30/12/24 - Cambridge Mill Road Good Beer Guide Pubs

Quality Back Street Boozers

Less than 24 hours in Cambridge. Yes we could see the Colleges, the Backs and go punting on the River Cam.

Or we could go down back streets of terraced houses, dodging street furniture and hunting out the best drinks known to humanity.

It was cold and dark. Pubs won.

First stop - The Geldart. I had checked Google and its said opens at 5pm on a Tuesday. Its 5.30pm but we are at the time of year when no-one really knows what day it actually is.

Of course, its Monday. Notify the dubious ticks committee 

Fear not, they come thick and fast in this part of the world. A short hop to the Alexandra Arms. A student corner boozer with a fair bit going for it but one annoying facet that was an instant turn-off.

Corner Shop

The postives - a Greene King that you couldn't tell from the beers on offer. A back room with a delightful fire. A summer room, where the students can pretend they are up to no good, out of the landlord's watchful eye. A fine beer garden.

Handsome

The negatives....

Lets hope electronic tips jars aren't a 2025 thing

Mrs M put under strict instructions not to take her back to a pub we went to on our last visit. Her cider had bits floating in it. And it was smelly. She uses this as the low-bar for all our ticking trips.

Alas, the blog did not going into much pub detail in those days, but in the back of my mind, I thought it could have been the Cambridge Blue.

With extremely short termed fear, we crossed the threshold. 

There was always going to be a bike

This doesn't look familiar but needed serious consideration before moving past. I am not in lumpy cider, smelly pub.

How I imagined Twitter Deltrem's Fridge to look at Xmas

You'd probably accuse me of not giving the rest of the year due consideration if I announced this as my POTY. It was certainly a dream visit. The high percentage Belgians possibly not the best for a pub crawl, but the choice of cask was almost as comprehensive. Brewmania nailed to very surface. A really good vibe.

Happy shiny people

Its only on getting home I have discovered Mrs M's nemesis pub. A hand written note in CAMRA's 50 Great Pub Crawls Book. Hard to tell if the St Radegund is still trading. Google says no. My pub review sites say it is now "The Rad".

Onwards, ever onwards. All the restaurants in this area are in Mill Road. But we cannot walk past Kingston Arms. It will need something unique to stand out against such esteemed company. How about Bass? Need more? How about not one, but two coal fires. Another wonderful experience.

Another Pub, Another Bike

My glamourous assistant demonstrating "Bass in Front of a Coal Fire" 

A food break probably a good idea and I bring good and bad news. We're four episodes into Squid Game Series 2, so our first choice was a Korean. Not open on a Monday. Next choice a Moroccan and they can fit us in in an hour.

Is there anywhere else to go? Of course, the Devonshire Arms is just around the corner. 

Bike!

The beer line up is unknown to me. Pump clips with just names from Roman mythology/history and the strength. Nothing about the style. Well, Milton Brewery you cannot intimidate me. I know my Stoics from my Epicureans. The 7.5% Marcus Aurelius shunned for the more crawl friendly 6% Prometheus.

The Moroccan restaurant does a fine line in tagines but is mercifully alcohol free.

Which leaves room for a night cap at the Live and Let Live.

No Bike

Yet another Back Street classic - with a decent fire and a range of Nethergate Brewery ales. The night is finished with an Old Growler. Make your own jokes.

I set the 2024 goal of reaching my 1050th Good Beer Guide Tick. There's still tomorrow and somehow Mrs M has managed to book us into a remote Guide Entry. I finish on 1028. I will try harder in 2025. Not least by attempting #31PubsinJanuary.

Happy new year, fans of pub and pints.

05/11/22 - The Good Beer Guide Pubs of Huntingdon

Distance - 3 Miles

Geocaches - 2xAdventure Lab Cache

Good Beer Guide Pubs - #756 - #757

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Out with the old, and in with the new. 

Year 5 of my Good Beer Guide Ticking means that transferring ticks takes an increasing amount of time. Not aided by the 2023 version being organised by regions, rather than counties. Does anyone else class Bedfordshire as "The East"? 

