16/01/26 - The Delph Run

Angela Marsons writes Black Country fiction 

[BBC executive Tony Hayers has told Alan that he won't give him another series of his chat show but he'll still be open to any other ideas in future, so Alan immediately seizes the opportunity to pitch ideas for programs]

Alan Partridge: [opening a file] Right, OK - Shoestring, Taggart, Spender, Bergerac, Morse. What does that say to you about regional detective series?

Tony Hayers: There's too many of them?

Alan Partridge: That's one way of looking at it, another way of looking at it is, people like them, let's make some more of them.

It was a fellow rambler who told me about Angela Marsons and her crime series set in the Black Country and West Midlands. Incredibly popular and apparently the most loaned-out author from Rowley Regis Library.

A plot was hatched. I would read them and use any recognisable locations as the inspiration for future walks.

I'd struck gold in Book One, Silent Scream. Angela's detective, Kim Stone, conducts an interview in the Bull and Bladder..... Batham's Flagship. 

In the same section of the book, the Delph Run - a pub crawl of 6 pubs around the Delph Road, was documented.

I'll leave you to decide whether Angela actually enjoyed her research.

Trainline fired up and a mile walk from Lye Station to start proceedings.

The Bell

An unexpected Good Beer Guide Tick. Angela says it's in Amblecote. It's in the Brierley Hill section of the bible.

Lampost casts a shadow

It has a touch of the Black Country Ales about it. A recent refurb in a classic pub style. A roaring log fire. Cobs and other delicacies. The day could turn out to be a "snack crawl".

Ribblehead Bitter from Settle Brewery. Soz, Fixed Wheel

The Tenth Lock

One for the completists only. One cask on, Hobgoblin and pensioners lunching.

Community Local

The Black Horse

Research was meticulously completed. All venues are meant to be open. It looks like the Black Horse is having a bit of a time of it. The last record I could find suggesting it closed down twice in 2025 but was being reopened - by the same Landlord - in December 2025.

Doors firmly closed, 1:30pm, 16/01/26.

Curtains Closed

The Bull and Bladder / The Vine

Blessing of your heart - you brew good ale

Take my advice - bin the Delph Run - spend the afternoon in the front lounge of the Bathams Brewery. Politely ask for the locals to budge up, position yourself behind a tiny round table, spend 10 minutes trying to get the cling film off a black pudding and cheese cob and await the taste of the greatest beer known to man.

Priceless Lunch.... (well £6.20 the lot)

The old boys provided the entertainment with good humour and that just right amount of p*ss taking. I thought the rucksack carrying rambler that I am would have got a hard time but I was saved by a chap with the world's smallest man-bag. Nothing off limits, including every and all medical ailments.

Back to Angela. She paints a very different picture. Questionable hygiene, dodgy geezers and foul smells (that's my lunch, you're slagging Ange). 

I can only assume that she wants the place to herself and is trying to put off would-be tourists. No chance - this is one of the destination pubs in the country.

Or maybe she just doesn't know pubs.  Arthur Connop - the suspect - sinks his daily four pints, then leaves for home and sleep off his drunken coma. Four pints! That was lunch when I started work in the 80s.

Plot spoiler - Arthur gets mown down crossing the road outside the pub by the real killer. He should have pressed the button and waited for the green man.

Corn Exchange

After the Lord Mayor's Show we get a Sizzling Pub and Grill, where they stuff half a Golden Hen into a Peroni glass.

I told you to stay where you were

The steaks were probably fine.

The Brickmakers Arms

Another one that online resources - including their own website - say is open but is firmly shut. 

Lights not on - continue downhill for Cradley Heath station

I'll be back to investigate book 2 in the series, where Kim Stone probably describes the Old Joint Stock as an absolute dump.

13/01/26 - Liverpool's Religious Buildings

With one in the Good Beer Guide

Walk 10 of Liverpool's Hidden City Walks takes me on a crawl with a difference. Not my usual pub type, but one of the significant religious buildings in the City. A fantastic city that is always throwing up surprises, not least with St Peters. The City's oldest church and also a Good Beer Guide 2026 entry. That must be a first!

