16/02/26 - The Good Beer Guide Pubs of Bedford

London Prices

Why Bedford, you are probably right to ask? We can blame the Great British Rail Sale. A four-stage, four-hour journey for the grand total of £3.60. Every connection on time. Seat and charging points available.

Coming Home

A first visit - so a chance to investigate the town and its famous residents. Adventure Lab Caches taking me to the architecture and its famous sons. John Bunyan, writer of the Pilgrim's Progress. John Howard, a High Sheriff and prison reformer. And the greatest Guv of them all.

Let's find the places where he learned his trade. I'll blog the Good Beer Guide Pubs, but a shout out to a first. The Hidden Barrel. My first Lithuanian-themed micropub.

Volfas Engelman Imperial Porteris all round

The Castle

As usual, getting the timings correct is key. There are four GBG pubs in town and each has unique opening hours.... 'Spoons leads the way on customer service - others at 2pm, 3pm and 5pm. The Castle is a 3pm opener but I don't think the punters have got the memo.

Charles Wells Hotel/Pub

The place is empty on arrival. This includes bar staff. A walk around the central bar finds no one. If I hadn't set the hand dryers off to announce my arrival, I may well have walked back out again.

80's soft rock and a £5.80 Ghost Ship (a beer totally on theme with the experience). In the 30 minutes I was there, one other punter came in - looked around, found no service and promptly took his Golden Retriever elsewhere.

The Lost Punter

The Devonshire Arms

Opens at 5pm but a lengthy walk to this out of town, terraced locals' pub. The Three Cups can also be used as a staging post.

More Charlie Wells

Nice low lighting, a log fire flickering away at a far end and a handful of punters who have timed it for "bolt scraping". A fair selection of cask - with London Pride again north of a fiver. I think I am either going to have to turn advertising on the blog or start a Patreon. This is becoming unaffordable.

£2 down and I've only walked from the bar to the fire

The Wellington Arms

Others have told me that this is the best pub in town. And the others are right. Head and shoulders above the rest.

Night falls on Bedford

A central island bar, with seating all round. Plenty of pubby chat and pubby paraphernalia. Bass on cask, but my eyes were drawn to the Belgian/German bottle fridge. Is a 750ml St Bernardus ABT 12 a good idea for a pub crawl? No, obviously. Instead, I try and recreate Christmas in the cruellest month.

Let's get the party started

If my evening meal hadn't been calling, I would have stayed the night.

No need for certificates.... everyone knows it's Bedford's finest

The Pilgrim's Progress

Curried up in the rather too posh Three Rooms (wine glasses! roses! potato and chickpeas in a biryani!) the 'spoons is on the way back to Lenny's Purple Palace.

£1.85 pints and plenty of people.

The retiree adventurer's friend.

Thanks Timbo!

An alternative to the Premier Inn

14/02/26 - British Camp

On the Trail of Sir Edward Elgar..... Again

It was always the plan to follow up my first Elgar inspired walk. British Camp - a ramparted hill fort - provided the inspiration for the cantata, Caractacus. I've listened to it.... once.... it goes on a bit.

British Camp has long been linked by local folklore to the last stand of the British chieftain Caractacus against the Romans, even though historians now doubt the battle took place there; the dramatic Iron Age ramparts and sweeping views made it easy for Victorian imagination to place a heroic resistance on its summit. That legend inspired Edward Elgar, who grew up walking the Malvern Hills and in 1898 composed the cantata Caractacus, portraying the gathering of the tribes, their defeat by Rome, and Caractacus’s noble dignity in captivity, turning the hills into a musical symbol of ancient Britain, loss, and quiet heroism.

Public transport options to British Camp are limited to summertime at the weekend. Driving would normally pass St Wulstan's Church - Elgar's final resting place. However, long-term road closures send you around the western side of the Malverns, on pot-holed roads, where the expected sunshine had led to post-walk gridlock. I planned to stop for a photo of a place, previously visited. Circumstance dictates that I lift an image from the Internet.

I chose the route from Juile Royle's Worcester News book. Malvern has myriad footpaths - both official and unofficial, map-marked and waiting to be found. The hand-drawn map is of limited value and mistakes were made. Lost in Gullet Wood. Missing out Hollybush through misreading the instructions.

Pick the bones out of that!

Our plan was to use the 24-hour escape from the relentlessly brutal rain and avoid muddy paths and flooded fields. The first half of the walk was a success - British Camp, Millennium Hill and Hangman's hill leaving our boots unscathed.

Ramparts clearly identifiable 

Happy Days on British Camp

The return was on the lower common land - and was of course a filthy mud pit.  It could almost put you off walking for life. Escaping the mud leads to a stiff climb along the side of British Camp Reservoir.

Options to try and improve morale? The café? The bar at Malvern Hills Hotel? We are nothing if not creatures of habit.

A short but tricky drive to the Nag's Head. The finest pub in the land.

