A Day Out With Elspeth in Shrewsbury

The English Bridge, Shrewsbury

My first thought about this Shropshire town is comparisons, so let me make them first.

I said that Chester is black and white and red all over; the same is true for this other Welsh border county town of c70,000, except that the Salopian one includes beige. But then I looked at Chester and counted at least 8 major central buildings (the new castle, old news room, Bridgegate arch, St Michael’s church, Brown’s department store, the town hall, a couple of banks) that are also made of that stone. But I note that in Chester, they’re all within 100 years from the late 1700s; whereas in Shrewsbury, they start earlier – in medieval churches and late Tudor school and market hall, as well as the Victorian railway station. oth these Marches mediaeval gems are thus built in a limited and distinctive colour scheme, a defining feature and an easy fact in popular imagination. The truth is that along with local stone, they are filled with brick frontages of a similar hue – a reddish pink – and that Georgian (or what appears to be) is as much part of their character as the older timbered buildings. Chester’s set of the latter involves more neo and restored edifices; both showcase the West of England patterning. Rather than just vertical studs, here the timber frames involve squares to be filled in with quatrefoils and diagonals, curves, cusps and clubs (of the playing card kind). In Shropshire there are a few of these 15-17^th C houses which preserve the natural dark brown of the wood, instead of painting it black, and that the plaster inbetween can be a bright yellow, such as Castle Gates House currently sports.

Castle Gates and St Nicholas’ chapel from the library and you-know-who statue

Both are on a loop in the river, but Chester’s coils are often off central maps. Shrewsbury’s horse shoe lends itself to logos, whilst Chester is defined by the shape of its largely extant walls, which is a rectangle with a bite out of one corner. Thus one is delineated by straight lines and an almost basic geometric shape, but Shrewsbury’s central footprint is free flowing and curvy.

Both have Georgian bridges, and elegant iron footbridges; a park between river and town wall; a market square; a truncated major Norman church just outside the walls; and a Georgian-interfered with castle.

And both have a classy historic air.

Even their universities are joined – the arms of University College Chester shares the wall of its Salopian counterpart on the quay of the latter. And they’re joined by a railway line – and why wouldn’t a resident or visitor of one wish to go to the other, since they are so alike?

The biggest difference is that Chester is essentially Roman; its four main streets meet at a cross. Chester is about wide, easily navigable street pattern, but Saxon born Shrewsbury is about lanes and ‘shuts’. I oft consulted my map, even on an extended stay, which wasn’t my first visit.

Chester has the Anglican cathedral – making it the only city of the two – but otherwise Cestrian churches aren’t much in my consciousness. Shrewsbury has less parish churches in the middle, but the four feel like more of a feature. Shrewsbury’s Catholic cathedral is not a memorable edifice. It is close to the only stretch of town walls – another key difference between these places, for Chester’s Walls are one of its most famous features, and Shrewsbury has no Rows. And Shrewsbury doesn’t have a grand town hall, whereas Chester lost its old market hall on legs.

Other than that, I think their offerings are similar. For me, Shrewsbury isn’t a place to go to see anything in particular, although I loved the town’s free museum. It used to be in Rowley’s House, but is now housed in a music hall and a medieval mansion called Vaughn’s off the Square. I had very pleasant experiences each time I popped in. It is also the visitor information centre.

Shrewsbury Abbey

Fans of Cadfael – the medieval murder mystery solving monk invented by Ellis Peters – will be glad to know that he features under the timbers of this mansion, and you can still purchase a trail booklet, but the Quest attraction about recreating his mysteries shut 20 years ago. The site includes the ultra-claustral (have I invented that?) remains of the abbey, severed from its church by a road. It’s open during weekday day times as part of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, but you’d need to attend a conference to enter the what’s known as the old infirmary, or in the Quest days as the Scriptorium (above) – the building may be neither. It’s unclear what’s built in pastiche and what belongs to the monastic era. The refectory pulpit – a gem of Chester – is an odd piece of statuary in a carpark here, next to what was once a second railway station.

Along with its vast Gothic railway, sprawling over the Severn, Shrewsbury has some industrial heritage – a pumping station in nearby Coleham, and an iron framed flax mill further out at Ditherington. On my visit, the former was in scaffolding and it didn’t open for Heritage Open Days this year; the same is true of Rowley’s House, the brick and timbered merchant’s premises of c1600. The Mill and Maltings has a cafe and exhibition but is at least a mile’s walk from the centre.

