Woolly says – Christmas had been and gone, Santa brought us all some amazing pressies and the humans had fed me like a king, I won’t however be taking their advice on dieting in the new year!
We were in that crimbo limbo part of the year when no one knows what day it, sprouts lie rotting in the fridge and the thought of another big meal is possibly a step to far. We however had a mission, setting off early in dense fog Jo and I were both excited and apprehensive, with a long drive in front of us we chatted about our year and what 2025 might hold for us if all went well over the next couple of days.
With one meeting completed on our arrival we had two more on the following day as well as a plan to head to a very famous town. The next morning started with a wonderful lack of fog and with the next meeting done we headed towards the town of pies, pork pies that is.
Melton Mowbray is a market town in the Melton district in Leicestershire, England, 19 miles (31 km) north-east of Leicester and 20 miles (32 km) south-east of Nottingham. Melton has been a market town for over 1,000 years, recorded as Leicestershire’s only market in the 1086 Domesday Survey, it is the third oldest market in England.
The town is sometimes promoted as Britain’s “Rural Capital of Food”; it is the home of the Melton Mowbray pork pie and is the location of one of six licensed makers of Stilton cheese. Melton Mowbray pork pies are made by a specific “hand-raising” process and recipe. On 4th April 2008 the European Union awarded the Melton Mowbray pork pie Protected Geographical Indication status, after a long-standing application made by the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association. Only pies made in a designated zone round Melton using uncured pork may bear the Melton Mowbray name.
Having parked up we encountered our first pork pie within moments as we stepped into the famous 54a King Street Coffee shop, home to the pork pie meal, as neither Jo nor I eat meat we settled for a coffee and toasted tea cake to set us up for the rest of the town.
Opposite the coffee shop was the Regal Cinema, a fine example of art deco at its best, built in 1933 it received a full makeover in 2013 without losing any of its splendour, so many towns have now lost their cinemas it is always a treat to find one still in use.
The Sunday streets of Melton were quiet with most of the shops shut, we passed by a spectacular piece of Metal sculpture wall art depicting local features and buildings by artist Ben Coode-Adams.
The town square was nearly deserted unlike on market days. We crossed over to have a look at the Market Cross or Butter Cross as it is known locally, erected in 1986 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the Domesday Book in which “Medeltone” Market is recorded. The original market cross was removed during the early 19th century and the present cross was constructed from ancient stones unearthed in the local churchyard.
Just around the corner was the main shop that tourists flock to, Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe who have been making and baking pies for over 170 years.
Originally a bakery opened by John Dickinson in 1851, it was his grandmother, Mary Dickinson, who is credited with creating the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie, first using a wooden dolly to hand-raise the pastry, then introducing jelly to protect the meat inside. I trotted inside to find a whole of array of pork pies with different toppings and fillings fit for anyone except nonmeat eaters. The dolly’s used to form the hot water pies sat on racks at the back of the shop going from small individual sized ones to the giant sharing kind.
We passed some lovely buildings as we headed through the town towards the church.
St Mary is the parish church of Melton Mowbray, a large medieval church, suffered from a poor Victorian restoration, and was left in a poor state of repair and deemed “unfit for purpose”. By late 2017, work was completed to make the church more accessible and safer, it does however still retain some of the 13th century remains in places.
It was a beautiful building and even though the doors were firmly locked we enjoyed a stroll around the grounds taking in its glory and admiring the many gravestones.
As we completed our circuit of the church we arrived at one of Melton’s oldest surviving pubs, the Anne of Cleves, built in 1384 it had housed chantry priests until the Dissolution of the church. It was then included in the estates of Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII, as a divorce settlement in the 16th century, although there is local debate about whether she ever stayed there. It was a charming building.
Heading back through the town we passed Colles Hall, which was built in 1890 as a parochial hall for worshippers at the nearby St Mary’s Church, and named after the former Rector , Rev. William Morris Colles, who was a president of Melton Temperance Society and did not approve of people drinking alcohol. I chuckled to myself as I wondered what he might make of the pizza’s now being served there.
Arriving back at the car we had just enough time to drive back for our last and most important meeting after which things might be very different in our lives.
So why all of the meetings and what are we actually doing near to world centre of pork pies? Well, we were actually there to meet Jack….
After months of humming and harring and with full support of family and friends Woolly and I had decided to adopt another mutt. It had been the hardest decision in some ways as we know we can never replace Alfie the Dog but we both thought that barking boy would approve of us helping another hound and giving them the best life we possibly could. Following an enquiry to Dogs Trust about a dog we had spotted but which wasn’t one we could manage, Dogs Trust came back to us with Jack, a five year old full Corgi.
Our meetings had allowed us to meet up with Jack and look into his behaviour problems of which there are a couple and see if we were all a good fit. With a training plan in place and full support from Dogs Trust at 3.30pm on 29th December 2024 we set off with Handsome Jack in the back of the car for a long drive back to Wales.
Woolly says – I’m looking forward to seeing how Handsome Jack likes his new life with us and so far, given that he didn’t bark once on the drive back, indicators are good, as we head into a new year with a new mutt we all wish you all the best for a brilliant year to come.