Yesterday I went to Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire. It's a very pleasant but rather sleepy small town on the edge of the Cotswolds with a traditional tea room.
One of my sons-in-law comes from the nearby village of Whichford. This is the sort of village where people live for generations and still engage in traditional country pursuits. When I was with my in-laws for a barbecue not so long ago the death of the squire was a big topic of conversation.
However, it is also home to the Whichford Pottery which is located in a beautiful remote valley: Whichford Pottery . Its terracotta products are very popular in Japan and coach loads of Japanese tourists turn up there to see the production process and buy the wares.
My son-in-law's sister (who works at the pottery) gave me a voucher for a tour of Sheldon's wine cellars in Shipston. It was an interesting tour with a good wine tasting and they were selling some excellent wines at an excellent discount.
However, in an early part of the tour the guide told us that in the late 1980s the cellars had hosted one of the first negotiating meetings between the UK Government, the British military and the IRA whose representatives were flown into nearby Brize Norton.
No comments:
Post a Comment