Oliver’s Army

First chance to visit the in-laws grave for over four months. Churchyard looked like it hadn’t been touched in all of that time and was terribly overgrown. While Mrs C set to with the shears, I went for a wander round. Whilst most of St Mary’s in Dodleston dates from Victorian times, the base of the tower dates back to the original sixteenth century church. And the marks you can see in the photo were reputedly made by musket balls during the siege of Chester (Royalist) by the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War.
Chester was strategically very important at the end of the war, as it was Charles’ only seaport. He allegedly watched the definitive battle from a tower on the city walls, before fleeing the city into Wales.
Apparently, there was a storage depot in Dodleston which might explain why a small village, a few miles from the city, was caught up in the fighting.