23/03/26 - Cockermouth

Good Beer Guide Pubs with Bad Opening Times and Lost Paths

Cockermouth is one of the few sizeable towns that we were yet to visit in the Lake District. It is right on the far northwestern fringes, just inside the 25K Lake District OS Map.

Home to 3 Good Beer Guide Pubs, a castle, a brewery (as marked on the map), a lengthy high street and a number of famous sons - not least William Wordsworth, who's house we see at the walk outset.

Wordsworth House

The planned walk intrigued me. On my elderly OS Map, it is almost completely on a Long Distance Path marked the "Allendale Ramble". This falls into the rare category of discontinued path. No longer marked on the ground or on the latest OS Maps. It appears as though it was a route devised in the 1970s by a certain Harry Appleyard. A pamphlet followed, which I am sure I could find on eBay.

Our circuit offered plenty of sheep fields - with some newborns - a fortified homestead to repel Scottish Invaders at Isel Hall, some views and some deep woodland. All of this good stuff negated by nasty stiles and a dog that doesn't like to be handled. Moral was lost until the sandwiches were consumed.

Over the Derwent on a footbridge at Cockermouth

First newborn lambs is always a pleasant day

The mostly hidden Isel Hall

Never far from an excellent view

We come back into town, just about talking. 

There are plenty of pubs in town but a look at the Good Beer Guide App showed that their three recommendations are 3pm, 3pm and 4pm on a Monday. 

Always look their most enticing when unavailable

That's the tourist dollar lost to Cockermouth.

Walk Details

Distance - 8 Miles

Geocaches - 3

Walk Inspiration - Jarrold Northwestern Lakes, Walk 17

22/03/26 - Stile End and Barrow from the Coledale Inn

My Round at the Coledale 

We had two walks planned from our base in Braithwaite. Both got us up on the fells. The classic "Coledale Round" looked a little beyond our newest recruit to mountain walking.

The ladies in my life - Mrs M and Daughter M

Instead, we went into the middle of the high ridge walk, with a couple of steep but less lofty peaks. 

Stile End, despite being distinctive and very steep, is not a Wainwright. We conquered this with some grumblings but I could not convince the party to attempt Outerside. A drop down and another stiff climb for what - and I quote - "Is exactly the same view". Outerside a Wainwright that doesn't get a tick this time.

We get involved in a mountain race - having no choice but to clog up the thin path to Barrow. This is a steady climb, with most of the height already gained. The views here are immense - the towns of Keswick and Braithwaite, along with Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite Lake.

Mountaineers - one and all

All downhill to the pub, via the only geocache of the day.

Mrs M with her thumb over the lens

I had a wonderful afternoon at the Coledale Inn 9 years ago. I'd completed day 2 of the Inn Way to the Lake District. The pub is the first place you hit as you come off the fells. The sun was shining and the beer garden has an elevated view over the town. I spent an afternoon drinking Yates beer and trying to convince other walkers not to pass on by.

Coledale Inn - 10/10 review on PubsGalore after a wonderful afternoon

Yates may have long gone but the pub is now in the Good Beer Guide. Three real ales on, all from the Lakes. I settled on Corby Blonde for my visit.

I needed more than one to settle my nerves, as I was in the chair for lunch. Steak and chips is now £35.

I had the significant women in my life hypnotised not to look at the "From the grill" section of the menu.

I should have extended the mind-tricks to the £10 puddings.

Walk Details

Distance - 4 Miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration - Jarrold, Northwest Lakes, Walk 13

20/03/26 - The Kirkstile Inn, Loweswater

Mellbreak-ing Bad

The Kirkstile Inn has to be one of the best pubs in the land. But you have to earn those pints of Loweswater Gold and boy, did we earn them.

This actually could have been a really pleasant walk - without the nausea and the relentless traipse up the side of a mountain on indistinct paths. With this route from the normally rather pedestrian Country Walking Magazine.

Starting from the pub, we walk the western flanks of Mellbreak - following the Mosedale Beck. It's a pleasant farm track, where the only other signs of life are sheep.

Easy Walking

To get that Wainwright Tick - we need to get to the top. My suspicions were aroused in plotting the walk - just before Mosedale Holly Tree (the only tree marked on an OS Map, fact-fans) there is an arrow straight minor path running straight up the side of the mountain. Of course, in reality, there is nothing there. A man in a blue jacket follows a similar marked path to the north but I can only imagine the terrain is equally as tough. All of us stop for regular breathers/the chance not to throw up.

