Warrington, Cheshire - My kind of place (Warrington)

Member Name: Scooobydooo

Product:	Warrington
Date:	20/02/04 (835 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: friendly, cheap, nice place

Disadvantages: none

Warrington, Cheshire is literally situated in the North West of England and is situated 15 miles from Manchester and Liverpool so access to both Cities on the train is easy and takes around 20-30 minutes.

So let me tell you a bit about the town that I live in and if you are ever in the area, stop and take a look and do not pass it by.

Warrington was mainly a working class sort of town and rows of terraced houses are situated around the place. The main manufacturing of the area was Wire for industry. Lots of generations of people worked in factories and in recent years whilst most of these have now disappeared and new houses are sprouting up everywhere making it a nice modern town which sits nicely amongst the older parts of the town.

So say you are travelling up North, I will try and tell you about the good points and the bad points of the town and I hope you find both of these interesting.

So get your bus passes ready and your train passes as I will take you into the past and present of my town.

We will start with our Town Hall. It is a large Town Hall. It is situated on the outskirts of the town and has the finest gates which are black and gold and were presented to Queen Victoria as a present from the people of Warrington. Unfortunatley Oliver Cromwell has a statue here and Queen Victoria did not approve of the statue and refused acceptance of the gates as he had tried to defeat Charles 1st. The gates were meant for Sandringham. Instead we have them now outside the lawns to the Town Hall. Shame really for her as we all like them.

Now in Warrington, we have something that is called Walking Day. Walking Day goes back to our industrial heritage when workers did not have many holidays and could not afford holidays. The Churches and youth associations all come together with the schools and children and adults with floats walk through the town. Many of the girls are dressed in white frilly dresses and boys in littl
e suits although in recent years dress is more relaxed, it is still rather a big parade. You give money to the children you know for them to put in their money pouches who then all end the parade with a day out at the fair.

The next bit I will take you to is the town centre, you are lucky for this as it is within walking distance, about 5 minutes. We have a large shopping complex which has all the large stores like BHS, M and S and various other, together with small retail stores. This is an undercover complex called Golden Square. Access is easy and motorbility scooters can be borrowed to scoot around the town. There are plenty of cafeterias for you to sit down and have a cup of tea whilst browsing.

When you come out of the Shopping Mall you will see a concrete type marble effect statue that depicts characters out of Alison in Wonderland. In summer we normally go and get a jacket potato and a can of something and sit around the table together with Alice and the Rabbit and the Mad Hatter. This was opened by Princess Diana and became a shrine to her when she passed away. Now people like the statue but they do not realise why we have this statue here. Simply as Lewis Caroll was born in Warrington in Daresbury as Charles Hodgson. Now later you can jump on a bus to Daresbury and take a look at the stained glass in the church. A quaint little village part of the town where the church windows are all to do with the Alice in Wonderland theme.

Walking through the town centre we come to Time Square which is where the indoor market is situated. Small stalls and retailers who were in the old market which was just outside of Golden Square in the old days. Here you can buy clothes, shoes, meat, food, veg all at good northern prices. Retailers are still here from when their grandparents owned the business and all is very friendly.

We have large out of town shopping centres like The Cockhedge Centre which is not far away and Ikea sits on the M6
motorway side on The Gemini Retail Park and trying to get to that park is a no no for the towns people on a Sunday as all the Tourists head for this area.

Right, now that I have covered a bit of the centre of the town a bit of history, we need to jump on a bus, come on quick, lets go over to Padgate, Padgate is situated just about 3 miles outside the town centre and used to be the Army Barracks in the War. Houses were built on it and have since been demolished. This was one of the largest Army bases in Europe and people like Bob Monkhouse and Bob Hope were stationed here. All the roads are named after planes. We also have another USA base which was called Burtonwood which is at the other end of town and the Hangers are still there and Old Soldiers still come to see the place even though most of it is now derelict. The nostalgia is great for them. A lot of English ladies married Americans and moved over, leaving the poor Warrington men single and not happy.

Ok, so your not interested in History or Shopping, Eating? where ever you go in Warrington, you can catch a bus to one of the rural parts like Daresbury or Stretton and sit in quite country pubs eating a nice meal at very reasonable prices. For those who are not worried about cost then there are other places in Daresbury that cater for special events.

For the families we have a lot of National Trust Halls dotted around Warrington and one of them is called Walton Gardens which is a massive Hall for those interested in the History Side of things and they have a family zoo there for the children and swings and crazy golf and a golf course and bowls and you can sit anywhere in the gardens. Parking is easy and you pay a small fee. It is set in the most spectacular country side and has no cost to get into it. Also in July every year DAD is there, what? Disability Awareness Day. It is Europes biggest Day and people come from all over the world to attend. You can get information about disabiliti
es and there are a lot more other things going on like fairs and stalls and events. Whether you are disabeled or not, this is greatly supported and hosted by the people of Warrington.

Hotels are many in Warrington and start as from little as 35.00 a night at town centre hotels up to posh hotels, so there are things for everyone.

So I have told you a bit about where I live now and we have our own Warrington Wire Radio Station and also Warrington Wolves Rugby Stadium.

We have plenty of famous pop groups that come from our area and people like Kerry McFaddan was born locally and Chris Evans was brought up on the same estate I live on and infact his mum still lives around here. We have people like Pete Postlethwaite who is a Warrington lad as are many other people.

Right all jump back on the bus, lets go back to the hotel and get scrubbed up for a night on the tiles............ zoom here we are now back in the centre of town and whether you fancy an indian, chinese or a macdonalds, you will find it here. There are plenty of take aways and sit down places that are open until 3am in the morning.

Nightlife is a big thing in Warrington and we have a massive nightclub and for all those that can remember Hit Man and Her at Mr Smiths with Pete Waterman, great for all ages and there are so many pubs that you can visit that will suit every age group.

Unfortunatley we have had sad things that have happened in our town like the baby who was dumped in a park and passed away. The mother was never caught and the town named him and paid for his funeral.

We also were victim to the IRA bombing. It was the day before Mothering Sunday and the IRA blew part of our town up. Unfortunatley this was very cruel as there were a lot of children in the town shopping that day for presents for the mums of Warrington. Two of them would never return home. The town was a mess and shockwaves of disbelief sent shudders through the town peopl
e saying why us?

Out of bad did come good as we have some called The Peace Centre which tries to get youngsters from all over the place to come and meet and be friends whether it be from Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland, Africa, Holland. No matter what colour, creed or race, you are welcome.

Sporting facilities throughout the town are excellent and we have quite a number of local authority centres plus private gyms plus a couple of David LLoyd Clubs.

The town in moving and house prices are rocketing around here at the moment. It is a nice clean place to live and most people are friendly. It took me a long time to settle here as I came from a town where everyone kept themselves to themselves and at first I thought they were nosey but I was wrong, they were just been friendly. I love this place now and quite often my husband says I know more about his home town than he does, but then again I use a good public transport and have to walk. He has got a car and misses things.

The transport is great and we have two main train stations around the town centres. All main trains stop here. Buses are frequent and there is a good supply of taxis.

So I hope that I have given you a little idea of what it is like to live in my town and if you ever pass it by, do not forget to visit.

Right time for me to jump back in the taxi, as it is time for bed....

Karen :0)

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