2022 - A Trip to the United Kingdom
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The Hendersons 2022 - A Trip to the United Kingdom - Shrewsbury |
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2022 - A Trip to the United Kingdom |
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27 July 2022 Wednesday This turned out to be one of the most challenging travel
days we've ever had. We wanted to avoid the motorway to the extent possible and
so we're on somewhat smaller roads. Son Tom found a lovely pub called the Black
Horse and we had a delightful lunch which was brie, cranberry sauce and bacon on
a bun. We drove to Shrewsbury and checked
into our hotel which was in a business park and didn't have any restaurants
close by. It was our day to do laundry and the hotel manager told us about a
coin operated laundry machine at the nearby Shell gasoline station. We had
booked the hotel because Expedia claimed, incorrectly, that the hotel had
laundry facilities. We went to the station and got our laundry washed but the
machine didn't work to dry it so we ended up with a week's worth of laundry for
three people that was soaking wet, obviously we're very unhappy. At first the
night manager was not very sympathetic but he determined that the small dryer in
the housekeeping laundry room would be suitable for drying our clothes. Most of
their laundry is sent out so they don't have a full-scale laundry facility in
the hotel. We popped part of our load in the small dryer then took off looking
for dinner. We had identified an Italian restaurant in Shrewsbury and pulled up
at 9 o'clock. They were supposed to be open until 10, but they told us that
their kitchen was closed. We went to a pub, The Peacock, which was closest to our
hotel and their kitchen was closed. So then we went to the White Horse Pub and
their kitchen was closed. We ended up going to a Sainsbury's and buying three
chicken Caesar salads and took them back to the hotel where we ate them in the
breakfast room and waited for another load of laundry to finish. The jeans in
our laundry were still not dry but we just hung them up in our room and they
dried in a couple of days.
28 July 2022 Thursday As mentioned earlier, we were not impressed with the car
that Enterprise had rented to us so we contacted them about the non-functioning
horn and they had roadside assistance come out. The mechanic worked on the horn
for some time and eventually got it fixed. That killed most of the morning but
we did manage to get over to the World Heritage site, Iron Bridge, and went into
the Victorian village and had a nice walk around looking at shops and
businesses. We were quite amused that the man who had a carpenter shop also was
the undertaker for the village. Turns out that back in Victorian times the
carpenter also made coffins `to fit’ if you will. We also had a nice chat with
the stonemason who is very proud of his craft, the origins of which date back to at
least Egyptian times. In fact he told us that the tools that they use now are
very similar to what was used when stone carving was first developed. From the
village we went to Iron Bridge which is the original bridge which is credited
with being the start of the industrial age. It was designed by a Quaker,
Abraham Darcy. From the time it was open to the public until 1950 the toll was
never changed, which was then eliminated. It was constructed like a wooden
bridge, mortise and tenon style. It is quite small but historically very
significant. Around the area are a lot of blast furnaces because iron work was
very important in the late 1700s to the middle 1800s. I am reminded of the
Anglican hymn “Did Those Feet in Ancient Times”, which has the very sturring
phrase “the dark satanic mills”. I am sure that the ironworks at that time were
dark and satanic.
That evening we had
dinner at The Peacock and had our first steak and ale pie which we quite
enjoyed. |
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