Life in Northern Towns

Cards on the table, I love Nantwich .  Its English country quaintness is something you’d find in a Visit England brochure.  If you have never been to the UK and only watched period dramas Nantwich is how you’d perceive England to be.  We’ve visited here over the years and I just think it’s fab. However Neil has never been that convinced. Nantwich takes about an hour to get to from North Manchester and is quite straightforward to get to: M60, M62, M6, Junction 16, A500, A51 and B5074, or just follow the signs after junction 16.  There are car parks on the edge of town that are pretty cheap or you can park free for 30 minutes in designated street parking spots. It was a drizzly and cold winter’s day when we visited.  Neil was determined to get a battered burger from the local chippy and I knew I needed to find the deli that sold Coopers gourmet sausage rolls. Nantwich has evolved over centuries and has its narrow streets filled with a hotch potch of ...

Oswestry was our first foray into Shropshire, whilst technically not a northern town I’m not averse to taking a detour into Midland Towns when the opportunity takes me. Earlier we had been to Wrexham and Oswestry is just a 30 minute drive down the A483 onto the A5.  There are a couple of epic road bridges to cross on this road.  You don’t really notice them until you’re driving across and glance to the side and see the sheer drop either side.  It really concentrates the mind to drive across them safely.  As we were driving through the countryside we noticed lots of squished animals, road kill isn’t pretty but it’s something you come to expect as animals are not blessed with the knowledge of the green cross code. We parked in the Aldi car park on the edge of town as we got about 90 minutes of free parking.  Obviously we did pop in and get a couple of things so I didn’t feel guilty about parking. Walking into Oswestry we found it to be a nice co...

I’d never been to Wrexham before and all I knew about the place was that it had a university and a community radio station called Calon FM . Wrexham is just over the border in North Wales and about an hour away in a car from Manchester.    If you’re travelling from north Manchester take the M60, M62, M6, M56, M53, A55 and A483.   For a long time there have been road works around Chester, but I’m thrilled to say these have now disappeared. Yay! On the way into Wrexham you can see the sports stadium called the Racecourse Ground , which hosts football, rugby, cricket and horseracing.   The new stand looks pretty impressive from the road. It’s a nice leafy drive into town and there are lots of the grand Victorian houses that have been converted into offices.     Once we got into the town centre getting round the town was problematic and after a couple of circuits of the town we found some parking near the ITV Wales HQ.   The centre of Wrexham ...

I’ve been avoiding going to Huddersfield for a long time.   I’ve passed through in a car and a coach on the way back from the Leeds Festival but it did not instil me with enthusiasm.   Years ago I’d known a person from Huddersfield and her stories of the place weren’t enticing either.   However it was time to bite the bullet and just do it.   It’s only a 35 minute drive from Manchester: the M60, M62, get off at Junction 24 and take the A629 into the town centre. I’d never taken the A629 into Huddersfield and I was astonished by the lovely Yorkshire Stone Victorian villas on the tree lined road into town.   I really didn’t expect that.   I can quite imagine a lot of these houses had been divided into flat for the local student population.   What I liked too was the new flat development which dotted the road kept faithful to this design heritage.   This gave a real cohesiveness to the visual look of this road.   Top marks to the archite...