27/06/19 - The Fighting Cocks, Stottesdon

Distance - 4.5 Miles
Pubs - 2
Geocaches - 0
Walk Inspiration

Occasionally, we stumble on a pub, take one sip of a drink and think "This must be in the Good Beer Guide".

We're in Stottesdon, Shropshire, to make the most of the first signs of the English summer.   Despite being within 12 miles of home, I'd never heard of the place.   Wikipedia research informs of a 450 A.D. Church and a bus service.

The walk maybe would have been OK in the winter.   Mrs M is not happy with bramble and stinger overgrown footpaths that eventually disappear and the massive holes that I assume are badger setts but might be man traps.   When we find the collapsed bridge at SO684832 she exclaims that "we're walking along canals next week".

Starts Gentle enough.  Next field, Frisians

Emerging at Chorley Manor, after the battle of the undergrowth

Maybe mid ramble refreshment will improve her mood.

The Duck Inn at Chorley is one of those places that you wonder how it manages to survive.  Closed on Mon/Tue and 7pm evening opening hours for the rest of the week until the weekend.   It's 7:10pm when we gently open the squeking door to find an empty boozer filled with Nan's furniture.  Eventually Nan appears.

She's a lovely lady and we order our halves.   As the first patrons in today, she diligently has to pour off around 3pints of Wye Valley HPA froth.   We use the time to get to know each other.   Almost to the point when I say "I'll have a John Smiths Smooth Pour" if its easier.

Things we learn in this time - she normally has a ladies dart team in on a Thursday but they've canceled.   A fat lady broke her favourite armchair last week.   Three diners come in and TripAdvisor confirms the food is wonderful.

A C17th Coaching House in a village not really on a road

With heavy hearts, we leave to tackle the route back.  Its much improved on good farm tracks and quiet lanes through the farmsteads of Upper and Lower Harcourt.   The views are also available in this direction and we are rewarded with the sun gently dropping over the Clee Hills.

Think this is Titterstone Clee Hill

And this Brown Clee Hill

Arriving back at Stottesdon, we make an easy decision to camp in the beer garden, walking past the attached cafe/shop and  heading inside to check out the wares.   Wye Valley Butty Bach and HPA and Hobsons.

Two Pub Kind of Walk

The HPA was that good it made me wonder.

Confirmation received when we had access to the bible.

I knew it - Tick #393

22/06/19 - Joy's Last Hurrah at the Great Malvern Hotel

Distance - 4 Miles
Good Beer Guide Tick #392


This is our last weekend as Custodians of Guide Dog in Training, Joy.   On Monday, she heads off to big school - extensive training in Harbourne.   From there, if successful, she will be matched with a visually impaired person and become a life changer.

This weekend's challenge was to find somewhere beauitful to walk that offered the chance of a Good Beer Guide Tick.

It's as if I have been saving the Great Malvern Hotel for this very event.   All other pubs, Good Beer or otherwise, have been visited over the years.

The walk - an easy four miles.   We started in town, climbed the 99 Steps to St Anne's Well and then just bimbled to our hearts content until we picniced at Worcestershire Beacon.

No apologies for the dog heavy photo blog this week.

1st Breather of the day - St Anne's Well

Joy with her main handler

Ubiquitous Views

Hot day in Malvern

The Highest dog in Worcestershire

Spring water at St Anne's Well can only go so far, so we stop in town - first for ice creams (its that sort of day) and then the Great Malvern Hotel, where jolification is the order of the day.

Top Signage

Yes its a hotel, but they have done a decent job of creating a pubby vibe in the bar.   They've gone as far as employing bar hangers on stools to block access and errant bar staff, so there is no one to serve you.

By the time we left, there were staff and bar hangers had gone

They'd also done some decent advertising - both of the fact that the nearest Indian must be unlicenced and the Good Beer Guide.

Top Class Reading Material and Wine for a tenner.

So why are they in the GBG?   Well, several real ales were on.   Wye Valley HPA, a Malvern Brewery Bitter that I would have had if it wasn't being changed and in deference to the weather, the selected Hopback Summer Lightening.

