Friday 24^th January 2020

We walked into Nantwich with Kenny and Sue for a look around and a bit of shopping. The easiest route from the canal to the town centre is down Welsh Row, a fascinating road with many buildings of interest from all eras, from Tudor times to the present.

       

Welsh Row, Nantwich and some of the many interesting buildings

      

Nantwich is just 10 miles distant from Middlewich, our old home, and yet, like most things on your doorstep, we rarely visited and never explored. The town has a lot of shops and some very interesting architecture.

According to plaques mounted on benches in the town square, Nantwich, similar to a lot of mainly wooden-built Medieval towns, was devastated by a fire in 1583. The fire lasted for 20 days, destroyed 150 buildings and rendered half the population of 900 people, homeless. Concerned, Queen Elizabeth I ordered a nationwide collection for funds to rebuild the town, to which she contributed £1,000. It took three years to rebuild the town and many of the buildings survive to this day.

Following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Domesday Book was completed in 1086 and was a survey of England and parts of Wales. William the Conqueror devastated much of the North of England as a means of quelling resistance and Nantwich is described as being “laid waste”.

The afternoon was damp and miserable and so the afternoon was spent quietly on the boat. The coal bought at Anderton Marina, Thermabrite, has now been used and we are back onto our more familiar Excel. The Thermabrite did not give out as much heat and produced a lot of ash, so we are glad to see the end of it.