Month: <span>April 2013</span>

Hodnet Housing Development – Community Consultation (Update)

The webteam have been provided with further information about the community consultation event on Tuesday 14th May 2013 being organised in regard to the proposed housing development in Hodnet. Details of the event can be found here.
Jo Lovelady writing on behalf of the agents Strutt & Parker stated:

The aim of the event is to stimulate positive design ideas and gain a deeper understanding of issues.
We were thinking the best way to do this is as people come into the event they are placed into small groups where a team member will talk them through the site including its constraints, then moving onto an informal brainstorming of design ideas and potential concerns.

All previous posts concerning about this development are linked from these search results.

Hodnet Housing Development – Community Consultation

The webteam have been contacted by Strutt & Parker, the agents for the proposed housing development on land off Abbots Way, asking us to advertise a further community consultation event. This to be held on:
Tuesday 14th May 2013 t the Lyon Hall, between 6.00 and 8.00pm.
The poster (available here) states:

We want local people to have a voice in reshaping the design proposals for the site and therefore invite residents to join us for an interactive event to explore different ideas.

No further details were originally provided (see below for an update). However, the Parish Council are under the impression that there will be no plans/drawings available on the evening, but the intention is to highlight the constraints of the site. These include the fact that the opening has to be off Station Road and that there are drainage problems on part of the site. They have also been told that there will be a series of interactive workshops during the evening to ascertain how the general public would like the development to look. Exactly how these will be conducted has not been explained at present.
Update: On Monday, 29th April we were provided with the following outline of the evening:

The aim of the event is to stimulate positive design ideas and gain a deeper understanding of issues. We were thinking the best way to do this is as people come into the event they are placed into small groups where a team member will talk them through the site including its constraints, then moving onto an informal brainstorming of design ideas and potential concerns.

Contact details for Strutt & Parker are: Tel. 01244-354888 email website
If you have views on this matter please make every effort to be present on the evening.

Hodnet & District Garden Club – May 2013

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 21st May at the Lyon Hall, when we welcome back Bryan Howard.
Bryan has been working with plants for most of his life. A student at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, followed by a spell at Kew’s Wakehurst Place in Sussex, he has been a horticultural advisor for Shropshire Council and for the past twenty-five years has been assisting with Radio Shropshire’s gardening programme.  He is currently a plant advisor for Dobbies Garden Centres.
With all this knowledge to share, we should enjoy a very interesting talk on
‘Pond Renovations’, where he will discuss pond materials, safety measures, range of aquatic and associated plants, containers and appropriate perimeter plants.  Every garden should have some sort of water feature, small or large, to add interest and dimension, as well as the benefits to wildlife.
HODNET & DISTRICT GARDEN CLUB meet every month on the third Tuesday at the Lyon Hall, 7:30pm. Visitors are most welcome to come along to any of our talks and partake in a cup of tea and biscuit. Entry fee for guests is £2.00 per person, or why not join our club? It’s only £12 for a whole year.

Weston Village Show 2013

Sunday August 4th, 11.30am to 5.00pm
The Citadel, Weston-under-Redcastle
Adults £5.oo each – Children free

As usual there will be classic cars, tractors, side shows, puppets, children’s games, dog agility with a wide selection of animals; shire horses, dogs, cows, sheep, alpacas, goats, etc. and the usual wide choice of food and drinks & local ice cream.
Puppets. Teens and Adult Sports. Gladiator Duelling. Sumo Wrestling.
Children’s clown fancy dress competition.

Special Event: Fun Dog Show

Dog show information from Christine Moodie Tel:  01939-200656 or email.
Other enquiries: John Edwards 01939-200235 or Sylvia Griffiths 01630-685204 or email.

A real country show for all the family.

Click below to download a PDF of the show leaflet.

Weston Show Leaflet 2013 WestonShowFlyer2013

FREE: Yoga taster session Monday April 8th

Kay Bluckman, a local British Wheel of Yoga Diploma holder, has generously decided to offer a free yoga session to those interested on April 8th at the Lyon Hall, Hodnet.
The session “Yoga for Health and relaxation” will last from 7.30 to 9.00pm (90 mins) It will be suitable for beginners and all abilities and ages from 18-80+. Please bring a yoga/non slip mat and a blanket with you if you have one, although a couple of mats will be available on the night.
Kay also runs other classes at Childs Ercall. For more information contact Kay on 01954  840892  or 07914  185240 or email

Easter Monday Walk a success

As you’ll see from the photo, there was a good turn-out for the Easter Monday walk organised by the Footpath Group. In fact 14 people and 5 dogs braved the bracing wind and enjoyed a refreshing walk following the route detailed in our second leaflet, concluding the morning’s activity with a drink at The Bear.

130401HFG_Walk

Thanks to the organisers, and do keep on supporting our activities. It’s very motivating to walk with a group – it saves you worrying about getting lost, and is a great way to get to know the local area as well as the other walkers!
For more information on the Hodnet Footpath Group visit our page.

Hodnet Giant on London Stage

TheLowRoadHorse2
No it ‘s not a new Trojan Horse, but it is the largest wooden horse ever made by David and Noreen Kiss, proprietors of The Rocking Horse Workshop.
Thanks to a recommendation from a previous work-experience student, David and Noreen were commissioned by The Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London to construct this prop for their current production.  Embargoed from publicising their work until after the show opened, they can now show off this masterpiece. The play, called “The Low Road” written by Bruce Norris and directed by Dominic Cooke, runs from 22nd March – 11th May. It tells of a young entrepreneur who sets out on a quest for wealth with priceless ambition and a purse of gold.
TheLowRoadHorse1David says, “We were contacted by the theatre in mid Jan 2013 and asked if we could produce such a thing and complete it by the end of February… the answer to both these questions was yes, so we were successful in acquiring the commission.” Though it does not rock, this giant does have one part which goes backwards and forwards. The head needed to rise and fall and this was achieved by means of a hidden pivot and spring arrangement.
The picture on the right shows the horse being constructed in the workshop. The horse was modeled on an old ‘pull-along’ toy horse and scaled up to be larger than life. Standing 14 hands high at the withers (or 4ft. 8in./1.42m), the top of its head reaches to a total height of 7ft (2.13m) when raised.
The horse was made from ‘yellow pine’  around an internal plywood frame for strength. Yellow pine is the standard material for rocking horse manufacture and David says, “I wanted to use a material that I had experience of and to know how it would perform.” The tail was indeed real horse hair.
No horse box was needed for the journey to London as the wheels, legs, and head were all designed to be removable for ease of storage and shipping. The horse could therefore transported to the place where the painting was to be done in a Transit van. Originally David and Noreen were to have painted the horse, but the production team were unsure how to finish it before actually seeing it. In the near future we hope to add a photograph of it in its stage make-up!

Rocking Horse Workshop Website