Hope Street divides the two Cathedrals. The Anglican Cathedral, the biggest in Britain and the Metropolitan Catholic. 

From the Catholic down to the Anglican

Another surprise is how modern the two Cathedrals are. The Catholic one completed after 40 years in 1967. The Anglican started in 1904 and completed in 1978. Only one way to determine the reason for this. Ask ChatGPT.

Liverpool’s two cathedrals are relatively new because the city itself rose to prominence far later than England’s historic cathedral centres. For centuries Liverpool was a modest port, only expanding rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries with Atlantic trade and industrial growth, and it did not become an Anglican diocese until 1880. When Liverpool Cathedral was begun in 1904, it was conceived as a bold statement of civic and imperial confidence, though its completion was stretched across wars and economic hardship well into the late 20th century. The Catholic cathedral is newer still, reflecting the long suppression of Catholic cathedral building in England after the Reformation and the city’s expanding Irish Catholic population in the 19th century. Together, the two buildings are less the product of medieval inheritance than of modern history, shaped by industrial expansion, migration, war and changing religious confidence.

In the interests of space - simple pictures. Until we reach the pub.

The garden below the Cathedral well worth a visit

Inside, where it is unlucky to still have Xmas decorations up

German Church - started out on a disused boat on the Mersey

The Synagogue

A rare Bellcote Tower at Vincent De Paul Catholic Church

Metropolitan Cathedral peeping through the trees

Modern flying buttresses

All about the light

St Paul's Tavern should have been discovered on the Ropewalks journey from this guidebook. Down Seel Street in St Pauls Tavern - hosted in the first church in the City, built in 1788.

More than mild on offer

In a City of great pubs, here is another unique offering. Inside, it maintains much of its religious paraphernalia - the altar, the stained glass windows, the crypts, candles and even the memorial stones. A lengthy bar offers enough cask to get it noticed by CAMRA. The Timothy Taylor Landlord Dark in good enough condition to warrant its inclusion on the 2026 Good Beer Guide.

Classy

The altar

One of those pubs that warrants a wander around, pint in hand. You can go upstairs, into booths in side crypts, admire the art, admire the memorial dedications. All this and a quality pint for £4.50.

As usual for Liverpool, there was more to do. The 'spoons are back in the GBG. There were mosques. There were controversial sculptures of Christ. There were churches bombed out by the Luftwaffe.

The blog could have turned into an epic.

Walk Details

Distance - 6 Miles

Geocaches - 5

Walk Inspiration - Liverpool A-Z City Walks, Walk 10

Previous Liverpool A-Z City Walks - Walks 1 and 2, Walk 3, Walk 4, Walk 5, Walk 6 and 7, Walk 8 and 9

10/01/26 - The Pubs of Henley-in-Arden

Geocaching in the Snow

There aren't many Geocaching trails published any more. There was a time when seemingly a multi-cache trail within my 25 mile home radius would be created monthly. Someone posted on the UK Geocaching Facebook group asking for a family friendly trail and one of the few responses pointed to Henley-in-Arden.

Starting at the railway station, it's a short 3 mile loop with 13 caches. I expected the snow and ice. I did not expect puddles the size and depth of small lakes. I am pleased to report that my aging Scarpas are still waterproof, but really, wellies would have been a better bet.

The terrain was familiar from the Arden Way, Millennium Way and West Midlands Country Way.

Station Start

Out into the Countryside

Henley-in-Arden was once a coaching town. The main high street runs for a mile and is unusually wide. It was the first stop from Birmingham to London and once there were 25 coaching inns lining this mile.

With a (kind of) new establishment being setup, I decide to tick off those that remain. Bar Trek suggests 6 locations, but we can discount the Bluebell and the Mount as restaurants only. The Black Swan a little too far to the north.

The Three Tuns

Starting with easily the best - a Good Beer Guide regular for the last four years. I don't really need the new advertising to entice me in.

