Tag Archives: Cheshire

Chester capers: Part 2…

12 Sunday Oct 2025

Posted by in Cheshire, Chester, Food and drink, Photography, Travel

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The pair of us have had a really good day rediscovering Chester. Despite the weather not being as good as billed (hey, at least it didn’t rain) we’ve covered a lot of ground, which started with us working off breakfast by walking along the Shropshire Union canal from our hotel into the city centre. Let’s face it, after a huge breakfast like this, is it any wonder it needed working off?

For much of the walk the canal towpath was busy with dog-walkers and runners. Hardly surprising, as it’s a linear oasis compared to walking along the adjacent A41 road, which is a congested, noisy, nightmare.

We had a couple of hours to kill before we saw Tim Peake’s show, so we indulged in a rare spot of shopping. Neither of us are great shoppers, ‘retail therapy’ really isn’t our bag. But Chester has all the shops we frequent huddled together in a very small area – and there was stuff we needed to get to prepare for winter, so time wasn’t wasted before we had to head off to listen to Tim Peake at the storyhouse, a venue we were both really impressed by. Storyhouse is a library, theatre, cinema, restaurant, bar and social space all rolled into one. It’s a real community asset. The theatre isn’t huge, making it a great place to see one person delivering a lecture – and Tim Peake packed it out. His talk on the history of space travel was riveting. He told a lot of stories that were less well known as well as covering all the historical landmarks. It was funny, exciting and inspirational at the same time and the two hour show flew by. He opened the second part of his show with a 10 minute Q&A session, answering questions texted in by the audience earlier in the show. Sadly, he ran out of time before answering the one about what happens to a fart in a spacesuit…

Afterwards we headed back to the Brewery Tap for a drink and chance to talk about what we’d heard and learned before hunger overtook us. Having eaten Indian last night we opted for Thai today. The restaurant we choose was Thai Baan, and we weren’t disappointed. We opted for the Thai tapas, sharing four different dishes accompanied by Jasmine rice. Here’s a few of the ones we chose…

Crispy seabass, lettuce, diced shallots, ginger, limes served with a spicy peanut sauce.
Soft shell crab salad with peanuts and a spicy lime dressing – a real favourite of ours.
Roast duck breast with thai herbs and spicy lime dressing.

Having been disappointed by our earlier trip to Chester we both agreed to revise our judgement. We’ve really enjoyed this trip and plan to come back soon – even if it’s just for a day trip. The place has a lot to offer. The architecture is fascinating plus, there’s some great pubs and restaurants. It’s a also good place for shopping if that’s your bag. Whilst the atmosphere can get a bit edgy on a Friday/Saturday night in certain areas if there’s large groups of drinkers around, it’s generally relaxed and quite cosmopolitan.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Chester capers: Part 1…

11 Saturday Oct 2025

Posted by in Cheshire, Chester, Photography, Travel

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Today, we drove over to Chester to begin a two-night stay outside the city, at a hotel and pub in the nearby village of Rowton – a 15 minutes drive from the centre of Chester. The journey across from West Yorkshire took around 100 minutes, we’d have cut at least 15-20 off that if the motorways around Manchester hadn’t been so congested. The traffic was the worst we’ve seen for quite some time, although we’ve no idea why that was.

Fortunately, we were in no rush and the glorious weather made up for any minor inconvenience. Having checked in and dumped our bags we headed into the city. We were both a little disappointed by Chester during our last visit together. The city had a down at heel air, with rubbish strewn city walls suggesting neglect of one of its most historic assets. So, on this visit we were relieved to find the place feeling somewhat improved. Oh, it still has its problems. Like any other UK city it has its fair share of vagrancy, shuttered shops and anti-social behaviour, but this was offset by a vibrant atmosphere, with the city centre buzzing with people out shopping, eating or drinking.

As it was late in the day we had little time to do much other than explore and check out some shops for later in the trip. Then it was time to eat.

