Short holiday in Cheshire

[Sagitar]

Last week we took a few days in a hotel near Nantwich. The hotel was nothing to write home about and the weather wasn't great, but we enjoyed our days out.

 

Nantwich is a lovely little town with lots of old timbered buildings -  

 

 

- a parish church set in open gardens

 

 

- a well kept market hall (and look at the price of the birthday cards!)

 

 

Walks along the River Weaver

 

 

A better class of busker (this guy played brilliant classical guitar and we sat and listened to him for over an hour).

 

 

The Town Crier was suitably substantial

 

 

and properly complemented by a very modern clock set up for the Millenium

 

 

We walked back to the hotel via "The Greenway", a new foot/cycle path running from Nantwich to Crewe. I gather that it wasn't loved entirely by the locals, not least because it cost some £50M to create, but it did seem to be an excellent facility for walkers and bikers.

 

One of my favourite pictures of the trip was this one of a modern sculpture on the side of the Greenway. The figures are flame (or maybe laser) cut from boiler plate and show a Roman soldier, a civil war soldier and a railway steam engine fireman, all figures with a connection to the locality. The profiling of the figures gives them a particularly appropriate combination of the substantial and the ghostly. 

 

 

The following day we drove to Chester, only about twenty miles away on quiet roads and with a good park and ride system. We hadn't been there for many years and though there were some obvious changes, the old city structure was easily followed. The bus dropped up right in the centre of the town, by the famous clock - 

 

 

We walked through to the racecourse

 

 

and along the Dee to the town weir

 

 

and the Park footbridge

 

 

then into the Park to see the old model railway

 

 

After lunch we walked along the canal to the Northgate

 

 

where we found a new (to us) sculpture commemorating the role of the cannon that defended the North Gate of the city during the civil war and was eventually destroyed by a direct hit.

 

 

Back along the city wall, looking down onto the canal and so to the journey back to the hotel.

 

 

On Thursday, a short trip over the Staffordshire border to visit the National Trust Gardens at Biddulph Grange.  Sadly, it started to rain heavily as we got there and my camera spent a long time covered with a Waitrose plastics bag as I tried to keep the rain off it. It is a very beautiful garden though and I really would like to go back.  It was noticeable how late things are this year. The rhododendrons were well behind and there were beds of tulips still not in bloom.

 

I did manage a few pictures however and here are half a dozen to give a feel of the place. They are all taken quite close to the house because of the rain and there are fifteen acres of grounds so there was a lot more to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nantwich looks a long way away on the map, but the journey is mostly on the M1 and the M6 (we used the toll road) and neither of these roads was very busy so the journeys to and fro were pretty easy and took no more than about three hours from Ampthill.

 

All the photographs were taken with a Fujifilm X-E1 with an 18-55mm 1:2.8-4.0 zoom lens fitted. 

[phipck]

lovely photography as always. Ive never been to Cheshire but it looks to be a fascinating place!

[Tony]

Stunning pictures as usual.... Looks like a lovely peaceful place, just my type of seance.