02/10/25 - The Ship at Parkgate

Water and air, rather than solid ground

When reviewing the OS Map, it's hard to imagine what the English Coast Path is going to be like at Parkgate on the Wirral.

Our Path's for today - with Two Big Blue Cups of Joy

The Dee estuary opens out to an expansive sweep of saltmarsh and mud. In the distance, the Welsh mountains. Despite the warning, there are some people out in the marshes. For us, it's a case of "stay on the path, boys".

Big skies on the Dee 

Death by rifle... or mud

I'm unsure I have ever seen an area as saturated with Geocaches. Which makes it a shame that one of the dogs in our care starts barking the minute you stop walking. The numbers for a seven-mile walk could have been off the scale. Instead, I manage about 1 in 3. When the little bugger is ahead.

We turn off and head inland to Ness. Some good public footpaths but really, if the truth is told, there's nothing much to see. The Wheatsheaf forlornly boarded up with a printed sign on the door saying "Apologies, we will not be opening for the foreseeable future".

So it's a good job that Parkgate has everything we need.

Chip Shop - packed with pensioners. Rich pensioners. The chips are £4.80.

Ice Cream Shops - one famous, one offering ice-creams that are "home-made". Mrs M spends longer than you would think on Tripadvisor for someone who wants a cornet.

Pubs - An immediate choice of the Red Lion or the Ship. As I have never been in a bad pub called the Ship, that wins today's custom.

Ship Ahoy!

There's been a long history of pubs at this location, before the current building was constructed in the Victorian era. At one point, in the 1970s, it was a Trust House Forte. Remember them? They had the best loyalty scheme available for any jobbing IT professional installing Citrix MetaFrame around the UK.

The most recent review (2012) on Pubsgalore has it down as a hotel still. It's definitely a bar, and despite the sign saying Freehouse, they are having the exact same Oktoberfest as the Ring O'Bells visited yesterday. The barman knows nothing about them being part of the same group. Thank god for the Internet. Stange & Co - with 10 pubs in their stable across North Wales and the Wirral.

The Ship

A very decent Brightside Brewing Grafter bitter one of the 5 casks available. 

Walk Details

Distance - 7.5 Miles

Geocaches - 19

Walk Inspiration - Best Pub Walks in Merseyside, Walk 29

01/10/25 - West Kirby and Hilbre Island

The Tide is Low

Something a little different to kick off our week on the Wirral. A walk that I had first discounted, as it came with danger warnings. Drowning or quick sand. Take your pick.

It was only after being reassured by the owner of the two Sprockers that we are dog-sitting that this was totally safe that we headed out. As long as you go 2 hours after high tide. 

It was only when we had a post walk coffee that we were told to look at the lifeguard's Instagram page to see all the rescues conducted over the summer.

The Wirral Way - a disused railway line - looks like it will be our friend. Most of the walks encounter it at some point, leading us to the English Coast Path and around Marine Lake.

This one is Timber - showing us the English Coast Path

They are sailing

Hilbre Island can be reached on foot from the Dee Lane slipway at West Kirby, crossing the sands past Little Eye and Middle Eye to the main island, about 2 miles each way. The walk should only be attempted on a falling tide, starting no later than three hours after high water, with at least four hours allowed on the island before the return, as the causeway is covered at high tide.

Certainly an unusual walk..... as you head out to what is shown at first as the sea on the OS Map and then runs out of map on the 1:25K Explorer 266.

Things are usually OK, if there are other people there

From Little Hilbre to Big Hilbre

Of all the facilities available, the composting toilet was the most useful

First impressions of West Kirby are very good. There are two Good Beer Guide pubs available. They both open midday. In the week. This is the kind of customer service that I am now applauding. Needing food, we will save them for another day. There is plenty of cafe choice - most in a row on the road behind the front prom.

But it wouldn't be a Mappiman blog without a pint. The route home takes us through a park and over Caldy Hill, passing the Ring O'Bells en route.

You can Ring O'Bells, Ring O'Bells

A much extended, mock tudor pub dating from 1810. To be honest, it looked a bit of a gastro horror-show. But I warmed to it when they had an Oktoberfest promotion. Currywurst, bratwurst but most importantly Hofbrau Oktoberfest on draught. £7.10 a pint, but a wonderful 2 pint stein available for £14.20.

