retiredmartin

July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire.

You can generate a mass of blog material in a 4 hour visit, even with 5 pubs and a 10 minute indecision about cheese purchase to interrupt your cultural exploration.

As with pork pies, cheese is best heated up. Don’t @ me.

I wondered what else the internet would reveal about Whitchurch, given that our future Master and Commander ChatGPT can only work with what’s on the internet (often random Reddit comments).

As so often, the answer is….not that much. 24 hours in Whitchurch from Visit Shropshire, which sounds at least semi-official, immediately suggests driving out of town, which rather defeats the object of using your legs.

It does recommend the Whitchurch Arm of the Llangollen canal,

and St Alkmund’s church,

and MOO & BOOM’s (sadly closed) sustainable cafe/lifestyle store which supplied unnecessary cushions to Cheshire gastropubs.

But not much else, though it recommends a meal and pint* in the upmarket Black Bear (patience !)

And, er, that’s about it. Not even the Heritage Centre, but odds-on that’s closed anyway

So let’s explore St Alkmund’s, for 10 minutes anyway.

Some blogs will give you dates and names and ‘istree. I’m more interested in the present, and Bubble Church.

It’s what I guess you’d call a working church, lots going on, so my photographic highlights don’t do it justice.

What is the eagle for ?

Glorious but unfussy, reminds me a bit of All Saints in Northampton,

and because I don’t get pestered by volunteers assaulting me with names and dates I leave a donation on the contactless reader.

Don’t miss it.

*_{But they never mean a pint, do they ?}