February News
This week, we took a small detour off the A49 to visit the church of St. Peter at Stanton Lacy, near Ludlow. It’s one of just a handful of Saxon churches in Shropshire, and is notable for a number of things. Its visible Saxon masonry is one; the fact that its then vicar was executed at Tyburn in 1679 (following a scandal of adultery) is another. Far more to its credit is the fact that a winner of the VC during the First World War is buried in the churchyard. The thing that draws people to St. Peter’s at this time of year, however, is its famous display of snowdrops. These absolutely carpet most of the churchyard.
There are many varieties of snowdrop (the Romans are believed to have introduced snowdrops to Britain) and they come into flower at slightly different times, so that one can be fairly sure of finding snowdrops in bloom somewhere between January (in a mild winter such as this has been so far) and early March. The little drooping and nodding flower heads that look so frail as they are tossed in the cold winter winds are in fact deceptively tough, and will push through crusts of snow and ice to let us know that the year is turning back to the light again. It is well worthwhile to lift an individual flower gently and to peep inside it – the plain white petals we see from above conceal wonderful complex and delicate patterns of green and white, different for every variety.