Chester too has an industrial heritage and claims a world first in its shot tower.

Despite Shrewsbury’s apparently Tudorliness, the pervasive atmosphere that I was left with was a 19^th century son and his school. As one comes up the hill from the train, passing the emasculated castle, you are struck by a late Elizabethan building. Now the town’s library (along with timbered Rigg’s Hall), the pair was once Shrewsbury’s celebrated school. One alumni is feted: Charles Darwin. His statue is outside, watching this sloping major thoroughfare, as if a kind of gatekeeper as much as the castle’s. His old school, now across the river at Kingsland, is as imposing as a Churchill related dubious office block in Chester. It was built as an abusive children’s institution. No, Dorothy Nicole, author of Shrewsbury in 50 Buildings – being of its time does not excuse the kidnap involved in taking kids off London’s streets and bringing them here to be trained to work in Northern mills. That is exploitation, whatever the era or culture. Hence it has an institutional air to this day, although the young people rowing through peaceful gardens gives it an Oxbridge veneer. The only road crossing from the centre, other than the Welsh and English ones, is a cunning toll bridge that no map warned about. To whom is this 20p going? Surely this suspension bridge was paid for years ago? There is a sense of snobbery and paying for the privilege here.

The shopping centre named for Darwin takes up a huge slice of the town centre. When you realise that Shrewsbury old town was somewhat smaller than the river loop, due to being surrounded by gardens as well as wall and water, it strikes one just how intrusive this indoor mall is. I wonder what was there previously? All modern buildings claim to nod to Shrewsbury’s signature look: the jetties, the vertical lines connoting timbering, and this shopping centre also uses red brick. The next most shocking is the 1960s new market hall, the most obvious vertical building in Shrewsbury. I’ll speak of the old one in my other blog, since it’s the town’s only central cinema.

I enjoyed discovering some lesser known buildings, often by shopping and eating. Did you note that the awfully fronted 2 Pride Hill, currently snack bar Pret A Manger, has a medieval stone hall at the back? (This recalls Katie’s Tearoom of Chester). Or that CStores cafe at 8 Milk Street has panelling and a balustrade to a timbered (but staff only) upstairs? And that several Georgian fronts bulge with the secret of something much older? St John’s Hill is the best C18 road, with a particular house named Hardwick (after a certain Bess, countess of here, from Derbyshire?)

Have I got time to comment on the Georgian treatment of three of the four old parish churches, especially the round one (St Chad’s – what is really going on with that shape?) Or medieval St Mary’s, now cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust, with its bullying billboard – fund or lose it? Or the Unitarian chapel, which isn’t really from 1662, but early 1700s (faced in the 1880s).

I enjoyed finding some ancient enclaves beyond the horse shoe, some of which are mentioned in Cadfael. Frankwell considers it self funky; it’s not a long road, but it contains some older buildings and clearly some night and day life. The Abbey Foregate has some too, and to a lesser extent, Coleham.

The thing I miss – other than that Quest – is the only museum I was able to visit on my first ever trip here. It started to be comical: Rowley’s was closed on a Monday; the craft centre in St Julian’s had moved – we couldn’t find where to; the abbey was shut for a funeral; we went up to the Quest to find that it had ceased trading. So what could we do on a wet day, if we weren’t into military museums (which might have been closed too)? Go to Mythstories.

It seems that this area is rich in traditional stories, and these are collated and celebrated by Dez and Ali Quarrell. I realise now it was aimed at children, but I recall Ali singing enthusiastically along to a CGI duck, and us playing a board game with her which involved at least talking about rollerskates. What could we do – be embarrassed or embrace? We chose embracing and had a lot of fun. The highlight was, on entering what seemed to be an empty room, Dez – with a profusion of grey hair and bright garb – leapt out from a secret door and told us a story, physical theatre style (not that I knew the term then) about the origin of traditional simnel cakes. I will confess that we slithered off after this – the excitement was too much. Yet I looked up the attraction when we got back and printed off portraits of the duo who were displayed on my fridge for some time.

And I recall this, over twenty years on! It might be my most memorable museum visit ever.

Mythstories removed themselves from near the Welsh Bridge to Wem for nearly two decades. I was delighted to learn that they were back in the county town…but then that the collections, now on Frankwell Quay, were dispersing and there was no longer a site for the public to visit. Damn!!

