MARCO POLO RESTAURANT

The building, formerly known as Lilac Cottage, has been included in the statutory list of buildings of special architectural and historic interest compiled by the Secretary of State for the environment, with a description which reads:

Formerly two cottages, now restaurant and accommodation. Late Eighteenth Century/early Nineteenth Century with Twentieth Century alterations. Washed Flemish bond brick, Kerridge stone-slate roof and two brick chimneys. Two storey, five bay front. To the left on lower storey two Georgian style shop bow windows flank glazed door with a three-centred arched brick head. Two three-light casements with applied lead glazing above. To the right two-bay former cottage has segmental rough brick heads to three-light wooden casements and a six-board door.

Most romantic of all medieval travellers was Marco Polo (1254-1324) who, with his father and uncle, left Venice in 1271 on a journey that took them through Persia, Afghanistan, Northern Tibet and across a world unknown to Europeans to Peking, returning via the Malay Peninsula and Ceylon after an absence of nearly twenty-six years.