St James church stands on a small hill above the town square in Audlem. It was started in 1298 and is an imposing building adding to the street scene with the buttermarket with the at it's foot. The town's market was revived in 1817 when the building was built. The market lasted until 1906.
Down by the canal we paused for water outside the Shroppie Fly pub. It was a warehouse until converted in the 1970's I think. It's fortunes have waxed and waned and looks quite fancy now. The crane was brought to the canal from the railway sidings.
Audlem Mill was originally Kingbur Mill and now has a great selection of Canal and railway book titles as well as a floor dedicated sewing handicrafts with plenty of art work too.
The canal cottage by lock 13 is beautifully kept and a fine example of the generic architecture adding to the canal scene on this flight of locks. The boat on the water point told us that they would be over an hour, so we moved down a lock and went to the next tap.
After passing Overwater Marina there is the long straight past Coole Pilate to Hack Green Locks. It was quite windy today so there was a bit of crabbing going on. It was great to look down the canal and see all the bridges right the way to the locks.
We arrived at Nantwich and moored up before the viaduct. After lunch we walked into the town just as it started to rain. Our first precipitation of the week. We picked a bad time as we arrived just before the pubs opened and just as all the coffee shops etc closed. We had to sacrifice independents for a Costa Nero! By the time we had finished our drink the rain had stopped though and we had a poke about in the few shops that were open in the High Street.
We also just arrived at the St. Mary's Church just as it closed. It is a lovely sandstone building and this head was to the right of the side door
St Mary's gets into just about everybody's list of best churches as right up there with the very best of Medieval churches in England. It was started in around 1340 and the interior is even more beautiful than the outside.
The In door market hall has the crests of the three important lords of the area. It seems to have a thriving life with frequent farmers markets etc.
Ye Olde Wyche Theatre of 1919 has a nice corner tower to make the building stand out. The tile work below the sign are also a great feature. Wyche is the name given to salt producing towns.
A flower between two thorns. Joe obviously has managed to get my best side!
2 comments:
Shroppie Fly might look good, but was closed last weekend so don't know whats happening to it at the mo.
Hi Alf, now I think about it there were no menus in the cases by the doors! I wonder why this place always seems to struggle as neither of the other two pubs are that brilliant, in my opinion. Just a little tucked away, and is there a car park? Happy boating.
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