St. Chad's is the oldest church in Stafford: indeed it is the oldest complete building of any kind within the borough, but the history of Christianity in this area goes back a good deal further. The origins of Stafford are bound up with the story of St. Bertelin, a Saxon saint who set up a hermitage here at the beginning of the eighth century.
What is now the town centre was then no more than a kind of island surrounded by river and marsh, with a landing-place (staith) and a crossing place (ford) which combines to give Stafford its name. A church was built, first of wood and later of stone, on the site of Bertelin's hermitage, and the foundations of the eleventh-century building can be seen adajcent to the west wall of St. Mary's, the church which replaced it as the Collegiate Church and Parish Church of the Borough. Sometime between the re-building of St. Bertelin's (c. 1050) and the building of St. Mary's (c. 1190), St. Chad's came into being.
Taken late Saturday night (around midnight-ish) while streams of emo teenagers mingled and mooched by, celebrating the uniqueness and lasting appeal of their (current) mobiles :P In the distance, a group were singing to "Living on a prayer" (always a rural crowd pleaser and kind of aptly ironic) which was blasting from a neon-lit riverside nightclub. It makes me sound old, but I had to get away and find a quieter spot from another era.
@memphis I use Photoscape (as it's free) and sometimes use Picnik and Befunky. This was done in Befunky. Here's a link if you want to try it out http://www.befunky.com/create/#/home
Thanks so much for the link! I'll definitely try it out. I really like the look of your photos, so I'll have to play around with it. The photo above is definitely one of my faves!!
Really great shot - beautiful architecture! That's one thing I envy about you guys - we just don't have anything that old here. And it's always so neat looking!
@sabresun There was nothing here but forest in 12th century! Anything from the 1800's is VERY old here. I was in the UK when I was 8 (my Mum is from Manchester) and of course didn't appreciate any of the history
