While the pub was somewhat
pedestrian, the village provided us with a very pleasant
surprise, that reminded us once again, to expect just
about anything from even the most innocuous English
villages.
First, the pub. There was
some discussion as to whether the pub felt like a
restaurant: I thought it did; Doris thought it did
not. So, having established that it indeed did not
feel like a restaurant, how about the beer? I miss
my Black Sheep Special already. Flowers Original is
a nice enough beer in itself, but it is not Black
Sheep Special. Angels' tears mixed with the morning
dew would run a close second to Black Sheep Special.
We seem to have put those days of bad cider behind
us for a while, and the Stag's Head kept the good
run of cider going.
I may come back here some
time to try out the food, but for now, a packet of
cheese & onion crisps will do it for us, because
we have more exploring to do.
The name Offchurch is derived
from Offa's Church. Offa was perhaps the greatest
King of the first millennium, and strongly influenced
the Saxon world with his construction projects and
his European relations (good and bad).
Today, his name remembered
through Offa's Dyke, a well-known and impressive 160-mile
ditch-and-dyke construction that runs the length of
the England-Wales border from the River Dee in the
north, to the River Wye in the south. It is a quite
remarkable structure, considering its size and resources
available at the time of its construction, of which
there were not many.
Offa's cunning plan was
to provide Mercia with a well-defined, defendable
boundary from Prestatyn to Chepstow. Natural barriers
such as rock faces and steep slopes were used wherever
possible, and where it was not, an earth embankment
was built which in places still stands to a height
of eight feet and is up to seventy feet wide. If you
have ever been involved in building an extension on
your house, then you must know that all construction
projects involve as much planning and coordination
of staff as it does the actual construction. A 160-mile
defense, seventy feet wide must have demanded the
labor of thousands of men, illustrating vividly that
the Kingdom of Mercia possessed a high degree of cohesion.
This is even more remarkable
when you consider that Mercia ran all the way from
the Humber in the east to Wales in the west, and down
into the southwest reaches of England. In places the
dyke is absolutely straight for miles, proof of the
technical skills of its designers. I walked part of
the Dyke back in my youth, and I can vouch for the
difficulty of some of the terrain the dyke crosses.
Offa ran Mercia from 757
to 796 AD, not by wielding the broadsword as was the
standard operating procedure of the day, but by developing
a nationwide economy and building relationships with
his European counterparts. He also distanced himself
from disruptive influences in Europe, as well as from
the Powers in Rome, which leads nicely into one of
the even more interesting aspects of Offa's life.
In an era when people barely ventured out of their
own villages, Offa spread himself so far and so wide,
that he encountered completely new cultures and religions,
one of which was Islam.
Several brave scholars
have postulated that Offa converted to the Islamic
faith at some point in his colorful life. He certainly
encountered it in his travels, but our army of experts
can take it further. One of the strongest pieces of
evidence they throw at us (argumentatively, not literally)
is a coin, which is now on display in the British
Museum. It is a copy of a gold dinar by the Abbasid
Caliph Al-Mansur, the original of which is dated to
774 AD. Along with the Islamic Arabic inscriptions,
there is on one side the Latin inscription 'Offa Rex',
(Offa reigns). It has been suggested that this is
proof that Offa wanted to declare publicly his Islamic
faith by making coins with the Muslim creed on them.
This of course does not
make sense. Tell me one piece of English history that
completely does! If Offa had wanted to declare his
religion to his subjects, he would have done so in
his own country=s language, not that of an eastern
nation of which many subjects were unaware. Far more
likely is the desire to trade. It was common practice
in those days for a country, which wanted to trade
to mint coinage in rough facsimile of the country
with which they wanted to do business. Besides, they
misspelled 'Year' on the coin.
Offa died in July of 796,
to be succeeded by his son, who bore the wonderful
name of Ecgferth, and who up and died three months
later, thereby bringing to a premature and very abrupt
end the proud line of Offa.
Where Offa was buried
is not strictly known. I found references to somewhere
near the Ouse at Bedford, and even Cropredy, across
the street from the Red Lion, but Offchurch seems
determined to claim him, even coming up with what
looks like a stone coffin of about the right age and
about the right bearing for the King of Mercia. Certainly,
there are confirmed Saxon burials at the church in
Offchurch, dating back as far as 650AD.
Cropredy and Offchurch
come to historical blows again over Fremund and his
final resting place. Both churches seemed adamant
that the Forgotten Saint's remains are in their burial
chambers. With a death date of 866 AD, again both
churches could have a justifiably chronological claim.
However, Dunstable gets in on the act too, claiming
that sure, Fremund was buried at Offchurch (or was
it Cropredy?), but, "Don't you remember?......
When was it? 1212? We moved the relics to Dunstable!"
