Shropshire 40 Whitchurch/a mural on the wall/the Jubilee Park and things that you miss when you don't look /lunch at Walkers old fashioned cafe

---

I was a little early. You never can tell when you leave home just how long it will take to get to wherever it is you plan to visit. The sat nav gives you an idea as does putting the destination into an AA routemap . But none of those take into account traffic nor finding a spot to park. I had intended to park in the usual spot on the pay car park on Sherrymill Hill . However, as I drove into Whitchurch along the oddly named Chemistry I passed a free car park that I have never noticed before . How many times must I have driven past and yet never seen it ? It was hiding in clear sight . It seemed to be empty and used for visitors to the nearby childrens playground and the Jubilee Park .

I drove past it and up the hill , turned round and returned the way I had come . Parking up was indeed free. I always find myself checking and rechecking the signs . Just in case . They all said free. I could stay as long or as short as I wanted . This will do for me I thought . A little further walk but nothing that would make me late to meet my friend. I chose to walk up the road making the decision to find my way back through the park after lunch . From the road I had a view of the park that I would see in more detail later . It seemed a hive of activity.

I arrived as usual at the clock. The sort of place everyone meets as it is at the crossroads of Green End, the High Street and Watergate Street . As I stood I looked at my feet . Beneath my shoes was the most ornate "manhole cover " I had ever seen. It was no manhole cover though but a plaque set into the ground . The circle was filled with images of Whitchurch . The clock, the church, the interesting black and white buildings, the canal and lots more . Direction arrows pointed to each of the locations . Rather than an upright signpost directions were here at my feet . Local towns were marked up around the perimeter. Malpas 5 miles away. Wem in the other direction. Market Drayton . Towns large and small and villages of all sizes were marked on the ground . I wondered how many passed it by without a second glance . The square , if you could call it that was heaving. It was the last week of the school holidays and parents were making the most of the last days visiting Whitchurch. To perhaps buy stationery or clothes for the new term that was just around the corner . Waiting I found myself thinking about shoes . Where do adults buy childrens decent shoes these days? Do they all buy in the supermarket or on line? Where can you buy a decent leather pair of shoes ? There are the odd Clarkes and Hotter shops around in the larger cities but long gone are Dolcis or Freeman Hardy Willis. Shops that used to be on every High Street. Gone is the local shop that specialised in measuring childrens feet. They provided the stock winter footware and summer sandles for all three grammar schools in the town. You never see children or teenages wearing the same shoes as each other these days . From the shoes you could tell if the child was a pupil of Grove Park, Yale Grammar School or the Convent. How odd that I flitted from manholes to shoe shops in a flash.!

I met my friend whom I had known for many years . We headed for Walkers Traditional Coffee shop. A coffee shop housed in one of those black and white buildings that could have been erected in the 17th century or was a Victorian Gothic copy. It was quaint inside with traditional counter and not a sign of modernity . The tables and chairs the same as they probably were 20 years ago on my last visit . Pub tables and chairs which all set the scene for a very traditional place to meet and eat . The menu was fairly standard with the usual suspects of Jacket Potatoes to Paninis and from Salads to pies . An hour and a half passed by quickly as the tables beside us emptied and then filled up again . Service was good and again felt traditionally right for the building . I even saw the owner who must be in his 80's . It looked as if he still baked his own massive cobs in his bakery and cooked his own ham ready to be sliced as thick or as thin as you wanted .

I left my friend and headed up to the Civic Centre. An incongrous 1970's concrete structure squeezed in between the black and white neighbours . The plan was to find the museum. I knew it was there somewhere and assumed it would be in the civic centre . The tourist information unmanned was there. The tourist information officer was round the corner listening to a gentleman playing the piano . It seemed odd to hear him in such a strange setting . The building was empty . The morning market in the hall had packed up and here he was playing this piano. I stood for a while and listened as he flitted from classical piano pieces to ragtime jazz . In the end he packed up and I felt it time to move on .

The passageway outside had a sign . Museum this way . The indoor walkway was covered with paintings that the local children had produced . The most interesting was the street art . I don't know when the street art was commissioned but it made a welcome change from the blank canvas of a grey wall. The museum sadly only opened Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Pencilled in for a visit on one of those days . The only thing left was to walk back to the car in the Jubilee Park car park.

The large gates to the park were not ornate in any way. A long set of steps fell away down to the park . The bandstand had been refurbished and a new skate park installed . The kids were enjoying themselves there . Parents sat on the many benches . The Harry Richards Memorial gardens were a cross between a small garden , an allotment and a memorial park . A small pond in the middle . A sculpture here and there . A board explaining the story of Harry Richards - a local who founded the Salopia bus company . One wall of the garden was devoted to plaques . Grandad is here I heard one child say . I was unsure if there was just a memorial plaque or whether loved ones ashes were scattered in the garden.

The gate out of the park was fairly new and whilst the larger gate commemorated Queen Victorias Jubilee the lower one celebrated Queen Elizabeth . I was amazed at finding something new in a town I thought I knew inside and outside .

---