An hour southeast of Liverpool, deep in Cheshire's dairy country, sits Nantwich — a small riverside market town built on salt and now best known for its cheese. It's the kind of place that makes an easy countryside detour if you're road-tripping between Liverpool and Birmingham, which are each roughly an hour away.
Start in Nantwich Square, the heart of the old town, where crooked half-timbered Tudor buildings lean over brick-paved streets. Locals — who call themselves "Dabbers" — grab their pastries from Chatwins, a bakery that's been feeding the town for more than a century. A sausage roll in hand, you can admire Saint Mary's Church, a 14th-century sandstone beauty nicknamed "The Cathedral of South Cheshire."
Then comes the cheese. The Cheese Shop on Hospital Street stocks around 150 British artisanal varieties depending on the season, all hand-picked by a dairy farmer's son, and there's a glass-fronted cheese cellar you can peer into. Cheshire cheese has been sold on Nantwich's market stalls since the 1500s, so this is very much the hometown dish. The market itself has run since 1500 and still opens every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in its 1867 building, with around 20 stalls selling everything from homemade curries to savory pies. A farmers market takes over the square on the last Saturday of each month.
For a proper sit-down meal, The Black Lion has been pouring since 1664 and made The Telegraph's list of the 650 Best U.K. Pubs — Tudor timber walls, award-winning ales and a solid menu.
The town has been through a lot: the Romans were harvesting salt from the River Weaver's brine springs here, Saint Mary's sheltered residents during the Civil War and the Great Fire of Nantwich in 1583, which destroyed much of the town. One survivor was Churche's Mansion, a striking Tudor building — now a private home, but well worth admiring from the street.
If you want to stretch the trip, Stoke-on-Trent is a 25-minute drive away for its famous pottery and ceramics shopping, and the city of Chester, often called the most architecturally beautiful in the U.K., is close by too.
Nantwich suits travellers who like their English holidays low-key: a strollable old town, a centuries-old market, good pubs and a serious cheese scene, all within reach of bigger cities. Come hungry, leave with a wedge or three.