Summer Time

Joy enjoyed the under table shade and the breeze coming in from the full length windows.

The final blog with Joy.  We'll miss evening cuddles, her enthusiasm on walks and the poking of heads around pub doors to ask if its OK to bring in a dog.

Good Luck Joy!

15/06/19 - Heart of England Way - Stage 27 - Chipping Campden

Distance - 8 Miles
Pubs - Churchill Arms, Paxton and Good Beer Guide Tick 389 at the Bakers Arms, Broad Campden
Geocaches - 1
Previous Stages - Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, Stage 5, Stage 6, Stage 7, Stage 8, Stage 9, Stage 10, Stage 11, Stage 12, Stage 13, Stage 14, Stage 15, Stage 16, Stage 17, Stage 18, Stage 19, Stage 20, Stage 21, Stage 22, Stage 23, Stage 24, Stage 25, Stage 26

Peak Costwold Walking here.   Expansive views, four lovely villages - all with at least one boozer, with three Good Beer Guide Ticks.

Not bad for an 8 mile adventure in the countryside.

I make my start at Broad Campden and head North on tracks that share the Monarchs Way and the Heart of England Way.

Easy Navigation to Chipping Campden

With Waymarkers, if you need them.

Less than a mile and I'm in the honey spot of Chipping Campden.   Start of the Cotswold Way, full of tourists and that means plenty of refreshment options.   Of course, I was too early to revisit but you need to find the Eight Bells for your Good Beer Guide Tick.

Start of the Cotswold Way - an unusual inside shot of the Market Hall

Easily the best pub in Chipping Campden

I head out of the village on the HOEW, heading North West - the opposite direction to the usual walks on the Cotswold Way.   A chance to admire St James Church up close, where the 120ft Church Tower is a landmark for most of this walk.

St James Church

Agricultural walking along field edges, until a little bit of lost history is found at Mickleton Hills Farm.   The last pitched battle on English soil?  Have a read at the link, I like the injuries ranging from an almost severed head to a bitten off little finger.   And the fact it was resolved by going to arbitration.    How very British.

Things you find in Cotswold Fields

Next chance for a break coming up in Ebrington, where the Ebrington Arms, a Good Beer Guide regular, is well worth a visit.   Its not the Times #1 Country Pub for nothing.

I'm spoiling you with Good Beer Guide Tick #2.   We're not even half way

I'm saving myself for Paxford, a village that I've not visited previously.   It's agricultural walking through overgrown fields.   I was mildly concerned with the "Beware of the Bull" sign over one stile but other animal presented more problems.   The fields are fiercely guarded by a bird of prey that I won't embarras myself by attempting to name.   The monster made 5-6 sweeps at my Fjallraven capped head before I resorted to defending myself my swinging my camera around my head and shouting "Away with you, foul Griffin".

I needed a drink.  And Paxford has the Church Hill Arms.

They're all handsome here.

Its a dining pub, with a huge picture of Marco Pierre White, that I initially mistook for Al Pacino.  Two real ales are on - ignoring the Purity Gold, I went for a Winston, taking 10 minutes to get the connection.   Like the Yubby at the Ebrington Arms, this is a North Cotswold Brewery special just for this pub.   There was little point registering my check in location in UnTappd.

Two Winstons in the Churchill Arms

More overgrown walking for the mile back to Broad Campden, mercifully free from attacks from the sky. 

The Bakers Arms is another Good Beer Guide Stalwart - although its questionable how such an isolated pub can afford to carry five hand pulls on.   Two x Wye Valley, Wickwar Bob, Prescott Hill Climb and a rarely spotted Stanney Bitter from Stanway brewery.   You simply wouldn't think they would have the turnover to keep so many options fresh.

Still - no complaints with my Wickwar Bob.

Had enough of Gorgeous Cotswold Boozers Yet?

The Timeless Bar of the Bakers Arms

Five stages left on the Heart of England Way.   This may well have been the highlight.