Liquid Gold

The Best in Henley

12:30pm and I am the only punter. The bar staff are loading coals onto the open fire, so I know which seat in the house I will be taking to thaw out. A nice beer chat about how well the Bathams sells.  The locals need to get to the Exchange in Stourbridge. Paying £5.20 here, their minds will be blown at how cheap it is in the Black Country.

Show me a prettier sight?

The Nag's Head

All of Henley's punters appear to be in here. Most tables are full, with a mixture of diners and boozers. One gent on lunchtime whisky, which is always brave.

The beer choice is good - Proper Job or Landlord. Having just got back from Cornwall, I chose the latter. Which was far too cold for cask.

Traditional Boozer - Henley's most popular

The White Swan / The Henley Mile

I've never warmed to the White Swan - the most gastro of gastros, where I experienced poor service on the Heart of England Way and have never forgiven them since. Not since I discovered the Three Tuns.

Yet, I was intrigued by a new tap room in town - The Henley Mile. It's hard to know where this starts and the White Swan ends - as it is housed in the same building on the opposite side of the courtyard.

Look carefully for the Henley Mile Sign

My chatty barman couldn't offer any advice. He stated that they were autonomous operations with shared infrastructure. The "Our Story" section of the website offers little more.

Several of their own beers on - Twice Hanged, Perkins Prescription, Run Charlie Run (chosen and very good) - all named after local Henley characters, with explanations on the beer mats.

Run Charlie Run - A Perfect Best Bitter

So, that's the Henley-in-Arden pub scene completed.

I only needed 90 minutes.

Walk Details

Distance - 3 Miles

Geocaches - 14

First Cache

07/01/26 - The Pubs of Cleobury Mortimer. Shropshire

100% Quality, 75%  Available

It was a Slow Way that brought me to Cleobury Mortimer. 5 hours and 13 miles after setting off.

I feel that I am deserve a reward. All the rewards.

In Bayton Church, I fire up the Bar Trek App and find that 4/4 pubs are open on a Wednesday. I had my doubts as to the veracity of this, but they're all close to each other.

The Royal Fountain sits opposite the church with the twisted spire. A terraced free house dating from the 17th Century.

Pub 1 - The Royal Fountain

Enter into a main bar - where two men hang at the bar and one man guards all four of the comfy seats that a man who set off walking from a different county surely deserves. A cheery hello from the bar staff and my glasses instantly steam up. Which means the heating is on! Through the mist, I spot 5 cask hand pulls (a lot for three men, two on Madri) and as I am in Hobsons County, I plum for a Best Bitter.

Only 3.8% but very tasty and in very good condition.

1C or 10

Sadly, despite two sources of information saying open at midday, it looks like The Kings Arms opens at 3pm. There are only so many sources of the truth a man can review. Photos outside, much to the bemusement of the two workies who are also trying to gain access.

Kings Arms - Dubious Tick

The Talbot and The Stables share the same building infrastructure but are two independent premises. The Stables proudly celebrating their 10 year anniversary. It's a long way to go before they can match the Talbot - a 16th Century Coaching house, that looks handsome today as it did then.

All coaching houses need stables

Front of house - the Talbot

As the original and oldest pub in town, it becomes the first tick in my Shopshire Inn of Interest booklet. Love how the 1960s get excited at Chicken in a Basket. To be fair, the prospect got me buzzing.

There must be a pensioners offer on in the stables. Nearly every table is full of the grey pound. I manage to find the last place to sit and enjoy high quality Wye Valley Butty Bach.

Banished to the back of house

The talbot is the opposite extreme - just two men, one playing the puggie, the other playing cards with the bar man. One cask on - Hobsons Pale - but running high on success, I decide to give it a go. 

A bucket pulled through as the barrel is freshly on. 

Perfect.

Life is all about timing.

Gorgeous

Which extends to transport home. The nearest bus stop is called "The Talbot" and the 292 is bang on time.

A journey to Kidderminster to ponder on why no Cleobury pub is in the 2026 Good Beer Guide.