We eschewed the famous names and food-chains to head for a small Indian vegetarian bistro on Brook St called ‘chai station‘, which had taken our fancy. Chai station has an excellent selection of home cooked Gujarati dishes, many of which are vegan. Dawn and I decided to order the thalis (minimum order, two people) and we weren’t disappointed. The food was really very good. We had time to chat to Bobby, the owner, who is Ugandan Indian, he came to the UK when Idi Amin through out the Ugandan Indian community in the 1970s. Bobby’s wife Anna is Kenyan Indian and does all the cooking. We’d certainly come back as there’s so many other dishes on the menu we’re dying to try.

Having stuffed ourselves we walked back into the town centre to head to an amazing old building which has only been a pub since 2008 when it taken over by Spitting Feathers brewery. The Brewery Tap (originally called Gamul House) has a long history, with parts of the building dating back to the 1500s. There’s few pubs that can boast such an impressive, high-ceilinged interior. There’s a great range of real ales on offer too.

Tempting as it was to try other venues we both decided to call it a day and head back to Bigland Towers in exile. Now we’re having a quiet night catching up on various bits (like blogging!) before a busy day tomorrow.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Rolling blog: From Hull to Helsby (via Frodsham)…

07 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Cheshire, rail ale, Rail Investment, Railways, Travel

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I’m off on my travels today although my style’s being cramped by the need to be in Huddersfield for a dental appointment later. Still, I made an early start and headed over the Pennines to Manchester before catching an Arriva Trains Wales service out to Cheshire. My timing was perfect as the train I was aiming for from Piccadilly was one of ATWs loco hauled sets, providing a bit more capacity than the normal Alstom Class 175s used on the Holyhead services.

That said, the extra capacity was needed as the train was busy with lots of Mancunians heading off to the North Wales coast whilst other travellers were off to the Emerald Isle. I stayed on the train as far as the pretty little station of Helsby, the junction for the line via Ellesmere Port to Hooton. Looking back, I don’t think I’ve visited Helsby since the early 1970s. Probably 1973 or 74. In those days British Railways used to sell a ‘Merseyrover’ ticket which was priced at the princely sum of 50p for the whole weekend! I’ll have to dig one out but I think we must have ‘bunked’ the train from Ellesmere Port to Helsby as I don’t think they were valid that far. It explains why I only went once – twice might have been risking it!

Whilst Helsby station’s delightful architecturally it’s also a bit of the building site at the moment. The reason for that is the footbridge is being shot-blasted as part of an extensive refurbishment so it’s swathed in plastic sheeting. In the meantime access across the platforms is provided by two temporary footbridges. Their lightweight construction means they have to be held in place by multiple water tanks acting as ballast!

Here’s the main station building which was built out of Coursed rock-faced red sandstone in 1849 for the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction Railway Company. It’s grade 2 listed. Although recently refurbished, the main part is vacant and available for letting. I was surprised to find the rest (to the left of the picture) has been occupied by a craft beer bar called Beer Heroes (see link) since 2016. Sadly, it was closed when I was there, but I’m definitely going to have to pop back in the future!

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Here’s the signal box with the footbridge beyond. The box is a London and North Western Railway Type 4 signal box dating from 1900 which is also grade 2 listed. The box retains its original 45 lever London and North Western Railway Tumbler frame.

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Here’s a shot of one of the two temporary footbridges. This one crosses the Ellesmere port lines. Not the big plastic tanks full of water which hold the lightweight structure in place! Sadly, trains on this section of line are few and far between. There’s a total of six across the morning and evening peaks between Helsby and Ellesmere Port.

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An ATW service from Manchester Airport to Llandudno worked by 175116 approaches the station past a semaphore signal guarding the line in the opposite direction.

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Unfortunately, the weather didn’t play ball as much as I’d hope it would so I moved on and headed back to Frodsham to try my luck with some other shots. If only the cloud had stayed away for this one – as an ATW Class 175 crosses the Weaver Viaduct to East of Frodsham.

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Halifax. 21:23.

It’s time to draw this one to a close. The day’s been a bit rushed but the good news is I sailed through my dental check-up for another 6 months! Now I’m enjoying a quiet night at home – emailing pictures that a magazine has requested…

As usual I’ve plenty of pictures to process and tomorrow is another day. I’ll be off on my travels again then, but I’m not sure where until I check the weather forecast first thing. Let’s see what happens in the morning.

G’night!