2022 moves onto 2023

What else has changed?  Early days but having successfully "greened" Worcestershire, my work needs to resume with 8 new entries. Black Country Ales are taking over the West Midlands and beyond.  And of course, in my home town, the best pint can be found in the pub that has lost it's place after at least 3 years.

To be fair, its hard to class Stourport's Swan as a pub anymore. A Mediterranean restaurant, often closed after 9pm. But you should see the Wye Valley HPA.  It's like normal beer but in HD.

My first trip with the new guide takes me for a couple of ticks in Cambridgeshire.

Huntingdon - John Major's constituency but you will find more effigies of Oliver Cromwell.

A bit of psychogeograpgy through Adventure Lab Caching takes us to Godmanchester and back. All things worthy of looking at are looked at. The graveyard providing the item of most interest.

An Interesting, if not ghoulish read

Onto the pub.  Two ticks available and a fine representation of the variety available in the bible.  Nowhere - from the dirtiest spoons to the hard to admit affiliation to  Conservative Members Club - is excluded if the beer is good.

Admittedly, the Old Bridge Hotel did not look like our sort of place.

Ivy clad, with bolt on wine shop 

And so it transpired.  We found the rear entrance, observed many immaculately laid tables and before we made headway to the lower level bar, were pounced on by liveried staff, demanding answers.

No tables for those without reservations and even the bar area was out of bounds. We were offered the opportunity to wait outside in the drizzle for a table to become free but I think all parties just wanted us to bugger off.

Which we did - onto the Falcon. A proper pub, where you could feel the history dripping from the walls.

Coaching House, Jail, Cromwells Recruiting Station

A roaring fire in a low ceiling main room, with long bar offering double digit hand pulls and a surprisingly high representation from Marstons.

A lively Saturday lunch atmosphere, with good hearted banter as attempts were made to change the TV channel from racing to rugby.

Looking to the bar from a side room

The uniqueness of a British historical pub visit will need to carry us for a week.  

The onward journey is to Stanstead Airport.

03/07/15 - The Modest Student

Distance - 13 Miles
Geocaches - 24
Walk Inspiration - Time Out Country Walks

When I come to review "Walks in 2015", there is no doubt which will be the winner in flattest walk.  The closest I got to a hill was crossing the M11 on a footbridge and the highest altitude reached, 25m above sea level.  We are one superstorm away from this walk being an impossibility.

My son is 17 and attending a number of university open days.  Having looked at a couple, he has told everyone that today, he is off to Guildford for the University of Surrey.  Eagle eyed viewers will have noticed the map does not say Surrey.  In reality, he is off to Cambridge but he doesn't want his friends to take the pee out of him and call him "La Di Da Mappiman (Jnr)".

His intelligence and work ethic (rarely seen in a teenager) are only matched by his modesty.

After dropping him and his Mother, foot weary veteran of three open days this month, off in the centre, I head out for a linear walk from what is fast becoming my favourite walking guide - the Time Out book of Country Walks within easy reach of London.

Rather than pay £9 to park at Cambridge station, I drive to Great Shelford and park in the street buckshee.  Head off along roads through a series of interconnected, pretty little villages - grabbing a few church micros from under the noses of unknowing muggles.

Great Shelford leads to 

Hauxton, Via Little Shelford

And Hauxton Church

Finally into the countryside after I cross the A10.  Here, I pick up a cache trail.  There are some monster cache trails in the area and I had a decision when I set off.  Should I go for the smileys, or the chance of a classic walk.  The Classic Walk won out.  I like my walks to also have a sense of achievement and history, as well as sticking my heads into bushes every 161m.

Leaving the Lanes Behind

The footpath brings to the River Cam, which I will be following back to Cambridge later in the day.

River Cam

Haslingfield is my next village and the start of another cache trail.  I find a few, but to be honest, I am more interested in the walking.

Haslingfield - Sundial and Village Sign

Haslingfield is a pretty little place, but I've heard that Grantchester is even nicer.  With hardly a contour on the map to distract my navigation, I plod on through farm land and only the M11 to force me into digging out the Crampons.

