Cows grazing on Parliament Piece, Kenilworth
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Cows grazing on Parliament Piece, Kenilworth by John Brightley as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Cows grazing on Parliament Piece, Kenilworth
Image: © John Brightley Taken: 17 Jul 2010
This photo epitomises for me one of the special characteristics of Kenilworth - how the countryside is so close to the centre of the town. Parliament Piece is reputedly the site where Henry III held a Parliament in August 1266, whilst his troops besieged Kenilworth Castle. This Parliament led to the 'Dictum of Kenilworth' - a settlement that offered the rebels a way of recovering the lands that the Crown had seized from them. One copy of the Dictum is endorsed "in castris apud Kenilworth" - in the camp at Kenilworth. The King remained in Kenilworth governing the country from here for the whole of the 6-month siege - the longest in English history. The 14-acre field with its clumps of old trees and ponds is today owned by the Open Spaces Society and maintained by Warwick District Council and Warwickshire Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve open to the public. The land was given to the Open Spaces Society by the late Miss Helen Martin in 1986. Once a year cattle from a nearby farm are brought to graze on the land.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
52.353323
Longitude
-1.578142