Sheep on Berrow Downs

A stiff climb up the side of British Camp Reservoir

Walk Details

Distance - 4.5 Miles

Geocaches - 0

Walk Inspiration - Julie Royle's Worcestershire Walks, Walk 42

12/02/26 - The Sun and Slipper, Mamble

Are you questioning your life?

These are the words emblazoned outside Neen Sollars Church and my answer - quite frankly - is yes.

I need to get out of the house and the minute I arrive at Mamble, the heavens open. Another day in the rain. It's becoming biblical now. For future records, let it be known that Ashwood Bank in Worcestershire has now experienced 42 days of continuous rain.

What would have been a fine walk is a relentless slop-fest of mud and despite owning better waterproofs, I have misjudged.

At least there were a couple of interesting "doors open" churches to explore.

Mamble St John the Baptist

St John the Baptist, Mamble

Dating from 1200 - a handy sign tells the story of all the treasures available. An effigy of a recumbent, cross legged knight. C14th stained glass windows, hidden from the destruction of idolatry in a manure pit before being refitted. C16th brass, floor mounted memorials to John Blount. A bricked off Catholic chapel with a collapsed roof.

The internet suggests there is a memento mori skeleton in the South aisle. Indeed, there are pictures of it on the Internet. I must have been following the guide too closely, as there is no mention of it and I failed to notice it.

Instruction Manual for a Church

The Cross Legged Knight

Meet the Blounts

Only a couple of sections lost

One to find next time

Neen Sollars All Saints

Church Farm - looking at All Saints Church, Neen Sollars

Quite the treasure inside - a 1624 alabaster memorial to Humfrey Coningsby. A traveller "never seene by any of his acquaintance on this side, the seas, or beyond, not any certainty knowne of his death, where, when, or how from his first journey to his last was 16 yeares & 6 months"

A man after my own heart.

Quite something to stumble upon

Worthy of a Zoom

The Walk

North East from Mamble, where I got a little lost in Wissett's Wood before finding the forest ride to Neen Sollars. Crossing the River Rea before lanes back to Mamble.

Grim.

Day 42 of 2026 rain. And there have only been 43 days in 2026

The Sun and Slipper

The real reason I am here is to get another tick from my 1960s Historic Inns of Worcestershire Guide Book.

Uniquely Named

The first thing to note is there has been major modernisation, with the timber framing either removed or plastered over. 

Which one is preferred

The entrance is from the car park at the side, where the first door along the corridor is to a bar, where the only source of light is from the log fire. There is no way I am not sitting in front of that, even if I am in the dark.  

I can hear plenty of noise from the restaurant next door, so the place is surviving from food sales rather than beer sales.

That said, the Three Tuns Charter - Untappd has it as a best bitter, the pump clip advertises it as an amber mild - is wonderful. 

The Day Saver! (and the log fire)

Walk Details

Distance - 6 Miles

Walk Inspiration - 100 Walks in Hereford and Worcester, Walk 72

Geocaches - 4

11/02/26 - Rail Trail - Old Hill to Cradley Heath

Let the Ramblers Take The Strain

One of the many challenges I have running to keep me on the streets is walking between railway stations. My usual monthly review of where the Ramblers are group walking revealed they have planned the next stage on the Wyre Valley line for me. OK, so I am going in the wrong direction, but all I need to do is turn up and try and guess which route will be taken.

A big loop on the Dudley Canal Number 2 to Bumblehole for lunch. Then onwards through Saltwells Country Park.

Bumblehole Lunch

Canal Art

Netherton's Massive Anchor

Doulton's Clay Pit in Saltwells Country Park

Could I have planned it any better than an Octogenarian Austrian Rambler? Well, it seemed rather cruel to make us look at Ma Pardoe's without paying them a visit. Especially as it was honking it down with rain. Again.

No liquid lunch today

Walk Details

Distance - 5.25 Miles

Previous Stages on the Wyre Valley Line - Worcester to Droitwich, Droitwich to Hartlebury, Hartlebury to Kidderminster, Kidderminster to Hagley, Hagley to Stourbridge, Stourbridge to Cradley Heath

09/02/25 - London Spiral Stage 22 - Hampton Court to Epsom

Cheap Pints in Good Beer Guide Pubs Save the Day

Another pointless walk on the London Spiral. I think its lost its way on the outer fringes. Today's walk starts by leaving Hampton Court beauty behind to walk down a busy dual carriageway, to then walk through fairly endless housing estates. The little countryside available is Horton Country Park - which is a mudfest.

Here's an example of the nonsense;

From the original map

Look at this pointless loop. Why avoid the route straight down to take a diversion through horse fields, only to have to walk back along the A3? It gets worse, the southbound marked route to the circle of doom is actually a private road. The circle of doom a locked 8ft gate topped with barbed wire.

Like an idiot, I walked it. I am nothing if not a completer. Then I had to walk back to take the logical route.

Thames Ditton looked Olde Worlde and pretty. But everything was closed up

Hardly a World of Adventure

The plan was to hit the high spots of Epsom and then complete another couple of miles to Banstead Station. Avanti had different ideas for me. The 35-minute delay incoming throwing all my timings out. 

