As I’m writing this article I’m looking out over hard frost covered hedgerows, trees and fields and it reminded me of winters years ago when we had good falls of snow. It seems a while since this happened so I thought I would delve in the village archives for images of the Parish covered in the “white stuff.” I spent one memorable morning walking from Rowton to Christleton as the sun was coming up and the first section of the images displayed were taken along the canal near Netherwood the caravan park. Some of these first images were taken at Easter, whilst others were taken at Christmas time. On one occasion I followed the snow plough up from Brown Heath and through Village Road ending up by the Ring o Bells and the Village Green. The snow was particularly deep that year and I had the opportunity of filming the Village Green and the Church in the snow. This was a memorable night. On a future occasion, I managed to film carol singing outside the church in the snow, but these events are now quite rare.

On some of the images in this sequence I walked down towards Bridge Drive and Haslin Crescent when vehicles were finding it difficult to travel, and had fine views over White Lane Farm, North Wales and the City of Chester. The canal is always beautiful to film in snow and the area around Butler’s Mill is photogenic in any conditions. I love the thoughts of walking past those narrowboats with woodsmoke emerging from their chimneys. The earliest picture of this sequence, a colour slide, was taken along Quarry Lane in the late 1980’s I think, as I remember walking the excited Infants from the Primary School along the lane to cross over to the Scout Hut, to watch their Christmas play. I have another picture in my collection of the Year 6 class at the Primary School with the girls from Ladakh which I think was taken in the same year, which would have been 1987. I’ll show another part of the collection I have of “Christleton in the snow” on the January 2023 website.

With best wishes for Christmas and a Healthy & Happy New Year.