Packing and organising has started for our move back to Herefordshire and all things glamping as the start of the season is fast approaching. Jo had booked all number of appointments for both herself and Alfie the Dog to ready ourselves with medications for the furry boy and new glasses for the human, the appointments however where at the start of the day and the end which would mean spending all day in town, not a problem as I had a plan.
It was actually quite a good plan and although we have blogged about Welshpool previously this would add some new places on. The mammoth had found a town trail and in between vets and eye tests it would make for a great day out.
Welshpool is a market town and community in Powys, Wales, historically in the county of Montgomeryshire, the town is four miles (six kilometres) from the Wales–England border and ten miles from where we live when there. Its Welsh language name, Y Trallwng, means “the marshy or sinking land”, which given the amount of rain we get is a very good description of the land in the area. In English it was initially known as Pool, but its name was changed to Welshpool in 1835 to distinguish it from the English town of Poole in Dorset. A relatively sleepy town although you never know what goes on behind closed doors…more about that shortly.
Having parked up on one of the two town carparks we knew that we wouldn’t be completing the trail in quite the order that it is set, so we started at number 8. The Pola cinema built in 1938, it had long stopped showing films and now held gym equipment and spa and beauty rooms, the exterior was still wonderful though with a lovely curve to the building. Heading across the road and through Morrisons carpark we arrived at location number 5, Powysland Museum and Welshpool Library is housed in a restored historic warehouse beside the Montgomery Canal with Welshpool Library on the ground floor and Powysland Museum upstairs. The museum depicts the archaeology and social history of Montgomeryshire. Outside there were some interesting sights including an oversized handbag and a lemur.
Passing the small canal basin, we crossed the road bridge peering over the top at the town lock and the ducks who populate this part of the water and walked along the canal to location number 1 on the trail, the Wharf and Aqueduct. It’s a very small wharf and an even smaller aqueduct but it didn’t need to be big as the train that once crossed it was tiny itself. The now footbridge had carried the narrow gauge train until the early 1960’s.
The bridge led us to number 2 on the list, Tesco’s carpark which as you can imagine is less than exciting, once however this had been home to the cattle market until its move to the towns border in 2009. A few wooden pens remain on some land next to a roundabout.
Far more exciting than a carpark was Domen Castle, Hen Domen, meaning “old mound”, is the site of a medieval timber motte-and-bailey castle the site of the original Montgomery Castle built by Roger de Montgomery in 1070. From 1105 the castle was the home of the de Boulers (Bowdler) family. When the castle was rebuilt in stone between1223 and 1234, it was decided to rebuild it on a rocky promontory a mile to the south-east of the town, the location of the current town of Montgomery. Jo had warned me not to get to excited and as we made our way into a timber yard all I could see was a wall and lots of trees, turning back on ourselves we followed the road and wall round to what appeared to be a drive way, sadly the driveway was now home to a small campsite for some homeless people and the old bowling clubs building. No matter how much I peered through the trees I couldn’t see a mound of any kind, giving up on the quest I followed the human and mutt across the road to stop number 4.
Welshpool railway station, built by the Oswestry & Newtown Railway, the original station opened on 14th August 1860. The line was initially operated by the London & North Western Railway before being absorbed by the Cambrian Railways, which became part of the Great Western Railway at the grouping which came into effect on 1st January 1923. Following the construction of the new A483 road in 2017 the new station was sited across the new road and the old station turned into shops.
We headed back into town passing some lovely examples of Geogian architecture including two of the former banks for the town, currently all of the banks have been closed and the town residents have to wait for a mobile banking unit to arrive on the Tesco carpark once a week, not what the town wants. Jo chuckled as she took a picture of the former HSBC building….
Chuckled indeed, the old HSBC building which had been closed nearly two years ago had been the subject of a police raid earlier in the month uncovering a cannabis farm upstairs. This raid had been followed by two more in the high street which had also uncovered more farms, maybe this explains why the people of Welshpool are so easy going!
You just never know what might be going on behind closed doors! I turned my attention to the two buildings behind us, numbers 6 and 7 on the list. The Royal Oak and the Old Coach Chambers. One of the nation’s most celebrated coaching inns during the early 1800s, being at the meeting point of important roads from Chester, Shrewsbury, Ludlow and Aberystwyth, no-one knows when it was first an inn, but it has elements of a timber-framed Tudor construction. It was almost certainly named The Royal Oak Inn sometime after the restoration of Charles II in 1660, which marked the beginning of the popularity of the inn-name. Next door stood the old chambers where travellers would have rested before continuing their journeys.