So a loop of Epsom, looking for 75% of the Good Beer Guide ticks is all that can save the day.

The Barley Mow - an equine themed Fullers Pub - is available through a narnia-style portal off a back alley.

Welcome

 Rustic and housed in three knocked-together cottages, I have to remind myself this is no longer London and I am Surrey. ESB in fine form, as it so often is.

Happiness is an ESB on a Chesterfield 

Back Street Boozer, Surrey Style

The Rising Sun suggests that today is traditional pub name bingo and I am going for a full house. Another back street boozer - perhaps more food led than the Mow. It's easy to be shocked at beer prices in the South East but rarely in a good way. A well kept Anspach & Hobday Ordinary Bitter a bargain £3.60.... in a gastropub.

Pleasant Surprise

No new town visit would be complete without the 'Spoons. The Assembly Rooms on the way back to the impossible-to-find railway station.

Sir Timbo - Saving Architecture, Saving Pubs

£2.85 a pint and a difficult choice between a Wimbledon Brewery Helles Dark Lager or a Three Acre Ruby Porter. It's not just the price you cannot knock - this is top level micro-pub-run-by-an-enthusiast levels of choice.

Let's hope Alicante Airport is a blueprint for the future.

Walk Details

Distance -  10 Miles

Start - Hampton Court Station

Finish - Epsom

Areas Walked - Thames Ditton, Chessington

Geocaches - 1

Pubs - 3

Previous Walks - 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

05/02/26 - On the Trail of..... George Dawson

The Civic Gospel

During my ramblings around Birmingham, you often stumble on magnificent Victorian buildings. Usually they are running to rack and ruin, and I am not just talking about Aston pubs. As I trip over dead rats and pick my way through the mountains of rubbish, I often consider "what went wrong?". The city used to have pride and purpose, with an obvious sense of "betterment".

The latest History West Midlands podcast gave me the background on this. George Dawson, a Nonconformist preacher who proclaimed "Everything for Everybody". The more famous Joseph Chamberlain took his words and vision to build a Birmingham that was once the envy of the civilised world.

A young George Dawson

George Dawson (1821–1876) was a Nonconformist preacher and radical thinker whose ideas helped shape Victorian Birmingham’s sense of civic purpose. Minister of the Church of the Saviour from 1847, he moved away from orthodox theology towards a broad, humane Christianity rooted in everyday life rather than doctrine. His sermons, rich in literature and moral urgency, argued that religion should be lived and enacted, not merely believed.

Dawson’s central idea, later known as the Civic Gospel, held that the city is a moral organism and that local government has a duty to improve human life. Clean streets, public libraries, parks, and education were seen as expressions of ethical and spiritual values, not luxuries. These ideas strongly influenced Joseph Chamberlain, who absorbed Dawson’s thinking and translated it into active municipal reform as Birmingham’s mayor in the 1870s, turning moral vision into practical governance.

"A city must have its parks as well as its prisons, its art gallery as well as its asylum, its books and its libraries as well as its baths and washhouses, its schools as well as its sewers; it must think of beauty and of dignity no less than of order and of health."

As if I couldn't admire the man more, it transpires that when he was invited by the Temperance Movement to provide a speech, he extolled the virtues of drinking.

But is it possible to put a walk together to find key locations of the man's life?  

A statue would have been nice. There was one - in the middle of Chamberlain square. Not universally liked and removed in 1951 for the Festival of Britain. The bust lives in a museum dungeon somewhere.

We won't let this stop me.

The Library of Birmingham

Our man played a key role in the 300th year celebrations of Shakespeare's Death. On the 9th floor of the new Library of Birmingham is both a plaque to the man and the current home of the Shakespeare memorial room.

The library is perhaps a symbol of Birmingham's decline. Built in 2013 to much fanfare and cost (£188 Million), it cannot afford to be staffed properly and keeps poor opening hours. Thus wrote a man forced to wait in the foyer for the 11am opening. The cafe is closed. Books? Despite having 10 floors, Kidderminster library has more on its shelves. 

Everything to Everybody

Moved from Old to New

The Shakespeare Room - Top Floor

A Bust

Chamberlain Square and the Arts Museum

These buildings provide the best architectural representation of the principles of the Civil Gospel. Classically designed and open to all to encourage learning. 

A first visit to the Arts Museum, which was rather packed. The Ozzy Osbourne exhibition is still running and bringing in the punters. Imagine what they could do with The Crown pub, if they showed a bit of imagination.

The Art Museum

The Ozzy Exhibition

Chamberlain Square

His Final Resting Place

Key Hill Cemetery, Section O, to the left hand side of the Icknield Street entrance. Internet research tells me to look for the tallest obelisk. I needn't have relied on the Internet. There is a handy map of key final resting places. I have a feeling the West Midlands History Podcast will be bringing me back here for other sons and daughters of the second city.

Easy Find

Died young - well remembered