Market Drayton, Shropshire

15th and 16th July 2023

We met up with our friends Jeeves and Michelle for the weekend at Orchard Cottage, a small caravan site near Market Drayton. It is a lovely, peaceful place in the middle of farmland and despite the weather, which has been very mixed, we managed to walk through to the town on Saturday.

The town is a very old settlement. Granted a charter to hold a market by King Henry III in 1245, in 1086 it was identified in the Domesday book as having 5 households. As a result of this age, there are many old buildings, but unfortunately not as many as there might have been as a result of a large fire in 1651 (see the wall plaque below).

The town centre also has a covered market, built in 1824, which is still used today when local artisan produce is offered for sale.

A warning notice on one of the roof beams states “any person interfering with chains, otherwise than for fire with be prosecuted, by order”. I wonder what the chain were there for and how they might be used in a fire.

The town is not short of old public houses…

…including where we had lunch, the Red Lion.

The Red Lion is a 16th century building, which now has a micro-brewery built behind it. The Joules Brewery is a reincarnation of an earlier, old enterprise of the same name which was based in Stone, the Staffordshire town, which ceased trading in 1974.

We enjoyed and excellent meal there, dining in what is known as the “Mouse Room”. This room is clad in oak and features a collection of furniture featuring the mouse signature of the furniture maker, Robert Thompson.

Possibly as a consequence of the fire, the town built its own fire station in 1790.

St Mary’s church sits on the site of an early Saxon church, mentioned in the Domesday Book.

In Georgian times it was extensively altered, with galleries on either side of the nave, a covered-in, plain ceiling and a three-storey pulpit. Now restored to its former glory.

There are also wonderfully grotesque gargoyles on the outside:

The following day, we planned to have Sunday lunch in the local pub, so we opted for a walk to Tyrley Locks, on the Shropshire Union Canal. It is about half a mile from the site and at the top lock, sits Tyrley Wharf:

We walked down the flight of locks for a way and Jeeves offered to help a couple of the many boats, manage the lock-gates.

After a truly excellent lunch in the Four Alls Inn Hotel, Alison and I explored the canal a little further on our bikes.