July 2026. Heading towards Wales.
Regular readers will know that “family issues” have conspired to keep our travels to a circuit between Sheffield, Cambridge and Tunbridge Wells these last few years, with a few interludes in the Balkans and along the Leeds- Liverpool canal to break the monotony.
On Thursday I broke the shackles and headed west for the first time since Wem.
A half hour between trains in the jolly cafe outside Stockport station;
Sadly, Bask is not a cask Bass shrine, but the coffee is good.
Ah, a train heading for Milford Haven; reminds me of that weekend in Pembroke Dock.
There’s a real novelty about being on a train with announcements in a foreign language, even more so a carriage with actual spare seats to sit on.
You’ll have guessed that I’m not heading for the land of the red dragon, but rather the town of white cheese, canal boat hire and two new GBG ticks. A first visit to Whitchurch (Shropshire) in a decade, just long enough to forget anything I ever knew about it. Including just how close it is to the Welsh border (I could have walked across it but forgot my passport).
It feels bigger than you expect, a surprise there’s only 10,141 souls here, but that;’s border market towns for you. A couple of dozen pubs and clubs before a spate of closures,
but does it feel the genteel place I remember from a quarter century ago ?
Your first of faded pub memorabilia comes at the Railway Hotel (RIP),
whose Greenalls signage is fading fast.
No Greenalls, so whose beer are we going to find on the Whitchurch pub crawl in 2026 ?
retiredmartin 
I’ve a feeling that one or two of your readers might want a word about Welsh being described as a “foreign” language. Especially as it – or something very much like it – was once spoken all over this island as far north as the Forth and Clyde – Yr Hen Ogledd.
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