The Quarry is a 29 acre, Grade II listed park in Shrewsbury that borders the town and the River Severn. I found myself walking around here quite a few times on my visit to the town – on my arrival after checking in to my B&B to stretch my legs and as a convenient place to sit and watch the world go by when I needed a break from walking around.
I recently decided to take a trip out to Chesterfield in Derbyshire to visit the Christmas Tree Festival at Chesterfield Parish Church, often also known as the Crooked Spire Church, for obvious reasons. I’ve never actually been to the town before even though it’s a direct 35 minute train ride from Nottingham but I’m very glad I made the trip. I’ll get on to the history of the church later, but firstly the Festival. It finished on the 30th of November and was free but there were donation buckets dotted around (I donated some money but also bought a few things in the gift shop).
Back in September I stayed in Shrewsbury for four nights in part because it is a quick 20 minute train ride to Welshpool and Powis Castle which I’ve wanted to visit for a while now. A National Trust property the castle is around a 40 minute walk from Welshpool Railway Station through a quiet deer park which I didn’t quite get to appreciate due to the pouring rain – even well prepared with a raincoat and good walking boots I was decidedly sodden by the time I got back to my B&B later that afternoon!
Haworth is a small village in West Yorkshire, known largely for its association with the Brontës. To get there from Nottingham I got a train to Leeds, changed to a train to Keighley (pronounced Keith-lee) and walked from Keighley Railway Station to the bus station (about 10 minutes) and got on a bus from there to Haworth. There are about three buses an hour literally named Brontë Bus 1, 2 and 3 and a single costs £2.50 which you can buy on the bus via contactless. The routes vary by where in Haworth you want to be dropped off but you can check which bus will be best for you on the bus company website.
On the day that I was travelling via the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway I knew that I wanted to visit somewhere in Keighley and settled on Cliffe Castle Museum. I knew almost nothing about it other than it was an easy 20 minute walk from Keighley Railway Station and had free entry. I’d given myself roughly an hour to an hour and a half to explore before I had to head back to the station to catch my next train but could have spent a lot longer there as I was blown away by just how great the place was.
After my visit to the Brontë Parsonage I headed next door to St Michael and All Angels, more commonly known as the Brontë church. This is the third church building on the site dating between 1879 and 1881; parts of the older church survives but not as it would have been during the Brontë’s time when their father was the parish priest here.
The Royal Crescent in Bath is one of the most famous and well photographed areas in the city but until this most recent visit my friend and I hadn’t gone there, usually being too busy with visiting the Christmas market. This trip though we wanted to head over there as though my friend had seen it before I hadn’t. We walked from the centre along the Gravel Walk which takes you past the Georgian Garden (just closing so we only had a quick peek inside) and the backs of some of Bath’s very impressive housing.
You may remember that my last visit to Bath was cut short due to Storm Darragh. My friend and I had to reschedule our Roman Baths tickets and chose the last weekend in March figuring, quite rightly as it happened, that we would have some nice weather for our return. Driving in Bath is very much not recommended so we parked as usual at the Lansdown Park and Ride and took the bus into Bath – the Roman Baths are only about a 10 minute walk from where the bus drops you off.
I’d heard that Arundel Cathedral was a beautiful example of Gothic architecture so on my first afternoon in the town I’d gone to take pictures of the exterior before exploring inside a couple of days later. In 1868 Henry Fitzalan Howard commissioned Joseph Hansom (who also designed the famous hansom cab) to design a cathedral that would be in keeping with the impressiveness of Arundel Castle.
The main reason for my trip to Arundel was to visit the castle. I’d seen a video online which inspired me to research more about it and once I saw how easy it was to reach by train I was sold. I will say though that as a visitor and from the ground there is no real way of seeing the whole place in its glory (other than on approach by train) as it is surrounded by trees but the gardens and interiors more than made up for it.
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