Pete mixes fact, fantasy and pure speculation on a tour of Cannock Chase. If any legend has allowed humans to waste more of their time in fruitless pursuit of the truth, then surely the legends behind the Holy Grail have to be chief amongst them. My trip to the Dyfi Valley two summers ago proved how the stories that blend the facts with the fantastical can bend the course of those who seek the truth. The legends of King Arthur are as contradictory as that of the Grail. Why then, would I be meeting Nukeproof main man Rob Sherratt and bike-slinger extraordinaire Adam Brayton at Cannock Chase of all places to follow one of the more bizarre Grail legend offshoots? Well, at the far north-eastern extremity of the Chase lies Shugborough Hall, now under the stewardship of the National Trust. Chief amongst its former residents is one George Anson. In his time, Anson rose through the ranks of the Royal Navy to become the First Lord of the Admiralty, completed a circumnavigation of the globe and became a politician. Quite the influential figure. His younger brother Thomas also served as an MP. George Anson commanded the Royal Navy at a time when Britain was exerting its industrial and military influence into anywhere without steel and gunpowder, and usually locking horns with France, their continental rival, at the same time. Today, Anson lends his name to an Astute-class nuclear submarine, but before that, a King George V-class battleship and at least...
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