I have been rather naughty today . I have broken Covid guidelines . I have travelled further than 5 miles from home . I have driven from Wales into England . I had a parcel to pick up at the nearest Post Office . The nearest had proved inaccessible due to flooding so the next nearest was about 8 miles down the road in the next county of Cheshire and the next country of England. I needed to get out and I was going to enjoy myself .
Malpas is a picturesque place deep in the heart of the south Cheshire countryside . It once had a motte and bailey castle situated somewhere near St Oswalds church but in all the years I lived there I never once discovered it . Malpas like many small towns and villages retains its medieval street structure . But is it a town or a village ? Depends who you ask . It was awarded a charter which allowed it to have a market . That makes it a town . It feels more a village and has retained that feel despite the growth over the years. It sits nestled in a corner bordered
by Shropshire a few miles away and Wales just over the border . Malpas from the Olde French - a bad pass . A name that says it all .
There were few Roman sites in the village/town despite its closeness to Tilston - Roman Bovium with its tile production and Mediolanium Whitchurch . It was an Anglo Saxon burgh. It appeared in the Domesday Book as Depenbech owned by Robert Fitzhugh.
I reached the outskirts and headed up Church Street with a plan in mind . Cars parked both sides . Nothing new there . It was always a bottleneck even 20 years ago . Now made worse with the new housebuilding . I did not recognise some of the new houses . Some built in the back garden of the vets house. More squeezed in between other properties . A new development on what was once a garage .
The road was blocked with a sign which announced a road closure . I could not work out how to get to the High Street . I tried to park on the road . No room . Neither was there anywhere near the church . I
had no choice but to turn round and try and find my way around the village and attack it from a different direction . Easier said than done . The roads were no more than lanes . I had forgotten how to get to the village the long way round . I pointed myself in the direction I thought was right and drove .
The snow and rain had left deep puddles and the roads were muddy where the slurry off the fields. I ended up in Oldcastle . I began to recognise where I was . That house over there was one I used to go to when I collected electoral registration forms . That road down there would take me to Higher Wyche. It felt finally when I realised where I was. It always does doesnt it?
I drove past the doctors surgery , Laurel Bank .I used to go there many years ago . It had not changed one bit . I parked up and set out to walk . . I walked past the pubs The Red Lion and the Crown . Both had been refurbished . The story goes
that Charles I visited the Red Lion and sat in a three legged chair that still stands in the bar . There was the old Market House, It had once been a up market restaurant but no longer .It had been built in 1762 and has a colonnade of eight Tuscan columns . The Butter market once used the building , It looked as if it had been transported from Italy.
As I wandered through I thought of myself as a tourist. That is always a good way to think when you visit a place you know . I stopped taking it for granted as I walked around . I looked at the Old Post Office - Beech House . I bought many a stamp there or posted a letter . The Jubilee Hall . Built Queen Victoria in 1887 in an Olde English black and white half timbered style . The church would run jumble sales in the 70s , the local flower arranging club ran their events from the hall . So many memories .
red brick building endowed by Richard Alport in 1745 to educate the poor of the village . It began its life as a Bluecoat Charity School. In 1815 girls could attend the rather beautiful school.
