Food for Thought

A tempting place for a banana stop. Looking over the road as I chewed, I noticed I was opposite 'Rosary Lane', which strikes a slightly discordant note in a south Warwickshire village. I've taken this picture before, but never really looked at the detail of the construction; there is quite a lot of weirdness going on

The fountain is in the wall of the Manor house garden, some of which is 16th century. The 'Victoria County History" says the fountain is "Imperial period" construction, which covers a long time: 1751 to 1914. Intriguingly, it is built from scrap stonework; sorry, I mean "architectural fragments", including a bit of a 15th century window and early 17th century carvings, including "a broken shield of Ralph Sheldon impaling Anne Throckmorton" (his wife). I'm relieved to find this is merely a heraldic term, nothing to do with sex or violence  

I have stumbled across Ralph on a previous ride. I've now found he was not just an able entrepreneur from a Royalist family, he was also a Catholic at a time when that faith put him under suspicion of treachery and insurrectionary plotting - charges which he escaped, but which forced his withdrawal from public life and all but bankrupted him. The Sheldons were the hereditary Lords of the Manor here; Rosary Lane now makes more sense

The fountain taught me another thing: a new word. It is apparently a 'chalybeate spring' - a natural mineral spring containing iron salts. Anne bore Ralph one son and nine daughters, so the water must maintain a healthy constitution