You can ask Mrs M if Mellbreak was worth it

Honestly, the views at the bottom are just as impressive

The descent is better - and it simply leads us to the good path we previously left. 

Mappiman, relieved to have got us down to Black Beck

The return to the pub is as good as walking can get. We simply have to follow the shoreline of Crummock Water along soggy but excellent paths. The Grasmoor reflections in the still water are stunning. There is a little jut of land out in the water, Low Ling Crag, which brought me to tears on my last visit, 9 years ago. The emotion expressed was possibly as much to do with the liquid lunch at the Kirkstile Inn, as I was walking away from it on that day.

Low Ling Crag - an "island", as the end of a causeway

Looking down Crummock Water

The pub is the reward - and the Kirkstile is a special place. In a hamlet, with a small number of buildings and a church, this is a real walkers pub where you can come straight off the fells. If the weather is good - and it was - a lovely, sheltered beer garden is perfect. Most punters with maps out, playing i-Spy and naming the surrounding fells.

It's also the home of the aforementioned Loweswater Gold. A former Champion Beer of Britain. So good, Mrs M moved off from her regular fruit based drinks and declared it "inoffensive". High praise indeed.

Water chaser and the patient wait for fish-finger sandwiches

Export options are available.

Meet the gang

Walk Details

Distance - 6.5 Miles

Walk Inspiration - Country Walking Magazine, May 2015, Walk 15

Geocaches - 0 

17/03/26 - Liverpool Architecture and Knowledge

St Patrick's Day Carnage

I knew something was afoot on arrival at Lime Street. Gangs of youth marching around the streets, beers in hand and very much a uniform of green. It's Tuesday, 10am and this is a little unusual - even for the party city that is Liverpool. 

At first, I think there is some sort of sporting event on - most of the tops are sporting. Eventually, I twig. It's St Patrick's Day. The patron saint of skiving off college and wearing minimal clothing.

My walks are from the A-Z City Guide but I feel the centre is done now. Primarily, I am looking for Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian Architecture (Walk 11) and a circuit of the Knowledge Quarter (Walk 12) for the hospitals and universities. 

These streets have been walked before - and there is little new to find. You can see this from the Geocache count. Just 2. No doubt, the Georgian Streets have some very pretty houses but little to photograph in the Knowledge Quarter - especially when the streets are thronged with students boozing.

Skiving Students in front of the Adelphi

When the guidebook says look for interesting doorways, you know you are in trouble

Possibly Canning Street - looking towards the Cathedral

Many back streets cut through

What else is there to do in Liverpool - when only the Good Beer Guide Tick required is the Captain Alexander and I am nowhere near it?

I fire up the Bar Trek App. Liverpool is the most featured city within this app but "Top 10 Real Ales Pub Walking Tour" has to be worth a go. 4 of the 10 make a nice little square in the part of town I am located.

See if you can guess?

Roscoe Head - a Good Beer Guide Ever Present - No further words required

The White Hart is new to me. Once again, I fall in love with a new place. This seems to happen every time I visit Liverpool. Surely the greatest of pub city of them all? It doesn't look much from the outside, but has a well-worn, timeless feel inside. Multiple roomed and on the day that I decide winter is over, a roaring log fire. This is backed up by the students taking advantage of the sun trap beer garden, but with Sir Timbo style upstairs loos, there is constant motion. A first Baltic Best Bitter by the Black Lodge Brewery was perfect.

Best Beer Garden in Town?

But how could you leave this comfort

Next Door - and due to the volume of street-drinkers, no external photos available - is Bar Casa. This is one of the 60 venues that Paul Heaton put a grand behind the bar to celebrate a significant birthday. His 60 favourite pubs in the land. And he looks like the sort of man that can be trusted.

Despite the triangular Bass beer mats, it appeared to be a keg only venue but pleasant enough - proudly celebrating its socialist ideals as decor.

God is in the Casa

The Belvedere is always an oasis of calm - and this proves true even on this, the most mental of days. The same could not be said for The Grapes - where I declared the day done. 

Just in time to watch the parade on the way back to the station.

Red Willow - always a fine pint

Get back to class and leave the Grapes to middle aged bloggers!

Walk Details

Distance - 6 Miles

Geocaches - 2

Walk Inspiration - Liverpool A-Z City Walks, Walk 11 and 12

Previous Liverpool A-Z City Walks - Walks 1 and 2, Walk 3, Walk 4, Walk 5, Walk 6 and 7, Walk 8 and 9, Walk 10