This is where you can have a look around Alsager. The town is situated in Cheshire (just) as it is on the border with Staffordshire.

Road, rail and waterway links. (Sorry, no air links)

Roads: The M6 Motorway is very close (too close some say) running N/S to the West of the town while the A34 Runs N/S to the East of the town. South of the town the A500 runs between Crewe and the Potteries. The potteries are the towns that make up the City of Stoke on Trent, The Potteries that made the town famous have mostly gone now but there are still some of the old bottle kilns dotted around.

Rail: The Crewe - Kidsgrove line has a station in the town. The station has just been refurbished, but don't expect too much It is unmanned and has a couple of shelters to protect you from the worst of the weather. The line has recently been Electrified although most of the local units are still diesel. There is a level crossing (left) at the end of the platform with automatic gates that have a mind of their own and occasionally they will decide to stay down even there is no train due. This effectively cuts half of the town of from the other half. It is also expensive to go anywhere by train.

Waterways: The Trent and Mersey canal runs 'North West' to 'South East' (mostly) and goes around the town to the North and East. The Kidsgrove (Hardingswood) junction is nearby where the canal branches off North to the Macclesfield branch.

The Town

Although there is a market on Wednesdays, Alsager is not really a market town. The open-air market is small and not very exciting. It should take all of twenty minutes to look around. For a real market you need to go to Sandbach (six miles) on a Thursday where there are twenty times as many stalls. The Library and Civic Centre are on 'Bank Corner' with some rather pleasant gardens in front of them. Although the buildings are very uninspiring, the Library is well stocked and the Civic Centre is very busy. Like most small towns small businesses find life difficult but Alsager has a couple of small supermarkets and a range of smaller shops. The local hardware shop is known as 'Bands'. It used to be owned by a local called Mr. Band, but when he retired and sold up he did not sell the name, only the shop. This caused a problem as all the locals knew it as 'Bands' but it wasn’t called that on the front. Eventually the new owners managed to find a solution by renaming it 'B and S' which is shown on the front of the shop as 'BandS'. Nifty.

Local sites

Locally the ruin at Mow Cop can be seen from miles around. It looks like a ruin of a castle but is in fact a 'folley' built on the top of the hill. It was built in 1760 by Randle Wilbraham. Mow Cop itself is about 1000 feet high and a great spot for viewing the Cheshire plain. The Folley is owned by the National Trust and although you used to be able to climb up the tower, these days you can't.

Also nearby is the famous Little Moreton Hall. Again owned by the National Trust. A very interesting building, although there is practically no furniture there. It is an oak framed building and the "Long Gallery" is well worth a visit.