Making a Port and a Pepperpot
Another week in the hinterlands between Coniston and Ulverston. A week where the forecasted rain drops from 100% to 98% for an hour and then goes back to maximum.
Apart from today.
I know we will need supplies and I know the Good Beer Guide Pubs will have shuffled around since our last visit in February. Ulverston has the supermarket - Booths, beating Waitrose into a cocked hat for never knowingly being oversold.
I knew that the Pepperpot on Hoad Hill needed investigating. Komoot bringing my attention to a previously unobserved canal. We start at Canal Foot, where the waterway meets the Irish Sea.
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| Back Dog Sitting Ruby |
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| The Arrow Straight Ulverston Canal |
The Ulverston Canal, built by engineer John Rennie and opened in 1796, is a 1¼-mile-long, straight, lock-free waterway linking Ulverston to the Leven estuary and the Irish Sea. Unusually deep and wide for its time, it made Ulverston a functioning port, enabling the export of slate, ores, and manufactured goods during the Industrial Revolution. Trade declined after the arrival of the Furness Railway in 1846, and the canal ceased commercial use in the early 20th century, being formally abandoned around 1945.
The canal leads to town, where we complete a circuit of Hoad Hill. The John Barrow monument dominates the town. When is a lighthouse not a lighthouse? When it doesn't have a light. A stiff climb if you ignore paths for shortcuts. The views over the fells more dramatic than over Morecambe Bay.
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| Lighthouse... or not. |
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| Up close |
A drop down into town for the oldest building - St Mary's Church of Norman origins - and refreshment.
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| Norman Origins |
We never made it to the Stan Laurel Pub during our last visit. A keeper of odd hours. It's now dropped out of the bible, but we still have The Swan to tick. According to Google - if not Visit Ulverston - it does open at midday. One day, all on-line resources will align for the sanity of pub tickers the world over.
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| Handsome outside |
Inside, its three very high ceiling rooms in increasings levels of dishevelment. But we're not here for the decor - we are here for the beer - and a rather wonderful log fire.
The pub is the very definition of wet-led - with half a dozen cask which includes the driver unfriendly Wobbly Bob at 6% and a very good Timothy Taylor Landlord. The chewy type that leaves deep lacings all down the glass.
Mrs M a little upset that there were no cobs on offer. Or whatever they call them in Cumbria.
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| The lunch of gods - crisps |
Walk Details
Distance - 5.5 Miles
Geocaches - 15
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