Tag: UK holidays

Why the Chester Mystery Plays should be on your cultural radar this summer

Players, makers and stitchers of the 2023 Chester Mystery Plays Company (image: Chester Mystery Plays).

The Chester Mystery Plays return to Chester Cathedral this summer, the season coinciding with the Chester Heritage Festival.

The production comprises a huge cast of professional and non-professional performers (pictured above), many volunteering for roles on stage, in the choir, or behind the scenes.

I wrote a preview of the production, based around an interview with the actor Nick Fry, who shares the role of God with a female actor this summer.

The 24 plays, based on Bible stories, form an overarching narrative from The Creation to The Last Judgement, and are performed on a five-year cycle in Chester.

They originated in the city in 1300s, with small-scale church productions and a script in Latin. By the 1400s, the plays had been adopted by the Crafts Guilds, bodies of local tradesmen like a modern-day trade union, to be staged and performed in Middle English.

The plays formed part of the three-day Feast of Corpus Christi Fair with the players performing on pageant carts and the audience standing at fixed points around the city, such as The Cross and Abbey Gateway — locations still there today.

The Plays became associated with bawdy crowd behaviour and were banned after the Reformation, with last performance in Chester in 1578; making Chester home to the longest-running cycle in medieval times.

But the plays returned to the city as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain, and have been performed at Chester Cathedral since 2013.

Nick Fry, says:

“The Chester Mystery Plays reflect the history of both the cathedral and the city. And it’s a living history. The plays are steeped in history, yet remain of the community and for the community.”

Read the full article via The Church Times, The play that unites the city of Chester.

More info and booking: Chester Mystery Plays.

Why boutique Shrewsbury should be on your UK-staycation radar this year

A winter weekend in Shrewsbury? No, really.

My first assignment of the new year took me to the Shropshire market town for a UK staycation.

The town is closely associated with the story of the naturalist Charles Darwen, Shrewsbury’s most famous son [pictured above].

It hosts an annual festival of natural sciences, coinciding with the February 12 birthday of man whose 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, forms the basis of our understanding of evolution.

“Darwen was a human being with human failings, but he simply couldn’t stop himself asking questions all his life,” says Jon King, whose book, Charles Darwin in Shrewsbury – The Making of a Marvellous Mind was recently published by Amberley Publishing.

But the town is also booming as a hub for independent businesses with boutique galleries, cafes and shops doing a busy trade, notably along historic Wyle Cop.

The historic market town, set within a loop of the River Severn, first made its money from the wool industry in Tudor times.

Today the half-timbered shopfronts of Wyle Cop, said to be the street with the longest uninterrupted row of independent shops in the country, are again alive with home-grown businesses.

“Shrewsbury is booming with quirky, independent businesses,” says local shopkeeper, Simon Perks. “Like a rubber band, it keeps bouncing back.”

Read the full story via Telegraph Travel, Visitors Thought Shrewsbury was like Middle Earth for years

How to celebrate 125 years of Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel, Dracula, at Whitby Abbey

 A trip to Whitby to get into the Halloween spirit.

My visit was part of a wider itinerary to explore the Yorkshire Coast Route, a new route intended to showcase the off-season charms of the Yorkshire seaside.

The route spans 240 miles, taking in the North Yorks Moors National Park and walking routes off the Cleveland Way National Trail.

The highlight, however, is Whitby.

Gothic novel

The traditional Yorkshire fishing village of Whitby is bracing itself for a black-mascara influx this autumn, hosting events to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula.

Published in 1897, Dracula was inspired by the seascape and atmospheric backstreets of Whitby with several key scenes set in the town.

The spindly ruins of Whitby Abbey [pictured above] remain the main draw, the Gothic-novel literati eagerly climbing the 199 steep, stone steps to soak up the abbey’s atmospheric setting. 

By the time Bram Stoker visited Whitby in August 1890, the abbey had long since adopted its eerily tumbledown form.

He drew on local legends, such as the wreck of a sailing vessel, The Demeter in the novel, and the folklore of the barghest, a wolf-like hound that stalked the moors.

These added local colour to the story of his Transylvanian anti-hero.

Hence, when Dracula is shipwrecked off Whitby, Stoker has him transform into a fierce black dog, leaping from the ship to bound up the cliffs to the abbey.

Victorian values

“Dracula’s animalistic representation of the occult loomed large in the Victorian imagination.”

“The beastly incarnation was both shocking, yet fascinating, to Victorian society,” says Mark Williamson, Site Manager for English Heritage.

Read the full story in i Travel, A Very Gothic Grand Tour.

More from https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/whitby-abbey/things-to-do/

Why the hidden-treasure town of Nantwich should be your next staycation

Spring finds me driving the rural backroads of south Cheshire.

I’m here on assignment for Telegraph Travel, writing a postcard from Cheshire as part of a series of articles by writers around the UK.

Each one is about an under-the-radar destinations for UK staycations with a sprinkle of celebratory stardust.

My journey took me to Nantwich, the historic market town, and the Combermere Estate on the Cheshire-Shropshire border.

I also visited the new Three Wrens gin distillery, where I met distillery dog, Rocky [pictured above].

Here’s a taster of my article:

The historic market town of Nantwich has all the history of county-hub Chester, albeit on a smaller scale.

The jumble of cobbled streets and half-timbered houses have hosted Norman lords, survived medieval fires, and been occupied by the Parliamentarian forces during the mid 1600s when Nantwich defied Chester, coming out against Charles I during the Civil War.

The Market Hall has been singing the praises of Cheshire Cheese since the town’s genteel Victorian era.

“I think visitors appreciate the slow-travel tranquillity of South Cheshire while being surprised by the quality of its local produce,” says Sarah Callander-Beckett, the owner and current lady of the manor at Combermere Abbey.

“This region is steeped in rural heritage but has moved with the times to offer high quality and an individual experience.”

Read the full story, The charming Cheshire town that hasn’t yet been ruined by WAGs.