John Burke's Beautiful England
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Friday 31 May 1998

The last day of our holiday. Fran and I left the hotel in Bourton on the Water and headed northwards, passing through Stow on the Wold and stopping for a while in Moreton on the Marsh, where I took a few photographs.

This quiet and picturesque village was a centre for the preparation for the invasion of Normandy on D-Day in the Second World War and a display in a shop window had photographs of the main street, full of rows of U.S. tanks.
Where the cars are parked in this photograph, the tanks were lined up side by side. It was a miracle that the Luftwaffe did not catch a glimpse of the preparations and warn the German High Command.

The building seen in the first photograph had a splendid sundial carved into the face of the stone. The weather at the time was such that it was seen to its best advantage.
The town is predated by some earthworks thought to be Roman and dated to the first century AD. The town itself is Saxon, though the original form of "in the marsh" was "hen marsh" meaning a boggy area where birds congregated.

Bell turret and mechanism on show. There is a curfew bell dated 1633, but I'm not sure if this is it or not - anyone?
   
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