Phil Gillam: Enjoying a brush with history in Shrewsbury
Under the bright blue skies of a crisp and frosty morning, we went for a walk over Kingsland Bridge, across Beck's Fields on the outer bank of the river's horseshoe loop and then over Porthill Bridge and through The Quarry.
It was one of those walks that make you appreciate just how lucky you are to live in a town as beautiful as Shrewsbury.
This was on Sunday.
It was a stroll that allowed my wife and I to reflect upon the fantastic family Christmas we've just enjoyed, and to also look ahead a little into the unknown (or 2015 as we like to call it).
Wandering through the Dingle, the elegant tower of the Georgian gem that is St Chad's Church made itself known through the leafless branches of spidery trees, its silver dome gleaming in the perfect sunlight.
It made me recall that when I was eight I won a Blue Peter badge by sending in a painting of St Chad's - an early Phil Gillam masterpiece in watercolours which I'd Sellotaped to a cut-out piece of a Kellogg's cornflakes packet so that the work of art would not get bent in the post. Valerie Singleton and John Noakes were obviously impressed.
Anyway, back to the present, and back to St Chad's.
The sight of this lovely church also reminded me of the Nine Lessons and Carols service we'd enjoyed there just a couple of weeks before, a magical candle-lit evening of glorious music that would surely have moved even the most cynical of men.
Ah, well . . .
Back across the river, The Boathouse inn has to be one of our town's prettiest pubs - and it was here on Sunday that we decided to have lunch. The black and white riverside pub is about as typically English as fish and chips - which is what I chose from the menu.
Nice meal. Gorgeous setting. Sun streaming through the windows. What's not to like?
And on such an idyllic day, it's somewhat difficult to accept that this building was where many victims of the Plague were brought during the outbreak of 1650, according to the parish registers of St Chad's.
The population of Shrewsbury at that time was only around 3,000 and it is believed the borough lost one tenth of its citizens to the Plague. There you go - that pesky old history rearing its head again. But, hey, that's all part of the charm in a town like this.
The Boathouse (he said, warming to his theme) later became a public house and was popular with the bargees and watermen operating on the river. In 1863 a special event was staged here involving the lighting of lamps and the display of a star created by a series of gas jets. All this was to mark the royal marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Ah, yes, any excuse for a knees-up!
For some years, a river boat called the Severn Queen offered trips from the pub. And a ferryboat used to take passengers back and forth across the river at this point, a service which of course came to an end with the opening of the Porthill Bridge in January 1923.
All this history, all this beauty.
Do you know what? I'm inclined to get my watercolours out, create another masterpiece and stick it to a cornflakes packet.
* Phil Gillam's gentle novel of family life, Shrewsbury Station Just After Six, is available from Pengwern Books in Fish Street, Shrewsbury, and from amazon.co.uk
