Wilmslow is an affluent market town in Cheshire full of chain shops and independent stores, and is known for being a popular place to live for footballers and actors. Alan Turing OBE lived in the town from 1950 to 1954 and it was here that he lost his life to suicide following his conviction for gross indecency and subsequent chemical castration. We had spent most of the day at the National Trust’s Quarry Bank industrial heritage site a few miles away so we didn’t have time to explore the town. The Waterstones is located in the main shopping street, but as you can see from the photo, the building is being worked on at the moment, so was covered with scaffolding and polyethene sheeting.
Quarry Bank
Built in 1784 by entrepreneur Samuel Greg, the cotton mill at Quarry Bank at Styal in Cheshire is now a Grade II listed building. Greg built houses in Styal for his staff to rent and provided health care and education for them, and at one point this was the largest mill in the UK. Samuel’s ancestor Alexander Carlton Greg left Quarry Bank to the National Trust in 1939, and they later purchased the Greg’s family home which was next door to the mill. The mill’s equipment and the machinery that drove it is still in situ and we very much enjoyed our visit to it, and to Quarry Bank House.
Grove Street
Janet's Adventures in Waterstones 