Sometimes my imagination sends me on a wild goose chase.
I was sitting in a Cannock supermarket cafe, eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, as most writers do, when two women walked past me with their tea and cakes.
“Have you visited Freda’s grave?” one asked the other.
“Wasn’t she the Great Dane who marched men regularly across the Chase?” her friend replied.
Frustratingly, they sat too far away for me to hear the rest of their conversation, but Freda sounded a fascinating woman.
I’d heard of Boudica, Queen of the Inceni Tribe in East Anglia, who fought the Romans in AD47, but I’d not come across Freda before. I wanted to know more.
I wasn’t far from the Museum of Cannock Chase, on the outskirts of Hednesford. This free museum explores the social and economic history of the area.
At twenty-six square miles, Cannock Chase is mainland England’s smallest Natural Landscape, which used to be known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
It’s bordered by Cannock to the southwest, Stafford to the northwest, and Rugeley in the northeast.
As the museum’s fascinating displays explained, people originally knew this area of scrub land as Cank Forest in William the Conqueror’s day. He proclaimed it a royal hunting ground because of all the deer, wolves, and wild boar that once roamed here.
Nine hundred years later, the forest became the heart of the area’s industrial coal mining industry.
The Museum of Cannock Chase sits within the grounds of what was the Valley Colliery, one of several within the Cannock Chase Coalfield.
By 1933, the area produced over five million tons of coal a year, and 20,000 miners were employed here.
The museum has a wonderful display of a typical miner’s cottage of the era. There’s a range on one side of the room, a washing mangle and tin tub on the other, and a small table and chairs in the middle with some bread, cheese, and butter, ready for a simple meal.
But this isn’t helping my quest to find Freda.
I ask one of the museum’s volunteers.
“Excuse me. Can you tell me where I might find Freda’s grave, please?”
“It’s out on the Chase near Brocton,” she explains, “but if you want to know more about her, you should visit the old RAF Hednesford site first.”
Before I can ask any more, she’s interrupted by a phone call.
RAF Hednesford is only a couple of miles away, near the Cannock Chase Visitor Centre, and in the right direction for Brocton, so it’s my next stop.
This part of Cannock Chase contains a dense forest of coniferous plantations. Although William the Conqueror referred to this area as a royal hunting forest, there weren’t as many trees then. At that time, the word forest was used to describe an area of scrub and heathland with broadleaf trees.
Parking at the Visitor Centre, I discover the two-mile trail exploring the old RAF Hednesford site. It begins along Marquis Drive, named after the Marquess of Anglesey, who once owned the nearby Beaudesert estate.
Although Hednesford was an RAF site, there was no airfield here! Any planes had to land using the site’s sports field.
In preparations for the Second World War, the Government built RAF Hednesford in 1938 as a training camp. Its official title was the Number 6 School of Technical Training, and 7,000 men and women passed through here in readiness for their work in one of the armed forces, including the RAF, the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes.
Although much of the site is covered in trees, in the centre lies a vast, open grassy field, which was the parade ground. Spread out around this were over 500 buildings, including hangars and accommodation blocks.
Near the end of the trail stands a black hut almost hidden among the trees.
This is Hut 21 and is a reconstruction of wooden huts used to house soldiers during the earlier Great War. Peering through the windows, I spy several dormitory beds, dining tables, and First World War uniforms hanging on hooks.
Once the war was over, the Government sold off these huts. This particular hut became the parish hall for the village of Gayton, just north of Stafford.
It wasn’t only British troops who were stationed at Cannock Chase during the First World War. The New Zealand Expeditionary Force had six training camps in England, one of which was based at Brocton, where they were trained in trench warfare and bayonet fighting.
But I’ve still not found Freda’s grave, so I jump back into my car and head north towards Brocton. A series of roads criss-cross the Chase, and I’m a little wary driving through the dense coniferous plantations in case any of the Chase’s eight fallow hundred deer suddenly jump out in front of me.
I pass a sign for Cannock Chase’s War Cemetery. Perhaps Freda’s grave is there?
Reading the names on the regimented rows of white headstones, I realise many of these men are New Zealanders based at the nearby Rifle Brigade. The cemetery was also used by a local prisoner-of-war hospital, which is why some 286 of the graves are for First World War German soldiers.