Walk Details

Distance - 8 Miles

Geocaches - 5

Walk Inspiration - Two Komoot walks combined.

29/09/25 - Kidderminster Circular Rail Trail

The Familiar with New Eyes

I know Kidderminster like the back of my hand. Its streets, churches, pubs, and jumble of buildings are everyday landmarks to me. But I’m also a completist. One of the half-dozen Circular Rail Walks passes through here, and I want to see the town through someone else’s eyes. Nobody does guides quite as thoroughly as Nikolaus Pevsner. His volumes are essentially “books of lists,” cataloguing the unusual and the unique—and who doesn’t love a list? 

The trouble is, Kiddy doesn’t quite lend itself to his method. Pevsner summed it up, with characteristic bluntness, as 

“...... a town uncommonly devoid of visual pleasure and architectural interest.”

This won't stop me exploring. The big old German Grump.

An easy walk along the canal to Wolverley. Too early for the Lock Inn. Back to town on newly discovered paths through Sion Hill and the urban regeneration that has happened over Springfield Park.

Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal before Wolverley

Urban Regeneration at Springfield Park

The only exception to Pevsner's grumblings is Church Street. But even then, the urban planners get it both barrels....

"..... Church Street, rising to the open space in front of a splendid church. This being so, the authorities have decided to absorb that very open space into the new ring road, cutting off the church. It is a crying-out crime against the town."

A nicer view of St Marys than from Church Street

He goes on to point out a rather pedestrian looking Georgian House (No. 30) and a c1600 timber-framed building.

Number 30 - Pevsner loved the doorways

Kiddy's oldest secular building?

I hoped to bring you liquid refreshment. Kidderminster has had a new bar/cafe opening - located in Church Street, housed in a repurposed Unitarian Church and imaginatively called "The Church". I wondered what clientele would be attracted to a venue that charges lunchtime sandwiches for £15.95. There is the promise of two cask hand-pulls. How much and what, I will have to come back to you on. Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

My investigations need to continue - there is a page full of delights in St Mary's Church - and the occasional opportunity to climb the tower for "impressive views over all of Kidderminster". 

I'll make sure the planets align.

Or go to the Seven Stars.

Walk Details

Distance - 4.5 Miles

Walk Inspiration  

Geocaches - 3

Other Circular Rail Walks - Evesham

25/09/25 - Saltwells and Bumblehole

Lunch at Ma Pardoes

That's how the Ramblers enticed me in for a third walk with company in a week. Redditch Ramblers are on a day trip out and nothing can get in the way of their faggots and peas.

We start at Saltwells Country Park - one of 27 Geosites advertised by Dudley Council. Naturally, I have compiled a tick list for future days out.

Saltwells National Nature Reserve in Netherton covers 247 acres of former coal, clay and ironstone workings that have since developed into woodland, grassland and pools. The site includes Doulton’s Claypit, worked from the late 19th century until the 1940s to supply fireclay for the Royal Doulton company. The pit, with visible exposures of Coal Measure strata, is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its geological importance.

Doulton's Claypit at Saltwells

Psychogeography at its finest. I have no idea which way the walk leader will take us. Dudley Canal Number 2 for a very important bridge. A first time climbing Turner's Hill. This is often admired, with its aerial masts and surprisingly home to a golf course with some exceptional views. Bumblehole and the ruins of Cobb's Engine House.

And we've not won anything since - the period covering my lifetime

Bumblehole

Dudley Canal Number 2

Cobb's Engine House and some Ramblers

Onto the Old Swan - known better as Ma Pardoes. A landlady who ran the pub from 1931 untill her death in 1984.

Etchings

Its a brew pub, with its own onsite brewery. There's no indication to their brews on the handpulls but the names are chalked above the bar. The 6.7% Old Ale - Black Widow- unavailable today but one to surely try in the future. Today, it was the aptly named Bumblehole.

Always tricky to photograph without getting run over

A labyrinth interior, but we have tables reserved in the front parlour. 

A walk up to Netherton Church on the hill and an unsuccessful attempt to find Ma Pardoes' final resting place. Apparently on the right-hand side of the graveyard as you enter. 

Walk Details

Distance - 7.5 Miles

Geocaches - 1

Future Walk Inspiration - 27 Dudley Geosites