.
Begin near the bottom of Querns Hill, where it meets Querns Lane and Sheep Street, find the view in the location photo below.
Location of the wharf
You are now looking at the site of the old wharf. It stretched from close to the building on the left (beyond the parked cars and the wall) across to the right hand edge of the photo. The canal leading from the wharf headed directly through the building in the centre of the photo and on through the trees in the centre.
The trees follow the line of the old canal
The photo above shows the same trees but looks back towards the wharf; the buildings on the left are close to those in the first photo. The canal would have more or less followed the line of trees from the buildings on the left right up to the yellow vehicle, and the course of the towpath remains along the garden boundaries hidden by the parked cars. Turning 180° from this view there is a house built over the route of the canal, but walking around it and crossing the road, the footpath between the houses is again the old towpath. What’s more, a dry stone wall on the left hand side of this path is almost certainly the old boundary wall that ran along both sides of the canal. The wall is high here, about 2 m, but beyond the town and in farmland the wall was only 1 m or so. It’s easy to visualise the canal here, mentally remove the tree, imagine water where the grass is, and you have it!
The old towpath and boundary wall, the canal was where the grass is
I was quite surprised to find so much remaining and still identifiable. Local history can be very fascinating and sometimes the detective work is easier than expected. It would be nice to have some of these remains marked and explained on noticeboards.
If anyone reading this is interested in helping to research the Cirencester Branch of the canal, please leave a comment below and I’ll make contact.
It’s that time of year again, cards have gone out and others have arrived on our doormat. I’d really like to include my blog readers. So, whoever you are, wherever you live, here’s the image that was on this year’s card:
And what I’d like to pray for everyone reading this is that you would find fresh grace and peace in your life every day and be blessed throughout the coming year. May 2019 be the year you meet Jesus as your friend and guide. And for those who already know him, may your journey find you going deeper and further with him than ever before, in increasing faith and obedience.
Happy New Year 2019 everyone!
The photo shows Cotoneaster berries covered with hoar frost, the photo was taken in 2012 in our old front garden before we moved to Cirencester.
Only living things can form a murmuration. Not only that, the individuals must all be alive with the same kind of life, don’t expect to see seagulls and starlings together in the same formation.
A murmuration of starlings
This morning, swilling out the cafetiere, watching the dark coffee grounds fan out and spiral down the drain, a word popped into my mind – ‘murmuration’. This word is used for a flock of birds flying together, swirling hither and thither, flying together as one yet moving independently and in smaller groups within that one flock. Starlings are particularly known for this behaviour as they go to roost in the evening light, and the dark specks of coffee reminded me of a murmuration of these birds.
Murmuration of starlings
But looking at those coffee grounds made it very clear to me that only living things can form a murmuration. Not only that, the individuals must all be alive with the same kind of life, don’t expect to see seagulls and starlings together in the same formation. The living entities must also be in a fluid environment (air or water, large shoals of fish can exhibit the same phenomenon). And they must be aware of one another and able to respond rapidly to one another’s movements.
Take a look at this video of a starling murmuration. It’s stunning!
So it should be with the church. A formation of individuals all alive with the same life, the life of Christ, all filled with his Spirit. Church should be a fluid environment, the individuals free to move in every dimension, yet always aware of one another and responding to one another.
When the church flows like a murmuration, individually alive with Christ, individually free to move yet mutually aware, responding to one another’s presence and movement, unconstrained except in obedience to Christ, then, my friends, we will see her transcendent glory revealed and the whole world will gasp. People will say, ‘Oh wow, how can this collection of individuals flow together with such transcendent beauty and grace?’
If not, we are little better than coffee grounds swirling into the drain. Not alive at all, merely acted on by random currents as gravity draws us ever downwards. Paul expressed this when he wrote to the church in Ephesus,
We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Friends are important, we humans are fundamentally social beings
At my sister’s recent book launch, I was delighted to meet an old friend from school days, Nick Henderson. Although he looks older – as, of course, I do too – his personality is entirely as I remember from the mid 1960s. We agreed to meet again this morning at the Golden Cross in Cirencester, and it was a delight.
Nick and I last met when we were both living at home and very probably still at school. For a year or two we used to hang out quite a bit. I remember going with Nick to see a local band called The Corals during a record-breaking attempt at playing non-stop without repeating any songs; the drummer, one Colin Flooks, another lad from our school year, later became famous as Cozy Powell. And yes, they did break that record – in fact they smashed it by playing for 11½ hours.
The Corals during their record-breaking session, photo from The Wilts and Glos.
Nick and I talked about many things, catching up on our personal journeys over the last half century, recalling the cross-country runs that were compulsory on Wednesday afternoons at school, and thinking about Daglingworth Brook, the River Churn and how the water is channelled in and around the town. The drainage courses have changed over the years, altered for many reasons, beginning in Roman times when the town was young, and continuing right down to the present.
Friends are important, we humans are fundamentally social beings; renewing a connection after such a long gap has been a very special thing for me. More so than I had expected or imagined.
