Shrewsbury, Shropshire CADFAEL'S town!!

Shrewsbury has wonderful medieval and Tudor buildings. My attention was caught at first because I love watching Cadfael, the series from BBC about a medieval monk who lived here in the 11th century. The Cadfael series does a nice job of addressing the issues at the time. There was a civil war between people who supported William the Conquerer's daughter, Maud or Matilda, and people who supported his nephew, Steven, to be king. There were tensions between the Abbey that William the Conquerer set up here to tax the people, and the businesses of the town. The series includes the leper's hospital and the massacre of the people holding the castle for Maud by Steven's people, and other events of the time. It was so nice to read about the same events we've watched in the stories, written about as true history.

The town of Shrewsbury does a great job of providing leaflets for the Cadfael walk and for the buildings of the Tudors, the Victorians, the "the Elegance Period" between. The lady at the tourist office also found us a cozy room with a cat-friendly pub called "The Buck's Head." She called it "the book's head" though, which was really confusing until we figured out she was saying "buck."  I think she spelled it for us. :)

They also have some amazing Roman artifacts, including the biggest and shiniest silver mirror (it's about one foot across and very shiny) in Britain.

These are little perfume vials. Approximately 3 inches tall each one.

This is a rather nice bucket.

There was a collapse of some market buildings and some pottery and glass were very amazingly preserved! The pottery comes from southwest France. 

Shrewsbury is full of wonderful timbered buildings and cool street names. Here is Drinkwater Street.

The closes here are called "shuts." Same purpose as other places, though. They were yards where several people would live and could be closed off from the main streets at night for safety. Shrewsbury also had the security advantage of being inside the meander of the River Severn, so it almost has a moat all the way around. There's just a little keyhole that needed fortifying (though they did build a wall too eventually). It was settled in about the 7th century.

Some of the old buildings are very bulgy! This practically looks like a mushroom. They did build them out over the street to get more area on the upper floors, but this one surely has bulged over time too. The slants on some walls are quite extreme.

A very yummy lunch with a view of Cadfael's abbey!

A mile marker! I would love to know how old it is.

This is a fascinating building. I couldn't find anything about it online,  but the tourist brochure mentioned that the nifty chimneys are from the 15th century.

I like the leading covering the roof edges and the glass (broken) cover over that front section of ground at the front of the house.

The back garden of "Darwin's Town House B & B." Darwin was born here and went to school here, but I am not sure  if he actually lived in this house. Nice to imagine he did, though, and had palm trees and that nice back  conservatory.

I would love to know why  this wall is so much thicker at the bottom! So much history in this town.

Goodnight!

Llangollen Wales

Yesterday we actually took a wrong turn on our way to Shrewsbury and ended up in Wales. At first it was quite boring and the towns were dull, but I stopped (to calm down, from the terrible navigating!) at a pub for a half-pint of local beer (which was good) and asked if there were any touristy places nearby. The waiter didn't know, but a patron who was having a pint took the time to tell us about Llangollen, which was just 6 miles off the road to Shrewsbury. He also told us about The Gales, his favourite place to eat, which was lovely, and The Corn Mill (where we were going to also have snacks, but we couldn't get in without booking). 

The lady in the tourist office found us a room in a 300-year-old pub and we enjoyed the museum, the walkable town, and a local comedy night that we happened upon. 

You can see a shop called the Oggie Shop on the right hand side. That's the local name for a meat pie, which we bought and ate, as you can see below.  

Here is Yarrow beside a coracle boat in the museum.

Look at this medieval tile. I love finding things like this and thinking about who made them and who used them and bought them and installed them and lived with them. 

Here's their bridge and a nice pub beside it, where we had tea in the window seat with a wonderful view. 

There are canals all about this part of the world, with boats on them.

They have even (they being the 19th century engineers) built incredible aqueducts to carry the boats across valleys.

I like these mushrooms made of larch. The shop smelled wonderful.

Look at the thickness of this wool! It's amazing. I am not sure what one would do with such a small mat in area, but if it was yoga mat size, it would make an incredible bed.

The Corn Mill restaurant.