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.
In the afternoon after visiting the Brontë Parsonage and church I decided to further wander in the footsteps of the family by walking the trail that goes from next to the Parsonage to the so called Brontë Waterfall and Bridge where the sisters in particular liked to walk.
Last September I visited Arundel in West Sussex for three nights – my main aim was to visit the castle but I also wanted to visit the cathedral and the Wetland Centre, all of which will feature in their own posts. I found Arundel to be a really pleasant market town with lots of independent shops and cafes that were reasonably priced. The train journey from Nottingham was quite long, requiring a change in London that lead to a bit of a mad dash via tube but all in all the trains worked well and I was blessed with glorious sunshine for the whole time I was away.
Grade I listed, this is one of the first road suspension bridges in the world and is now cared for by the National Trust. It is right by Conwy Castle and is free to access. It’s an incredibly impressive structure and you can get some really good views of it from the top of the castle as well as at ground level.
Pont Fawr (Big Bridge) was built in the 1630s and is often called “Inigo Jones’ Bridge” after the architect of such buildings as Banqueting House and St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden. I say is often called, because there’s not actually a lot of evidence to prove that Inigo Jones was involved at all, but there isn’t anything to say he wasn’t either. A plaque on the bridge claims that Jones designed it at the behest of Sir John Wynn of, you guessed it, Gwydir Castle.
A friend and I picked Leamington Spa in Warwickshire as a good day trip location roughly half-way between where we each live. Our first stop was to wander around Jephson Gardens. Around five minutes from the train station the gardens, which are named for Dr Henry Jephson who promoted the town as a spa destination, were created in 1831 and have been a popular attraction ever since.
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Anglesey is the largest island in Wales and connected to the mainland by two bridges, the Menai Suspension Bridge and the Britannia Bridge. We travelled over both on our way to and from Beaumaris Castle.
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The last place I visited in September as part of Open Heritage Day was Brackenhurst Hall in Southwell, part of Nottingham Trent University that isn’t normally open to the public. I arrived just as they opened so I got to go on the first of the tours that day, which is just as well as there was a fairly constant stream of people arriving throughout my visit.
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