SIXTEEN members of Powick Parish Ramblers attended a walk with a difference around St John's last week.

Led by Chris Evans, who spent his childhood in St John's, the walk began in St John's Churchyard and looked at various historical aspects. The knife marks made during the Civil War were noticed on the sandstone of the Church. The way led onto Bromyard Road, past the old St John's School (now the library) and the sites of the old infants' and girls' schools.

The route led down Laugherne Road, over the railway with views of St Clements' Church and the old railway yard, on to Comer Gardens, planned as a modern 'Garden City'. The party stopped outside the house of William Richard Morris, later Viscount Nuffield, who owned a cycle repair shop and designed in 1910 a car, which could be produced cheaply. He built up Morris Motors Ltd at Cowley, Oxford, and endowed Nuffield College.

The plaque on the wall testified this. On the Oldbury Park Road Henwick Grove could be seen, a house once belonging to the Misses Binyon, who were involved in good works, with the Worcester Royal Infirmary and YMCA. They left their land to the Local Authority to be used for educational purposes, hence the Teacher Training College, later to become Worcester College of Higher Education, now University College Worcester. Lawrence Binyon was a cousin and as a poet wrote the words of the Homage used on Remembrance Day They shall grow old ...

As all true rambles, the path found a muddy footpath along the Laugherne Brook after passing the Greenfields housing estate. Two pairs of mallards were seen on the water as the path reached the rear of Dowty Meco (now Joy Mining) and alongside the Worcester-Hereford Railway. Through St John's graveyard the ramblers found the fine memorial to the Rev Geoffrey A Studdart-Kennedy, the 1st World War Chaplain and Vicar of St Paul's (Worcester) in 1929. Poppy wreathes from Worcester Branch of the Royal British Legion and the Worcester city Council adorned the memorial of 'Woodbine Willie', as he was affectionately known.

Along the way, snippets of information on various trades - garages long since gone; off licences, pubs now closed, old dairies, bakeries a small shops remembered by Chris Evans "When I was a kid ..."; and the origin of Happyland, once the site of a sand and gravel extraction and a pub once called the Sandpit.

A coffee break was taken at the Age Concern Shop back on the Worcester Road, now housed in the 16th Century 'Hall House', a fine timber framed house which had withstood the Civil War, religious strife and re-development over the centuries. The ramble the continued to Boughton Park and the Portobello. Special thanks are expressed to Chris Evans for his interesting and entertaining ramble through local history.

Powick Ramblers will meet again for their Annual Dinner at the Halfway House, Baston-ford on Monday, February 5 to sample fine cuisine - which won a prestigious award for the pub recently.