New Year Trip 2: Market Drayton, Shropshire

Tuesday 31st December 2024

Market Drayton is the second location of our brief New Year get-away with our motor-homing pals, Jeeves, Michelle and Layla the Cockapoo. Our venue is Orchard Farm, a small and pleasant site, but which is a good 30-40 minutes walk from the town.

This is a return trip to Orchard Farm and Market Drayton. Our last stay was in July 2023 and you can view the blog-post for that stay using this link: <Here> .

No town looks its best at this time of the year and Market Drayton is no exception; a real contrast to our last visit. For this visit, the weather was windy and damp with the threat of more severe winds and heavy precipitation to follow.

There has been a market in Market Drayton, since King Henry III granted the town a charter in 1245. The bells on top of the covered market are there to ring in case of fire, as much of the town was destroyed by fire in 1651.

There are some interesting buildings which I did not mention in the previous post:

According to the wall-plaque, Cotton’s House was built on land gifted to the Cotton family in 1537 by King Henry VIII. The house was constructed in 1600, but much of its original half-timber framing is concealed by the current Georgian exterior.

There are many merchant’s houses in the town; sadly some of them are in need of some TLC.

We had booked a lunch-time meal in the Red Lion Inn which is immediately in front of the Joules Brewery and ate in The Grattan Robert “Mouseman” Thompson Boardroom, which, according to the plaque below, is unique in that much of the furniture was made by Robert Thompson himself.

Other parts of the pub reflect the wood-panelled style of the “Mouseman” Room:

We managed to walk back up to the site just before the weather turned wet and with the weather forecast promising poor conditions for New Year’s Day, tomorrow, it is possible we will not be venturing far from the comfort of our mobile house on wheels.

We are due to return home on Thursday.