Why else would I spend the best part of the day walking several miles in the footsteps of a fictional monk around a town that has few buildings from that time left?
I was reading the Cadfael stories long before the TV series (which I didn’t watch due to the dreadful casting) made them popular. I’ve got the full set of books and do reread them occasionally. Having made an eatlyish start I walked down to the station and got the train in to Shrewsbury. As there isn’t even a ticket machine at Chirk I used the Trainline app to buy an e-ticket. I have to say it worked very smoothly. It’s only a 20 minute journey, my first aim on arrival being breakfast. I have two go-to options in towns, either Wetherspoons or the local market cafe, this time it was the latter where £4 procured a respectable meal including toast and coffee. I then stopped off at the Tourist Information to get the walks guide (I’d already sussed this out from the ‘net). I was already spotting a lot of recognisable place and street names.
The 3 walks all start at the Abbey, of course, so that’s where I headed next. Sadly the bulk of the buildings, including much of the church itself, were destroyed in the Refomation and any ruins were lost with subsequent road building and development. The town part of the church was retained, and the remainder was later partly rebuilt in Victorian times. The first walk is basically just around the Abbey itself, inside and outside. The second is up the Abbey Foregate to St Giles which was a Leper Hospital. Again, the church survives although it’s largely Victorian incorporating parts of the original walls.
The third, and longest, walk is around the town. By this stage I decided on lunch and found a nice cafe where I managed to knock everything off an adjacent table! The only damage was the glass being used as a sugar basin and the two ladies serving were very nice about it. The food was good too! I’ll leave the full description of the walk until the photos go up on the website but suffice it to say there’s very little flat involved! It was up from the English Bridge, down to the Town Gate and back up again then down to the Welsh Bridge and back up. It’s more about the places than any buildings, apart from the Abbey, a watchtower and a few places with early parts incorporated in them everything has gone. However it’s a tribute to Ellis Peters’ research and accuracy that you can visit the locations from the stories at all. I did a little bit of shopping on the way round, finding myself outside M&S I popped in for a couple of packs of underwear!
I wanted some pics of Shrewsbury Station however there was a bit of an incident going on so I had to be careful. Nothing major but as far as I could make out an itinerant (for want of a better word as I’m not sure if he was homeless, begging, or what) and his dog had been intimidating passengers, whether deliberately or not, and had then been abusive to station staff. The police in attendance were really just suggesting he move on, which he was reluctant to do. He was then starting to be abusive again, and the Police were genuinely trying to keep it calm from what I heard and saw. I don’t know how it ended up as I’d gone into the station and then come out again as Platform 3 has a separate entrance!
Having a little bit of provisions shopping to do I went into Chirk itself when the train got in to visit the butchers (breakfasts) and the grocers (beer and bread). I also had a pint at the Hand Hotel before walking back up the hill to the site. Overall a long and tiring day but well worthwhile. I’ve now got a much better sense of perspective on where the places in the books actually are but it also makes you realise how small places actually were back then. Even St Giles, which as a Leper Hospital was well away from the town, is less than a mile from the Abbey.
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