Dizzying Heights

Grantchester does indeed live up to its reputation, but I peak to early at one of the three pubs that are within spitting distance.  I liked the look of the balcony at the Rupert Brooke, but on entering and noticing that every table has wine glasses and napkins, that this is more of a restaurant.

Is this is place for a man who is wearing his Rohan Montgomery with the sunshield flaps down?  Well they don't seem to mind serving a man who looks like he has deserted the French Foreign Legion a very decent pint of Woodforde's Wherry which took me right back to a holiday we had in Norfolk two years ago.

Not prone to exaggeration but this is the best pint I have had.  This week.

Leaving the upper middle classes on the next table discussing whether to have artichoke hearts or go straight to the vegan mains, I walk past two pubs that look a touch more suited to the gentlemen of the road.  Well maybe the Green Man.  The Red Lion looked equally spectacular.

If Alex gets into Cambridge, I will wash my car, don my finery and bring Sonia here for a visit. There is much to investigate.

The Red Lion car park brings me down to the River Cam again, much broader than before.  I could have took a cracking photo of some students messing around in a punt and jumping in but as they were all in bikinis, I decided that brightening up my blog was not worthy of a visit to the Gary Glitter wing of Littlehey Chokey.

The river brings me back to the City.  I completed a city walk around here a couple of years ago - dragging Sonia to the finest real ales pubs on offer, so I know the architecture and the beauty of a unique part of England.

An ice-cream, a couple of caches and a near misses with several lunatic bike riders and I am on my way back to the Station to return to the car.

But no trip to Cambridge can be complete without the obligatory photos of....

Punts....

Bikes.....

Colleges.  And Students.  And Students on Bikes.

Alex loved the colleges.  He can see himself wearing his cape to the weekly meals in the grand halls, which he doesn't think Guildford can offer.

If only it didn't take me 90 minutes to drive the 4.5 miles back into town to pick them up.

Should have brought my bike.

11/03/12 - Caching on the Way Back

Distance -
Caches - 13 found, 3 DNF

Bythorn Caching

Big question for this morning is if we should pay the discounted breakfast rate of £11.95 at the Cambridge Crowne Plaza.  There is a wetherspoons around the corner that offers the same fayre for £3.10.  JD all the way.

We then get our lacky to fetch the wheels and realise that we can escape the city, even if the marathon is running.  We just have to make a detour, as the westbound A14 is closed.

There are loads and loads of geocache trails in this part of the country - most of laid by the legend that is Poshrule.  He is spoken about in hushed tones by the West Midlands Geocaching Society as he owns 757 caches.  Thats a lot of maintenance.

I pick a small trail from Bythorn.  It has 16 caches, last four miles and should leave us with enough time to get home and watch the boy at football.

Bythorn is a pretty little village just in the cambridgeshire border.  Two days ago my finds in Cambs were a big fat zero.

Park up at the tarmaced end of Warren Lane.  The caches come thick and fast and are of a similar type.

Today really is the start of the spring and we are rewarded with some big blue skies and expansive views over very flat land.

The terrian is mainly like this

We have a DNF at number 2 (but so did the last fella) and then at number 5, we find two cache containers.  Failing at number 6, we wonder if someone has carried one off by mistake and put it somewhere else!  Still, signed two logs but I guess it only counts for 1 find.

At number 7 we meet the first of two dog muggles.  Bide our time by dicking around with the camera instead of hunting.

Muggles are coming

The walk is straightforward.  Only variety in the scenary is when we reach RAF Molesworth.  It might be disused but the septics don't half take security seriously.

Stalag Moleworth

After leaving the death camp, we then head down the paths, meeting Dave and Ted.  Dave is a little pug and Ted is a Rottie.  Dave likes to sleep on Ted's back but Ted finds it annoying.  Amazing what people will tell you after a cheerful "good morning". 

We can see the Church in the distance now and the promise of a luke warm can of diet pepsi encourages Sonia to get a wriggle on.

Walking away for pop.