Set back behind the Commonwealth War Cemetery is another cemetery. It’s a short walk through the tall, coniferous forest to a war cemetery dedicated to fallen German soldiers.
On 16th October 1959, the UK and German governments agreed that all German soldiers who died during both World Wars, but were buried in UK cemeteries that weren’t managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, should be moved to one dedicated place.
They chose Cannock Chase because of its hilly, pine-tree-clad forest slopes that are reminiscent of parts of Germany.
In the centre of the Hall of Honour lies a poignant bronze sculpture of a fallen soldier, created by the German sculptor, Hans Wimmer.
But nothing prepares me for the sight as I step out into the cemetery, where nearly five thousand headstones stand in neat, orderly rows.
There are 2,143 soldiers from the First World War here, and another 2, 786 men from the Second World War. Most are German or Austrian, although there are also a few Ukrainian graves here, too.
Walking along the rows, I can’t help but notice how young many of them are. Both cemeteries are a poignant reminder of the futility and waste of war.
Common names include Otto, Franz, and Erich, but my search for Freda continues.
At the next car park, a partially covered sign points to a stone. Freda’s gravestone, perhaps?
Excitedly, I jump out and walk along a short path to find an enormous boulder perched on top of a plinth. It’s a glacial boulder.
Cannock Chase has several of these huge rocks which, technically, shouldn’t be here. They travelled south, generally from Cumbria. Instead of taking the M6 or the West Coast mainline, these boulders were swept southwards by glaciers during the last Ice Age. They were left behind when the ice melted and the glaciers retreated north again.
It seems this boulder is a seasoned traveller, though. Workmen discovered it in a gravel pit, two miles away in Milford, in 1949. They placed it at the top of Pudding Hill, but later moved to Spring Hill in 1954, where they claimed it was immoveable.
So in 1958, five local lads accepted the challenge, and rolled it down the hill!
Today, it sits in a rock solid position, on a concrete base where a huge water tower serving the military camps at Brocton once stood.
A series of paths head off from here, and I’m drawn to a wonderful viewpoint overlooking the Sherbrook Valley. This open heathland is more reminiscent of how the Chase used to look.
There are vast swathes of purple heather, vibrant gorse, and the occasional silver birch. Nightjars are sometimes heard here at dusk.
A network of trails criss-cross the Chase, including the Staffordshire Way, the Cross Britain Way, and the Heart of England Way. There’s a plethora of signposts, but I finally see one pointing to Freda’s Grave. At last!
Just round a corner, there’s a memorial stone with some poppy wreaths lying at its base. Was this Danish woman a military hero?
Then I realise my mistake. I’d misunderstood those women in the cafe. Freda wasn’t a great Danish leader. She was a Harlequin Great Dane dog!
Freda was the mascot of the Fifth Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade based on Cannock Chase during the Great War, and often accompanied the soldiers on official parades and marches across the area.
Although the troops buried their mascot here, Freda’s collar lies in New Zealand’s National Army Museum, in Waiouru.
Perhaps this will teach me not to listen in on other people’s conversations in cafes. Then again, I have had a fascinating day out exploring Cannock Chase!
Factfile
- Between 1947 and 1963, over 81,500 men did their National Service basic six-week training at RAF Hednesford.
- Cannock Chase Forest produces 19,000 tonnes of timber every year.
- Castle Ring hill fort is Cannock Chase’s highest point at 795 feet above sea level. The Ancient British Cornovii tribe settled here in 500 BC.
- Pye Green’s British Telecom Tower reaches high above Cannock Chase’s treetops at 388 feet tall. It has a direct line of sight with the BT Tower in the centre of Birmingham, twenty miles away.
- The Cannock Chase Berry is a hybrid bilberry unique to the Cannock Chase area.
Getting There
By Road: Cannock Chase Visitor Centre lies 8miles from Junction 12 of the M6, or five miles along the A460 from Rugeley town centre.
Want To Know More?
Cannock Chase Visitor Centre, Cannock Chase Country Park, Marquis Drive, Hednesford, Nr. Cannock, Staffordshire, WS12 4PW
Tel: 01543 876741
Email: cannockchasemarquisdrive@staffordshire.gov.uk
© Simon Whaley