My sister and I when I first visited Nantwich in 2010.

In the rain yesterday, while staying at my sister’s in Kidsgrove, England, we went a lovely town called Nantwich. A historic market town in Cheshire, England, located on the River Weaver, about four miles south of the city of Crewe. It has been inhabited since the Roman time, important for the salt—a valuable commodity in those days. By the Medieval period it had grown into an important market town—a major salt-production center.  It is known for its well-preserved Tudor and Georgian buildings. In 1550 there were about 400 salt houses boiling brine to make salt. It was called the town of White Salt (Hellath Wen) by their Welsh neighbors. Thirty-three years later, a fire, lasting for almost three weeks, destroyed most of Nantwich. https://nantwichmuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Great-Fire.pdf

Queen Elizabeth I contributed over £1000 and timber from the Delamere Forest to help rebuild the town. Nantwich was an important salt production center for over 1600 years, is one of the best-preserved historic towns in Cheshire, with narrow streets and many timber framed houses, and the highest concentrations of listed buildings, more than 100, of special architectural or historical interest in England.

The Crown Hotel is a Grade II listed building. It has an exquisite gallery window on the third floor, a stunning Georgian ballroom and original wattle and daub construction.

St Mary’s Church, isan Anglican church, often called Cathedral of South Cheshire and considered to be one of the finest medieval churches, not only in Cheshire, but in the whole of England.

We planned to have lunch in the smallest and cutest little cafe I have ever seen. It was behind a wall that looked like a wall. Unfortunately it was closed but we were allowed to use the bathroom and I took a few pictures.

We stopped for lunch at the Nantwich Bookshop, whose sign inside says–We do not do “fast food”,
we do good food as fast as we can! It was good food, and good service. It was part of the houses rebuilt in the 1500s. The Carpenter and his apprentices built the frames in a different place, assembled the timbers on site, and marked where each piece joined. Then the frames were dismantled and taken to town on a cart and reassembled. These marks showed the joints, which were behind where we sat.

Nantwich Lake was pretty with the golden leaves of the beech trees and ducks, swans and moorhens. As one leaves the carpark to walk into the town there is a memorial to 1st Lieutenant Arthur L. Brown age 23 years of New York, who crashed his thunderbolt to avoid the town in 1944.