Crossing the road, we headed up the High Street before taking a left turn down a small road, we arrived at number 9 on the trail. The Cockpit, as its name suggests was purpose built in the early 18th century for cockfighting and at that time was probably part of the Castle Inn built in 1727. The red brick six sided building is the only cockpit in Wales still in its original position and was in use until 1849 when cockfighting was made illegal, restored in 1978, the building is now home to the WI. It was a nice building but what a horrible thing to go on inside it, giving a small shiver we headed back to the High Street.
It was difficult to miss number 16 on the list as it’s the biggest building in town. There had been a civic building on the site since the 1600’s but the modern Town Hall had its foundation stone laid for the current structure by Edward Herbert, 3rd Earl of Powis on 15th September 1873. It was designed by a local architect, Benjamin Lay, in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone at a cost of £6,000 and was completed in 1874. A couple of plagues commemorated Queen Elizabeth II visit to the town in 1986 and in 2010. It’s impressive and now houses a community hub as well as some lovely stalls inside.
The trail continued passing numbers 10, two old 16th timbered framed houses, and number 11, The Talbot, a Grade II listed 16th century inn, which was up for sale yet again.
Crossing over the road we arrived at number 15, The Mermaid Inn. Very probably an early 16th century merchant’s house, placed on a burgage plot between the High Street and Alfred Jones Court. The frontage was remodelled in 1890, by Frank H. Shayler, architect, of Shrewsbury. Early illustrations of the building show that prior to this it had a thatched roof, and that the timbering was not exposed. I would loved to have seen the thatched roof, something that is sadly dying away across the whole of the UK. It did however have a couple of interesting features, namely some stained glass panes in the windows and even better a small letter box which was very quaint.
We wandered along the street passing small passages including one known as Bear Passage which conjured up images of bears being herded through it and a good number of independent shops.
Turning left we headed towards the church and number 18 on the trail, St Mary’s Church is a Grade I listed building. The original church dated from about 1250, there are remains of this church in the lower courses of the church tower. The nave was rebuilt in the 16th century, and the whole building was restored in 1871. The 15th century chancel ceiling may have come from Strata Marcella Abbey, about five miles (eight kilometres) away, and a stone in the churchyard is said to have been part of the abbot’s throne. A memorial in the church commemorates Bishop William Morgan, translator of the Bible into Welsh, who was the vicar from 1575 to 1579. We had looked round the building previously so crossed the road and paused to look at number 20, The Red Lion Flannel factory and Warehouse which now houses humans and a car parts shop. Built in 1830 as a flannel factory, sited so as to enable the use of waterpower, alongside the Lledan Brook which gushes next to it. No evidence of the power system survived later alterations, but it is possible that the building was hand powered.
The mad mutt was now hauling Jo behind him as he headed for his favourite destination in town, The Bay Tree, a vintage café that is a regular haunt of ours. No, it’s not on the trail but it should be.
Inside is a quirky mix of décor, with huge squishy armchairs in the front area before taking you into the circus part, which is always where we sit, usually in the walzter car, sadly today that was already occupied. The corridor and stairs hold a fascinating array of enamel war signage which is always interesting to read whilst the room to the rear is all things Alice in Wonderland. As Jo and I tucked into our pancakes and Alfie the Dog enjoyed his ice cream we checked through the trail to see what wise we still needed to see.
21 and 22 were the recreation centre and the recreation ground, a former armoury for the town but with nothing worth looking at which left us with Raven Square and numbers 13 and 14. Having licked our plates clean, well Alfie and myself, we headed back to the car via Jo’s spectacle test (she needs new ones) and slightly out of town to our last port of call. We parked up at the Raven Pub took look at the last two places.
Welshpool Raven Square railway station was number 13 and is the eastern terminus of the narrow gauge Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway (W&LLR). The W&LLR was one of the few narrow gauge branch lines to be built under the provisions of the 1896 Light Railways Act and opened for operations on 6 April 1903 to aid economic development in a remote area. After the merger of the Cambrian Railways into the Great Western Railway as a result of the 1923 grouping, on 9th February 1931 the line lost its passenger service, and became a freight-only line. It was temporarily re-opened to passengers between 6th and 11th August 1945 for the Eisteddfod. Freight traffic remained until 1956, at which time British Railways decided to close the line. The station was reopened as a heritage site in 1981 and the small trains run from here to Llanfair on a daily basis in the warmer months.
At number 14 was Tollgate House, a pretty place that had been bought a year or so ago and made into a home, during the 18th and early 19th centuries it had collected tolls from travellers heading from North Wales and the West Coast into England. Little more is known which is a shame.
As we climbed back into the car and set off on our twenty minute or so drive back…driving times are always dependent on tractors, loose sheep and flooding in the area …we all agreed that we had enjoyed our tour of the buildings round the town, even if you might not goes on behind closed doors!