Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
We had passed through Lymm in the North of Cheshire but now decided to explore it. We parked by the pub where we would have lunch and wandered down to the dam where in the sixties I had gone fishing. It was much nicer than I remember and the circuit round it was beautiful, a little quirky and very well-used on such a great day. St Mary's Church was built in 1850–52 to a design by John Dobson of Newcastle. The nave and aisles from an older church dating from the 15th century were blown up with gunpowder prior to the rebuilding. They did things properly the Victorians! On circuiting the dam we just had to cross the main road to enter the Dingle a beautiful copse leading to the town centre. What a stunning first view of Lymm when coming out of the Dingle. Lymm was delightful full of character and independent shops. The cross dates from the early to mid-17th century and is built of sandstone, like everything round here. An extension of the Bridgewater Canal is another charming facility for the village. Having enjoyed Lymm very much, we made our way to Warrington where I wanted to see the impressive Town Hall and its Golden Gates. We parked in what is called Warrington's Cultural Quarter near a College. The Town Hall didn't disappoint. It was designed and built in 1750 by James Gibbs as an elegant Georgian mansion, known as Bank Hall and was a home for local merchant Thomas Patten and his family. As more traffic started to use Sankey Street, the Patten family built a high brick wall in front of the building to give them privacy. But when the council bought Bank Hall in 1870 and turned it into Warrington’s new town hall, local people started to complain that they were paying rates which helped to look after the building – but they couldn’t even see it! So Frederick Monks, one of the town’s earliest councillors, came up with an idea. As a local ironmaster, he could give the town hall a fitting entrance. As a young man, Monks was an apprentice of P P Carpenter of Cairo Street. He worked his way up and then helped to create Monks Hall and Company, which became one of the country’s leading manufacturers of iron and steel. Through his business, he heard about a magnificent pair of iron gates made by the famous Coalbrookdale works at Ironbridge. The gates were made for the International Exhibition of 1862, and then intended for Queen Victoria’s Sandringham home in Norfolk. The Queen was meant to see them for the first time at the exhibition but, clearly visible through the gates, was a statue of Oliver Cromwell. As Cromwell had signed King Charles I’s death warrant, royalty didn’t like him very much. The Queen’s courtiers realised she wouldn’t be amused to see the statue, and diverted her. Coalbrookdale found it hard to find a buyer for such grand gates, so Monks was able to buy and bring them to Warrington to stand at the front of the town hall lawn. Monks also presented the cast iron Cromwell statue, designed by John Bell, to Warrington in 1899. It now stands on Bridge Street and is Grade II Listed. An interesting story! We wandered back through the Cultural Quarter to Palmyra Square where are some of Warrington’s finest eateries – Las Ramblas, San Lorenzo, Mr. Laus, Grill on the Square, and the recently-opened Vandal Bar and Kitchen, housed inside the grand Treasury Building. We popped inside - quite posh! The Parr Hall and Pyramid Arts Centre forms virtually the whole of one side of this very pleasant square, so nice we started looking at the cost of the apartments there.
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August 2023
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