One day, I was doing a volunteering shift at
Stirchley Stores with a rather nice man called Steve. We were talking about this blog and
he asked if I knew anything about Hawkesley Hall. I said, I’ve never heard of
it, which was true. Fast forward a few weeks to a day when I decided to go and
find it, and I’m quite pleased that I have! There are no remains on the site,
so if the signs weren’t here you’d have no idea. There are carved stone blocks
with minimal information on, but to someone who doesn’t know, this area just
looks like a patch of trees in the middle of an estate.
Hawkesley Hall is possibly the sister manor to
Hawkesley House on Turves Green – the former being Little Hawkesley and the latter being
Great Hawkesley. There is a chance that the former was the first home of the
Hawkeslow family, and then they upgraded and moved to Turves Green. I wish I could
claim to be a genius and know all this, but a lot of my information is from
here and
here.
There is a path around this site, and it supposedly follows
the line of the moat. I like this idea; you can walk around the perimeter of
the property before taking the path that would lead up to, and now through, the
house.
It would be very interesting to know more about this – what the
original house would’ve looked like, what the surrounding area would look like,
how the Victorian house that was built on the same land would look like etc. I
love peering into the past at old buildings and imagining how the world has
changed so much in that one location!
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| Lime Tree Walk |
To get to this location, you need to aim for the Hawkesley
Estate. I walked up from the canal, but the 45 stops a 5 minute walk away, and
the 35 and 27 also stop nearby. Once again, check out my brilliant Google Earth
Map to find out more!