I think my enduring memory is then of stories – both those penned by Edith Pargetter (Cadfael’s creator’s real name) – and those on the origin of cakes. The origin of species is a topic for another time, but I wonder what it says that in a leading town of over a millennia, with a school for half a millennia, why one person who didn’t write stories (although he did tell a narrative) is posited so predominately. You will guess that my Darwin thoughts are as salmonesque as many others.

Lastly: darkness. The passages such as around Fish Street/Bear Steps which give so much pleasure by day feel quite different by night, and I assert (with some local back up) that the council turns the lights down as the night goes on, and then – OFF at least in some residential areas. This is dangerous, and a curfew by stealth in the name of money and planet saving. It made me quickly feel that Shrewsbury wasn’t somewhere to linger longer (I’m thinking of the Cranberry’s song), as much for the council, and the bossy Welsh trains, who are clearly trying to avenge the centuries that Shrewsbury administered to their land by now nanny stating this one.

A Day Out With Elspeth in Ludlow

I first saw Ludlow as a stylised painted montage in a greetings card. “You’d really like it here,” enthused a friend who was staying there with her choir. I had to wait a decade and a half to find out if she was right.

I describe Shrewsbury in terms of comparisons; I felt them strongly here too. The first comparison is between this small southern Shropshire market town and its county town. Is this a Mini Me of its big sister? Actually, not quite: I felt the difference between Leiden and Amsterdam here: not just size, but….I can hardly call Shrewsbury sleazy yet there was something about Castle Gate (the first street one encounters after arriving at the railway station) and some of its main shopping streets…the feel of Dogpole at night… Yes the classy capital of Salop is grimy in places, in a way that I didn’t find in Ludlow. There’s no shopping mall, as you’d hope of a town of only about 10,000, although the library area is as un-photogenic as any other modern civic development (in negative contrast to the 15-17^th C buildings which house Shrewsbury’s).

Ludlow shares the black and white – or rather brown and white – timbered look of the Marches, along with the red of stone and brick, but it has an extra ingredient: pastel coloured plaster. Its stone runs to grey as much as red – or a russet taupe.

I felt most strongly its adjacency to Wales, especially by the town walls and crossing either of its stone bridges away from urbanity, where I recalled Durham, which is also ringed by steep riverside woods with views.

I must caution a visitor here, for the visitor information does not, nor any signage on the path itself. What seems like a fairly flat grassy walk level with the bank of the Teme rises and involves stepped slabs, without any rails; I suspect these could be treacherous when wet. The peril only becomes obvious when one has embarked some way on the Bread Walk. Not recommended for pushchairs, wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and anyone who is wobbly or struggles with steps. And not for cyclists.

The path above is obviously precipitous and leads to the famous town views from Whitcliffe Common. It is clear from here that – if you didn’t see them on the way in – that Ludlow is surrounded by not hills in the Welsh sense, but intense bumps, called Cops. It is also situated on a bump. The streets slope up to the market on several sides, and this made me think of another now small town which also has administered its area: Lewes. With several lovely old buildings and a ruined castle, this could well be a Sussex cousin.

Lewes, like other towns I was reminded of, is known for its independent spirit.

I wonder if I also perceive a bit of naughty in Ludlow? I hope so.

Ludlow recalled bohemian Bridport in Dorset, also amidst humpy rounded hills and with a broad street coming off another in a T, with a market hall on legs at the junction. There are similarities in shops and cafes. I’ve noted a trio of clothes shops – Fat Face, White Stuff and Sea Salt – which appear in mostly smaller towns or modest cities of a certain ilk, assuming that persons of a certain ilk (mostly more middle aged women) shop here and garbs themselves with funky, find your own fashion. These are all here (also formerly a Mistral, the fourth member of the trinity), but Ludlow generally eschews chain shops. Apart from supermarkets by the station, symbolically at the bottom of the hill, I’m not sure that I saw any other than local shop Spar and a branch of Boots the chemist.

I saw only one restaurant chain: pizza based Wildwood – which had closed. Foodwise, it’s pubs, or cafes which only open by night at the end of the week; they may not open at all the early part. I tried a Greek restaurant in a former school, now the Mascal centre, filled with bossy carpark signs. If I’d driven, I would have left immediately. But the restaurant didn’t put out a menu and didn’t open when it said it would in the advert in the free town guide. And it was raining, so we found one of those interesting old pubs…with a village-like sense of knowing others and speaking to other punters without sitting on the same table. Some pubs give their kitchens a night off on Mondays.