09/06/19 - The Castle, Edgehill

Distance - 4.5 Miles
Geocaches - 0
Walk Inspiration - Jarrold Book 33, Walk 10


This was well worth the journey. Beautiful walk, architecturally interesting pub with beer quality only matched by the Sunday Lunch. 

It was that good.

We start at the Castle in Edgehill. First the history - Edgehill was the scene of the first battle of the English Civil War in 1642. 100 years later, Sanderson Miller commissioned a tower to commemorate the anniversary.

That tower is now a pub. The website claims there is no more unusual or with better views. They may be right, but I have been to Manchester's Temple Bar (a converted Victorian toilet) and drank in the Brewers Arms in Malvern - winner of best pub with a view.

Architectural Oddity that is the Castle, Edge Hill

First the walk. The footpath down to Radway runs next to the pub - a descent through woodland, revealing what must be all of Warwickshire.

Guide Dog in Training Joy, taking a break from Squirrel Hunting

Warwickshire Below

Hitting the flats of the bottom of the hill, we head west through grassy fields, walking under the escarpment. A short, nasty bit of road walking up the A422 at Rising Sun Hill and we are back on the hill, for a couple of miles of top quality woodland walking. Gaps in the trees reveal the occasional views.

You have to be there!

Midday and we hit the pub, with a table booked for 12:30.  We'll take our drinks into their wonderful beer garden to soak up the sunshine.

Summer Time Drinking

Its a Hook Norton tied house, so you would expect the Hook Norton to be in great condition.   This really was wonderful.   Easily winner of best pint I've had in June 2019. Take a look at yesterday's blog, if you don't believe me.

The food was exceptional as well. Sometimes in life you get what you pay for. Having phoned and checked it was dog friendly, I shared the link to their menu with Mrs M. Next door heard her shout "£17 for a Sunday Lunch!"

The service and quality fully deserved it.

Even if Mappiman finances dictated pudding sharing.

08/06/19 - The Duke of Cambridge, Short Heath

Walk Distance - 6.6 Miles
Geocaches - 20
Good Beer Guide Tick - 388

More Psychogeography in the West Midlands.   An overly complicated Geocaching round from Northycote Farm Country Park, somewhere in the Northern outreaches of Wolverhampton.

I would bring you photos but the weather was miserable and the walking unremarkable.

Quickly onto the post walking refreshment.  Plenty of options in the western and central areas of Wolvo but the closest entry in the Bible appears to be in Short Heath.   Nope, I've never heard of it either. 

I go out my way to track down the very definition of a back street boozer, the Duke of Cambridge.

Back Street Boozer - C17th Cottages

Its part of the Black Country Ales chain, so I know exactly what I will be getting.... the Fireside, the BFG, the pig on the wall and the randomers that could come from any brewery in the land.

First, I've to navigate my way in.   A porch area leaves me with Alice in Wonderland style choices of the bar or the snug.  Why did I go snug?   No-one there.   The barman comes around from the other side of the serving hatch, but I have made up my mind to go where there is laughter and life.  The bar.

No photos (apart from an UnTappd checkin) from inside, as I would have raised suspicions amongst the locals as to what I was up to.  An unknown, very damp rambler, had already been met with perplexed glances.  I'll have to describe it instead.

All the locals stand at the bar, despite perfectly good seating.   This doesn't present the usual problem of seeing whats on draft, as I know there will be a beer menu on the wall.   Sure enough, its on the far wall and after 3 seconds of deliberation, I go for a Fixed Wheel Shell Corner.   Taken to the perfectly good seating.

Not much to report - roof beams with beer pump clips suggesting past glories of more unusual Titanics than plum porter.   An old boy comes in, also buys a pint of Shell Corner, then tells his dog to sit and wait (there is a sign saying they must be on leads, but none about being off the furniture) and then disappears, never to return. 

Maybe the pint was for the dog.

I'm not sure I would give it mine. 

02/06/19 - Bathams in disguise at the Lyndon House Hotel

Walk Distance - 4 Miles
Geocaches - 17
Good Beer Guide Tick - 387


A new geocaching round brings me to Walsall Arboretum for a 4 mile walk.   It was a walk in the park.   Literally.

