What to see in Wollaston: a typical, or atypical, English village

Problem
You drive up the motorway with a lunch time destination (ours was Huntingdon) and on the way you arrive in a small village looking for a stop for elevenses - to Americans that's what the British call an 11 am break. That's what happened to us. The pub we passed didn't open until noon.

We wanted a coffee stop for the driver and toilets and we were prepared to spend five minutes looking around? What is there to see?

Answer
We arrived in Wollaston which had not been on our itinerary. In addition to lunch at Huntington, we were on our way to look for the landscape of a Roman era vineyard in England.
Wollaston had an elaborate sign.

Now we want the High Street. (In the UK that's the principal road with the shops and restaurants. In the USA it would be called Main Street.)

The High street has a Post Office with the red sign, yellow sonte walls on the right, red brick on the left, and the grey thatch roof over white walls beyond the post office on the right.

We parked and walked about.

The Coronation clock had an explanatory green heritage plaque. The original Coronation clock was installed for the Coronation of Queen Elizaeth II in 1953. Hence the crown above it and the number 1953 below. 

Why 1953? She became queen when her father died in 1952. However, neither the royal family nor the people would have been in the mood for jollity at that time, so everybody waited a year for the coronation celebration.

A green heritage plaque about The Old Marquis.

Notice the uneven yellow stone walls. They are not dry stone walls, with gaps between stones, which you get further north, out in the coutnrside and near Hadrian's Wall, but sealed together.

The London Road - hey, that's back to London.

Another green heritage plaque tells you the old manual telephone exchange was installed in 1918. The automatic exchange replaced it in 1936. The wall is red brick, in London called London brick because a large brickworks made orange bricks from red London clay. Provincial universities used to be called Redbrick universities. The top notch Oxford and Cambridge had different architecture.

We bought a Costa coffee in the post office and were told about this place with a café and toilet. 

Here's a chance for shopping, food, clothes, silk scarves at about £25 and silver jewellery Fair Trade from Indonesia. I asked, "Is this one 925?" Yes, not plated. 

Tea room and a customers' toilet. 

A museum.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.