I asked traders when shops generally shut: when the owners felt like it, they replied. Perhaps there is a core of 11-3…ish. Other than those few chains and the library, it was going to be harder to find somewhere warm and dry at the end of the afternoon (not forgetting it’s the wet West).

Ludlow feels quite different after the most days of the week open market closes. All stalls have the same green and white awnings. I was surprised to learn of the Victorian covered market and town hall which once stood on most of the open area. It left hardly any room for car parking – was it the age of motor car that destroyed it? Although there is a beautiful model of it in the Brewery, I’m not sure that I rue the lost of this behemoth, too large for the scale of Ludlow, and dominating it. It looked like something that a northern industrial city would sport with pride, but not somewhere that dubs itself as one of England’s loveliest ancient small towns. Its absence led the way for the return of open stalls – which I am used to, coming from the East of England where everyone retains that old feature in the town square. And it meant that entertainment returned to a building in need of restoration – the Assembly or Public Rooms. But I am shocked that this town hall was demolished – I can’t find out why, only that it was a year after refurbishment, in 1986.

The other two buildings which dominate, more than the 18^th C Butter Market which is now the end of week only town museum, are the ancient pair: church and castle. The latter is quite ruined, but contains remains of a Tudor palace – this is where Catherine of Aragon started married life – and an unusual round Norman chapel. Normally open daily, it is the focus of at least three annual events – in Sept, Spring and Christmas – and there may be closures on either side to dismantle stages and stalls. The admission price as of 2022 is £8 for an adult.

The parish church of St Laurence is one of those which boringly call themselves cathedral-like but I can really only think of three nationally that truly earn that description – and this isn’t one. It is a large and imposing church, especially for this part of the country. I found it less beautiful than I expected – it seems to be heavily Victorianised, by the same little Emu hands that built that town hall and market. The inner walls seemed rough hewn, as did the nave ceiling, yet the decorations too intense. I did like the crossing and the colours of the chancel ceiling. As well as its Manchester-like 135ft tower, I was intrigued by the octagonal porch, which I’ve only seen at St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol – a church that really is cathedral-like. In it I was greeted by a talking television, which spoiled the quiet space I was looking forward to. Shop staff kept most items behind the till, especially their overpriced guide. I collect these and £5 is too much for one that size, especially when you know that they cost less than a pound to print.

Going into shops and pubs showed me things that were not in the guide books – not that there was an abundance of those. The town’s one bookshop was busy making comments about customers, which ensured that I wasn’t one. The views below are of a not untypical shop – with stairs as difficult as those of the Bread Walk – and the Rose and Crown pub’s back entrance.

In terms of buildings, there are many riches to discover here, but in both visits, I felt sated after a few hours, and wasn’t tempted to stay, in any sense. After castle and church, there’s little to visit – the Castle Lodge, with its meringue-like plastered ceilings and interesting butler is no longer open to the public. Although it has suburbs, I felt a little islandy here, almost as if I was in danger of being sucked in after curfew and the last of the 7 town gates would shut me in if I’d not escaped, or got myself cosy.

One more place that this reminded me of – Warwick, and probably its nearest relative, in terms of being a match. Less of a castle now here, but similar character: a small town by a river of Georgian and complicated black and white timbered houses; a market hall on legs; both places of importance in English history.

Lastly – the elephant – or should I choose a feathered equivalent? Yes I did take a photo and thought about going in, or even staying. I’m not sure that I see this as a finer frontage than all the others. I didn’t like the signage – yes to masks and no to cash – and something that just didn’t feel inviting, riding on reputation as if they could be choosy about you. When visiting the library, I saw the back of the Feathers – not all its rooms are Jacobean. These were much as at any modern chain.

I was about to champion somewhere else, but being given rude “forbidden” messages when trying to visit their site just made me feel like not bothering – is the site dead or are you just trying to data harvest, like the main ludlow.org.uk site, which still hasn’t mastered cookie law?

A lovely day out, absolutely… but the perfect town? England’s most perfect? Not for me. And, to counter your boasts, Ludlow was never a city – certainly since Norman times, this county has not had a cathedral, and that was the city definition until living memory. (And your big sister also claims to be the seat of Wales and the Marches government – can you both have been?)

So my choral card sending friend was right…ish…as I sensed three decades ago when I was recipient of that card.