July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. Two to go, before a dash to the station and a series of gaps between trains that weren’t quite long enough to fit in more “research” in Crewe and Stockport. The Black Bear is the pub in that Visit Shropshire guide, mainly because it’s a restaurant. A chap barges past me to win the...

July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. You can generate a mass of blog material in a 4 hour visit, even with 5 pubs and a 10 minute indecision about cheese purchase to interrupt your cultural exploration. As with pork pies, cheese is best heated up. Don’t @ me. I wondered what else the internet would reveal about...

July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. I picked up that Whitchurch pub trail leaflet at the Heritage Centre, thinking I could send it to Stafford’s Paul Mudge for his collection. One thing though; it seems to bear no relation to the actual pubs. And not just because of daft name changes. No Wheatsheaf, no Old Eagles,...

July 2026. Whitchurch. Salop. Apart from visiting (spoiler) five pubs in Whitchurch, what is there to actually do in this compact little borders town of 10,000 if the award winning pie maker is unexpectedly closed ? Well, I could have got my hair cut at a barbers with the best window display in decades, and a...

July 2026. Dodington. Whitchurch. “Ain’t that just lil ‘ol England” is a line said to me by (wait for it) an American tourist in Haddenham (Oxon) a few years back as she stared at a street of coloured timber. Several Haddenhams, and many Whitchurches. Our Shropshire one has all the usual features of a Borders town;...

July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. By law all blog posts must show where the subject of your writing is in relation to Wrexham. Well, Whitchurch must be close, as I had Magic Dragon’s beers in three (3) pubs last Thursday. A fourth was Joules from Market Drayton, practically the next town down, and the nap hand...

July 2026. Whitchurch (Shropshire). OK, they’re not all “wonders“, but illiteration innit ? Whitchurch (Salop, there’s loads of them. See also : Newport) is a pretty little town, overlooked by those on the way down to bigger hitters like Shrewsbury and Ludlow and Cwmbran. Famous for clocks, I later learn. The half...

July 2026. Heading towards Wales. Regular readers will know that “family issues” have conspired to keep our travels to a circuit between Sheffield, Cambridge and Tunbridge Wells these last few years, with a few interludes in the Balkans and along the Leeds- Liverpool canal to break the monotony. On Thursday I broke...

July 2026. Rotherham. Mrs RM’s sports injury persisted into the new week, scuppering a restart of the Cask Camino. I said “I’m off” and took the tram down into Sheffield, and just kept riding on the Tram Train, like in a 10,000 Maniacs Cat Stevens song. Parkgate retail park marks the end of the Sheffield metro line,...

July 2026. Sheffield. Back from Darlington and a disappointing Chinese takeaway (life lesson : never go back) I popped next door (ish) to see how many folk were going to watch the World Cup Final at our local. The Blind Monkey had decent crowds this last month for the England matches; I even heard people walking...

July 2026. Middleton One Row. Near Darlington. From the Steam Machine I walked to Heighington Station, a dull mile through industrial estates, ending at a dead pub commemorating the first ever train. Somewhere along the way I realised I could stay on the service towards Saltburn and get off at Dinsdale, which I’d...

July 2026. Newton Aycliffe. County Durham. A fascinating extract from the CAMRA pubs website here; The birth of the railways, the decline of the mines, the posh pubs either side of the Great North Road, and a star in the craft beer firmament that’s made the Good Beer Guide after a decade. What took it so long ?...