Not much to share but the geocaching was exceptional, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

A walk in the park

High Rises, Swan Boats and Geese

Whilst here, I thought I would knock off another Good Beer Guide Pub.   Walsall has six in total, which would make a fine old pub crawl, if only the town was easy to get to.   18 miles from my nearest station and I can do it in 1hr 37 minutes, according to TrainLine.

So, I'll knock them off in solo visits, although this does mean a new geocaching trail needs to be laid before I am back.

So which one?  The Black County Arms has been previously visited, so I looked on google maps as to which one was the prettiest remaining.

It wasn't the Fountain Inn, but I will not let the Don McCullin style urban photo grittiness currently showing on Google Maps put me off.

Using Google Maps to find a pub

Instead, its the Lyndon House Hotel.  It has a carvery for £7.95 and if you're not that hungry, free sausage rolls on the bar.

The Lyndon House Hotel

And there free sausage rolls - if you can get to the other side of the bar

The guide book tells me this used to be a Salvation Army Hostel until 1995.  Can't be many pubs with that claim to fame.

Plenty of options on the beer - I was tempted by a Deuchars IPA until I remembered that I'm not in Scotland.   Once my eyes had locked on the Bathams, there was no choice.

It was extraordinary and as good as any in their tied houses.

If only they hadn't made me look like a novice ale drinker.

You wouldn't put Champagne in a tea cup, would you?

Decent pub and packed on a Sunday lunch with the best of black country folk.

Four to do.   Including the Fountain.

01/06/19 - The Royal Oak at Painswick

Distance - 8 Miles
Walk Inspiration - Cicerone Walking the Cotswolds, Walk 13
Geocaches - 3


Four years to the Month since our last visit to Painswick.  Last time we walked North out of the village, so for variety, we head South.   Ultimately, the destination will be the same - the Royal Oak.  A perfect Cotswold pub.

Hottest day of the year, so we bring lots of water for Guide Dog in Training Joy.   By the way she frollicks through the buttercup meadows, she's going to need the breaks.

Haven't got going and she looks knackered

We head south west, along a lane marked on the OS Map as Painswick Valley.  At Pincot lane, we head to the west of the village to follow the farms of Wragg Castle, Edge Hill and Parkhurst.   No real encounters with livestock, with the exception of a nasty jack russell who lives at Edge Hill Farm. 
 

Looking back to Painswick along the valley

Plenty of off lead opportunities and Joy decides to play hide and seek in the long grass.

She's not so good at it.

The highlight of the walk - after all the hills in 25 degree sunshine - is Painswick Beacon.   Fine views from the quarry, although our route finding was a little suspect.   We never quite made it to the trig point this time.

Looking back down the valley

A gap in the trees from Painswick Beacon

The Cotswold Way provides a familiar walk back to civilisation.   The bits through the woodland are most appreciated.   I think we have found Joy's walking limit.

You try doing it in a fur coat

Painswick is a delight.   There's all sorts of refreshment opportunities in amongst the honey coloured C17th buildings.   We stick to the tried and tested.

The Royal Oak, Painswick

Looks like it had a few problems since our last visit.   This from the Painswick Beacon in October 2016.

The Royal Oak has been closed for several weeks now, and landlords Mike and Gill Brickell are sadly leaving the village, with some regrets. The notice outside the pub for the last few weeks puts the blame on the owners, Enterprise Inns, and for the last year or so, Mike has found it difficult to work with them. 

Enterprise Inn Strike Again.

Its fully open now  - a single roomed pub, with a sun trap courtyard.  The usual mix of locals, ramblers perusing a book about the Cotswold Way and the added frisson of the Groom and Best Man having a last drink before the wedding.   They made a mistake with their half of Amstels.   The Prescott Hill Climb was really rather wonderful.

An excellent pint

The wedding church bells draw us in for another look at the wonderful yew trees.   Every time I come, I notice something different.  The yew trees are individually labelled - and the highest number is 99.  The guidebook tells me about the canon ball and scorch marks on the church walls from the Civil War.

That's something to look out for next time.

99 Yews