WHEN work finished on the transformation of the former Lamb Hotel in Hospital Street into a restaurant, shops and 19 apartments, it brought a welcome breath of fresh air to Church Lane, replacing a run-down rear yard, with a tin roof visible over the wall, with a pleasing apartments block.

   It was also a far more pleasing area next to the church, which is one of the town's main visitor attractions - as well as its importance as a place of worship.

   The front part of the old building (abve) retains the original facade. I had imagined that just the very front wall of the Lamb Hotel would be preserved, but the whole front section has been saved for posterity. 

  The developers of the building, local company  Muller Property, said in an advertisement in The Nantwich Chronicle back in early 2004, that they "were very keen to retain as much of the Lamb Hotel building as we could, but had to replace the middle section of the hotel and the rear section which was little more than a tin roof."

    Why Chatterton House? I have to confess I didn't know this, but apparently William Chatterton, a groom to Queen Mary, was granted a licence to keep a  tavern on the site in 1552. The present building - a Grade II listed building - is 18th Century. 

   I did know that there is supposed to be a tunnel running to the Lamb Hotel site from the adjacent St Mary's Parish Church (or, more likely, the Rectory) -

presumably as an escape route for the Rectors in more troubled times. How true that is I don't know.

   The development includes two- and three-bedroom luxury apartments - including a duplex penthouse, 

   Nantwich has quite a number of coffee shops now, but all seem to be thriving so the people of the town and around, and the visitors, must have quite a taste for the beverage.

   Prices for the apartments started at £190,000, and while - soon after the properties went on to the market - all were snapped up, some apartments came back on to the market because (presumably) of changing circumstances of the original buyers. According to the Nantwich Guardian at the time of the complete sell-out, there were five unsuccessful people for every successful applicant.

   This page is not meant to be an advertisement for Chatterton House or Muller, but anything that improves a run-down site in historic Nantwich is to be welcomed and worthy of mention. 

   Church Lane was closed for quite a bit of the conversion work, and motorists had to use the alternative entrance to the car park. The builders' yard also stood on the car park, occupying some of the spaces.

   During the work, there was still pedestrian access, but wedding cars and hearses had to use Churchyardside on the north front of St Mary's Church, with a slightly longer journey on foot for wedding parties and mourners.

    Pedestrians had a very circuitous route around the builders' yard at times. At other times they could walk straight down Church Lane, according to how the work was progressing and what "plant" such as cranes were on site.

    Now Chatterton House has proved a welcome addition to the area. Much better than the "tin shed" that used to be there . . . !

lOver the months of the transformation work began I ran the latest pictures of the site at its various stages on this page. These are now filed away in "The Brough Collection" but I have retrieved a few to tell the story of the transformation here.

lI read somewhere that the entrance to the car park in Church Lane used to be the site of (two?) cottages and later a free church with the present car park as its churchyard. The car park exit is further along Hospital Street.

 Back to the days when you had to add salt to bags of crisps

AS I took these photographs, I remembered that there was once a little seating area behind the bar of the Lamb Hotel some years ago where I had my first taste of Smith's Cheese and Onion crisps! After that, plain ones were no longer good enough.

    Until that flavour breakthrough, crisps were crisps. There was no need to define them. No need to call them plain crisps. There was no other kind. The plain crisps - as many older Dabbers (and others, of course) will remember - had a Little Blue Bag of salt in the packet.

   Yes, you had to add your own salt in those days (if you chose to). No need to call them plain crisps. There was no other kind.  Ready Salted crisps were for the future.

     Of course, the Little Blue Bag is available once again as one crisp manufacturer has turned the clock back.

     You added the salt by finding the Little Blue Bag buried somewhere among the crisps. After tipping the contents into the packet of crisps, a good shake of the bag distributed the condiment.

    Woe betide you if you forgot to do this little ritual. Those "little blue crisps" were a nasty shock to the taste buds.

    Nowadays, there seems no end to the number of different flavours in crisps. But that first taste was a culinary milestone.