Chester and Oswestry

Eastgate street, Chester

In the second week of half term my husband decided to take a few days holiday. He had been working mostly away in Manchester for months and wanted to spend a few days with the children.  I decided to go the opposite way to see my new nieces again in Manchester and fit in some dancing and sightseeing. 

I asked on Facebook what milongas were on in the north and also used TangoTimetable. I could not face the time-wasting activity of trawling through regional Facebook groups to find a milonga. Most events I have known about for a while did seem to be advertised on TangoTimteable. Someone reminded me there was a Sunday milonga in Newcastle which I had heard about before but which is not on the site.  I might have gone after the Manchester popup milonga but I had already made other plans for Sunday evening.

On Saturday 15th October I went to the milonga in Pant, a village in Shropshire some 45 minutes drive south of Chester. 

I drove from Scotland stopping for an hour in Chester to walk around. I recommend the city as attractive and historic. The lady in the tourist information centre told me the Market place carpark behind the tourist information is free after 3pm. 

The Romans called the city Deva (the town is on the River Dee and the latin for goddess is dea or diva). After they left Britain their camps and forts were often referred to by the indigenous population with the suffixes -chester, -caster, -cester. In the case of Chester it wasn't just a suffix. 

The first thing I encountered was the famous clock perched, rather absurdly I thought above the Eastgate though at the time I did not know either that the clock was famous nor that I was standing above what had been the main entrance to the city for 2000 years. The clock reminded me rather of one in the Manchester central library which had struck me as both beautiful and rather absurd, perched as it is on what I read well described as “ornate supports like a particularly elaborate piece of garden furniture”. The one in Chester is apparently the most photographed clock in Britain after Big Ben. I took these photos standing on the Eastgate.

From top left: Eastgate clock, building with “1395” stamped under gable. 16th Century pub. Different architectural and design styles from 1928 and 1885.

Chester is famous for its “rows”, unique in Britain: covered walkways or galleries, on the ground or first floor of buildings from where you can enter shops and cafes. Many buildings are black and white and seem old, especially when you see dates on buildings from the 14th century, but the great majority of it is Victorian reproduction. 

From:  Cheshire, by Nikolaus Pevsner, Edward Hubbard, 1971

Some of the variety of architectural styles: the picture top left shows some Chester “rows”, top right is the Westminster Coach and Motor Car Works, now repurposed as Chester library. Bottom left is the Georgian Eastgate with the late Victorian clock above. 

Chester has the most “the most complete circuit of a Roman and Medieval defensive town wall” in Britain, nearly two miles, and they are walkable. The walls are not just used by tourists. Locals use them to get about. So did I, to get back to my car after wandering through a little of the centre. I know locals use them because I heard snatches of quotidian conversation about picking up pizza for dinner and someone on the phone loudly talking (apparently) a child through how to use an answerphone.  I am always taken by the sound and smell of new places, Chester had its own scents. I smelt doughnuts by the east gate and foreign food by the Iceland car park. 

Chester from the walls: Top picture - View across the cathedral. I think this is the falconry centre. Left: modern Chester; Right: Atop the walls.

Chester Cathedral, a place of worship since the sixteenth century; substantially restored in the nineteenth century:

I realised I had had nothing to drink since the morning and decided to have a look at Oswestry, the nearest town to Pant and to have a drink there. I was starting to feel tired and was not looking forward to the ninety minute drive back to Manchester later that night. I realised there was a Premier Inn nearby but all the country Premier Inns in Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Wrexham were booked out, leaving the - presumably more expensive - city Inns still available. I was counting on the novelty of a new milonga to give me a second wind later on. 

I marvelled that there was no other milonga between Perth and Pant that Saturday night apart from one in Morley near Leeds.  

A: I was thinking about what you said - there isn't the same music today because there's no money in it etc.

But imagine if everyone danced as they did in the 1940s when it was normal for people in my grandmother's generation to to local dances on a Saturday night. She told me they'd walk three or four miles to get there if they had to. I do dream of that. Everyone dancing again. Every neighbourhood should have a milonga. Imagine that.

B: I can imagine that :) but I don't think we'll see another Golden Age of dance soon. And esp. not in the UK, where most of what people call tango is the English-style dancing done in so-called Argentine tango classes.

But I had already been to the Morley milonga and heard the DJ twice. I fancied something new.  I had heard due to (at least) a seeming lack of current ownership numbers had fallen off.  After this most recent edition I heard this week that things had picked up.

I passed over a couple of rivers north of Oswestry admiring the gorgeous woodland of the area. I crossed into Wales where all the signs turned Welsh (as well as English) and then into Shropshire and the signs went back into just English.  Since the landscape was the very same it seemed rather random. 

Oswestry was decked out in bunting perhaps for some civic event or maybe just to keep its spirits up. It is home to the Cambrian House Emporium: 8000 square feet of Antiques, collectables, vintage and retro. It also has a vintage railway and I saw a sign indicating the way to a hillfort through a housing estate. Oswestry has history. I saw a plaque marking the former site of a thirteenth century building. The Guildhall looked nineteenth century and interesting.  I see there are tours.

Perhaps I was jaded from my drive. Certainly, I was tired because I forgot to put on the handbrake and the car started to roll away on the hill. Luckily the driver’s door was still open. 

The Oswestry I saw had a Morrisons, an Iceland and an Aldi supermarket, betting shops, the China Palace takeaway, a Poundland, a kebab shop, a large Indian restaurant:  the “Eastern Eye”, a Thai restaurant. There was a Premier Express corner shop. I thought of the trendy tapas bar I had seen at the foot of the wall in more monied Chester. Tapas didn’t seem to have come to Oswestry yet. I passed a large bead shop “Beadazzled”, a wool shop and a Relate charity furniture outlet. Many places were shut down or for sale. I passed The Griffin pub, which had looked alright from a different side as I went by in the car. Now though two fat men were smoking outside and put me off. The George looked a bit smarter but a glance inside showed a vacant looking girl eyeing me with some hostility, one leg over the arm of her chair, drumming her foot and a guy in the next room banging a fruit machine. I felt sad, over-privileged and out of place. I made a circle of the central part of town and found the rear entrance to The Griffin. It was about six thirty. My way to the bar was blocked by more enormously fat men drinking who refused to make way or even acknowledge me. The bar staff were pleasant though and the place generally felt quiet and relaxed. I ordered my drink and drank it quickly before going on my way wondering “How do you end up in Oswestry? How do you get out?” I was drawn up sharply when later I read Wilfred Owen came from here.