Get back to the car.  I sit in the boot changing footwear.  I hear a fizzing frothing noise and some language that would have made our American Airmen blush.  Pop must have got shook up on the way from Cambs.

We made it back for the boys footy!

Thanks for the trail, poshrule.

10/3/12 - A City Tour of Cambridge

Distance - 4.54 Miles
Caches - 4
Ice Creams - 1
Food Type - Turkish
Pubs - Many
Walk Inspiration


Everyone likes to get something for nothing and this weekend's first visit to Cambridge has been funded by Holiday Inn's loyalty points.  Taken me three years to get enough, so maybe I haven't been quite loyal enough.

Leave the warring children at 9:30am on a Saturday and head off for the 2 hour drive.  A14 looks like its closed on the war back and then my old trusty Tom Tom tries to take me down a road that would have had the car impaled on one of Cambridge's rising bollard if I had followed the instructions.  A quick reprogram on the inbuilt sat nav had us pulling up in front of the hotel for valet parking.  Nice.

Only concern is how much of the City will be closed off for the marathon on Sunday.  Still, worse places to be stuck.

Check out the room and the afternoon's entertainment is going to be a walk to familiarise ourseleves with the City.  Once again, Walking World provides a great way to get to know a town on foot.  Of course, any opportunity to ferret around looking for tupperware will also be explored.

Once I get a signal, we realise that we are in the exact place to start the walk and that there is a cache directly over the road.  Nice use of a very powerful magnet.

We head North up the busy St Andrews Street.  It becomes apparent that if I spend too long looking at the Sat Nav, then I am going to get knocked over by a Student on a bike.  Not the way I want to go.

First place of Interest is Jesus College.  Its possible to walk into the colleges free of charge and have a mooch around.  This takes a bit of getting used to and you feel that you are trespassing.

Just walk on in

There is a cache in the grounds.  Its pretty hard to find the cache, but even harder to find how to get to GZ.  By looking like we are meant to be there, Sonia strikes gold after I have long given up.  Reward her with lunch at the Mitre.

Only Sonia knows where the cache is.

Retrace our steps, getting to the Round Church in the centre.  St Johns Street is the architectural highlight of the walk, as we pass Trinity College and St Johns College.  Pass some fine eateries, but our enquiries are all met with a "tables are free at 6pm or 9:30pm response".  Sonia said we should have booked.

After the photo opps, we head down Silver Street to cross the Cam for the first time.  We could have hired a punt from here, but our views from foot are just as good, so I avoid a nautical adventure.

Our walk around the Backs provides fine views of the Colleges and the Chapels.  The route ensures that every nook and crannie of the City is explored and we do some criss crossing of the Cam to take in the bridges and views.  Here an alarming number of bangs from the punts running into each other and indeed, see one soaked student who has taken a dunk.

Bloody Students

The walk is a little naughty now, as it takes us the back way into St Johns College.  Some stunning views to be had as you walk through another Courtyard.

Brideshead revisted

The walk has been clever, because as we emerge out of the front, we see that we maybe should have paid.

Technically, we are residents.  £8 towards the Turkish.

The walk then takes in a diversion to look at the Castle.  When I say castle, its more of a big green mound but it does provide the second refreshment stop of the day at the pub.  Cunningly called the castle.  I leave Sonia to her pear cider and climb to the top for some views.  Sonia prefers to google ancient monuments.

Back down and to the River.  A quick blast along, though parkland.  A cache lives under a bridge and head off alone to find it.  Recieve a text asking "is that you looking shifty under the bridge".

Final walk through "Christ's Piece", finding a very clever cache.  This drops us back at the shops.  One of us goes looking for a new coat and the other goes after a place for evening sustenance.  Both meet up disappointed.

After a short rest, we are out in the evening following a different guide book.  My Camra Pub Crawls never fails to find the hotspots of a new city.  Lets just say all the run down ones have been gentrified and all the nice ones have been run down but it was still an experience.  We even found somewhere to eat at a reasonable time and I can add Turkish Shepherds Roast Meats to my top 10 favourite dinners.

A fine city.  Watch out for the bikes.