The plan was to meet at Sainsbury’s café in Whitchurch and to set out from there at 10.30. But that’s not what happened. It turns out that Sainsbury’s has closed the cafes in all its supermarkets and if I’d consulted with Mrs T we would have found out well beforehand. Fortunately, our great leader and Keith had decided to do a recce on Monday (when the temperature had got up to 29°C) and discovered the fact that the café was no longer there. For DH, finding an alternative was no problem – he just turned on his ‘Costa detector’ and found one suitable in the High Street. Consequently, sixteen CER members collected at Costa Coffee and soon-ish after 10.30 spilled out onto the pavement, split into two groups (Mod and Brisk) and headed out for Market Drayton.
The Mod group comprised of Dave H,
Keith, Fiona, Elwyn, Mike G, Andy B, Ray and yours truly. Threading our way out
of town, we were soon in Alkington, heading to Tilstock, Hollinwood and Prees
Green where we ran a short distance along the A49 crossing it again at Weston-under-Redcastle..
The roads were very quiet and, for the most part, smooth with few potholes – just
what we’ve come to expect and like about the lanes of Shropshire. Apart from a climb
near Marchamley Hill, much of the journey seemed to be downhill and the NW wind
behind us helped to make very good progress, arriving in Hodnet about 12.15.
It had been suggested that we
might need a break here and/or something to eat, but no-one seemed to need
either and we stopped only to call the Joules pub in Market Drayton (the Red Lion) to make
sure they could handle a group of eight. Crossing the A41 at Wistanswick, we
started a second climb into Cheswardine. Fiona started asking ‘how far is it to
lunch?’ as we ran down the hill towards Market Drayton. Dave and Keith’s recce
had taken them to the Joules pub, so finding it was no problem and we arrived
there about 1.15pm.
The staff there welcomed us in and
quickly (well, quite quickly) took our orders for food and drinks. That came
pretty quickly and the sandwiches, fish and chip and various other dishes were
found to be first class. The Red Lion is definitely worthy of another visit.
The return 13-mile journey to Whitchurch
would be in a north-westerly direction and therefore into the wind. However,
apart from some short stretches, this didn’t really affect us too much as the
wind seemed to have died down. It was noticeably cooler as we made our way
back, although it did brighten up a bit near Whitchurch. As we passed through
Calverhall and Ightfield we did find some rough roads and we actually diverted
from the prescribed route, taking Ash Road at Ash Magna rather than Ash Lane at
Ash Parva since Dave and Keith had found the latter to be very sandy and
gravelly and potentially quite dangerous.
We threaded our way back into
Whitchurch and Costa Coffee where a restoring drink was taken. It had been an
excellent excursion around rural Shropshire along lanes that many had never
seen before. Our thanks go to Clive for
producing a superb route which all the group found really enjoyable.
ST
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