The Wiches and Sandbach

The towns of Nantwich and Middlewich, and any other wiches take their name from the salt springs or brine wells to found naturally occurring in the ground. The Romans made settlements in the Cheshire plains making use of the salt and bringing prosperity to the towns.

salt works at Middlewich

piles of the salt once extracted from the brine

bagged up and ready for distribution

Many of the well known black and white timber framed houses can be found in this area too. Again showing the wealth and prosperity once to be found here.

Nantwich town centre

Sandbach Old Hall Hotel

Sandbach (pronounced Sand batch) has a lovely cobbled market square........

 surrounded by pubs!

Taking pride of place in the square stand two ancient saxon crosses.

The church of St. Mary's stands on a hill making its presence felt over the town.

We had thought that we were going to have to retrace our journey back along the Shropshire Union to start our journey southwards, due to planned works on locks along the Trent and Mersey. However once we got to Middlewich yesterday it was clear that King's lock was still open and a check on the web showed that work has been delayed.  That's good then, we can head down south a different way. So being another bright sunny day we worked our way to Wheelock, from where we walked into Sandbach this afternoon.

Saturday

Middlewich - Wheelock

6 miles, 5 locks