… a day makes. Yesterday was chilly, but with blue skies and bright sunshine, very much a spring day. Today however is even colder, the sky is dull grey, and it’s raining pretty hard just now. Those hardy souls venturing out are all carrying umbrellas. Feels more like November than March!
Built in 1753, the Sandbrook Vaults (pub) is a Grade II listed building, one of the oldest surviving in Market Drayton. This used to be the main road through the town. 
Blore Heath, just a couple of miles from where we live, was the site of a bloody battle on the 23rd Sept 1459 between the Lancastrian and Yorkist armies. A relatively small skirmish in the War of the Roses, some 3,000 of the 15,000 in the two armies were killed over the 2 days the battle lasted. 
Clock making in Shropshire dates back to 1690 when William Joyce established a firm making long-case clocks in Cockshutt. They moved to Whitchurch in 1790, and to the building below in 1904. The company closed some years ago, but the building has been preserved and is now used as an auction house. 
I last took a photo from this spot around 20 years ago (it was a colour slide using my old medium format camera). Nothing much has changed, except it was autumn then and there were still leaves on the trees. I remember being so frustrated when I got the processed film back and realised there was an old tin can in the photo I hadn’t spotted. Nowadays it could be cloned out in seconds, but it ruined the photo back then!
And so it runs, away into the distance… I remember my parents putting me on a (steam) train to London back in the 1950s to stay with my grandparents for a holiday – I still feel that same sense of adventure now when I take a trip by train. 
… is always under construction. Spotted this sign in a local gift shop, and thought how true it is… There is always something more to aspire to. 
… as it appears. You could be forgiven for thinking that Wightwick Manor, in Wolverhampton, dates back to the Elizabethan era of the 16th Century, but it was actually only built in 1887. Inspired by the Arts & Crafts movement of William Morris, it was built by the Mander family, and is now in the hands of the National Trust. 
The gate paddle mechanism at #1 Lock at Tyrley Locks on the Shropshire Union Canal near Market Drayton. Completed in 1835, this canal was the last major project completed by Thomas Telford, the architect of much of the canal system in England. Looks to me like this gear mechanism is probably original…
Walking into town today, I was taken with this old cottage. It’s pretty small, and dates back to the early 1800s, and I guess it probably was indeed the local wheelwright’s cottage ‘in the day’. Many of the older properties in town have long since gone, but enough remain to give a sense of history. 
One Day At A Time... 