Tuesday 12 May 2009

Is This The Best Boy's Day Out Ever?.. Trains, Beer and Food

The tour of station bars on the Leeds rail line, made famous by Oz Clarke and James May in their Drink To Britain series may possibly be the best blokes day out ever. It has it all (excepting sport perhaps), real ale, great hearty food and nostalgic bars packed with enough railway memorabilia to entertain for hours.

The journey for the St John The Baptist Church, Hey posse started at Stalybridge station with good intentions. On my part an intention to make copious notes of beers sampled and passing observations of each station and journey. My notes, at the end of the trip that took in Huddersfield station (twice), Dewsbury and finally the Railway Hotel at Greenfield consisted of the following: Stalybridge - 1/2 pint of Viaduct Gold, lovely!

Like I said, good intentions.

So don't expect this to be an erudite exposition on real ale and heritage rolling stock. Thank goodness there was sufficient planning ability among our group of builders, teachers, authors, retired company directors, police officers (retired military and ser
ving) to realise the importance of the dynamic between food and real ale. Like this:

"Let's eat at Huddersfield, they have the best food."
"Yes, but lets eat on the way back, otherwise we'll get stuck at Dewsbury: they have the best beer."

And so it was, the best buffet bar is Stalybridge, without a doubt with it's maze-like collection of warm rooms that ooze nostalgic hellos and farewells. The best all rounder is H
uddersfield where you could easily spend a whole evening, with a meal and music, on one of the many nights they have live bands.

The best beer is definitely at The West Riding, Dewsbury where, even though I've enjoyed it many times before, Timothy Taylor's Landlord excelled itself...we would have got stuck there too, had we not been more than ready for the fabulous fish and chips at Huddersfield. I guess the souvenir tee-shirts that state 'I missed the train at Dewsbury' are very popular.


The Huddersfield bar, The Head Of Steam, served up Cod, battered just enough to just see the white of the fish, chunky chips with skin on, and mushy peas, that we were sober enough (just) to appreciate above run of the mill food that could have been served up to us - it were lovely!

You'll be pleased to know that over tea, what with us being a church outing, we discussed some of those headier intellectua
lly taxing subjects that thinking men ought to.

For example: in a fight between a shark and a tiger, who would win?

(this was silly, it would obviously be the shark every time - all he has to do is taunt the tiger into swimming out to sea for the scrap and stay out of his way until he drowned. Even if we allow evolution a place in the argument, to allow the shark to get on land and be beaten up by the tiger, it can only at best end in a stalemate because the evolutionary trend would be for the tigers to get smart and evolve into creatures who could rise above the tiger's taunts and not go in the water in the first place, so by the time evolution provided the sharks with legs, the tigers wouldn't want to fight them....just sayin
g Tony.)

There was more...when we got onto a railway trivia quiz, it flushed out the real trainspotters, there were a few surprises there, I can tell you!


Anyway, finally we ended the night in the excellent and local (within 40 minutes walking distance from home) The Railway Pub, Greenfield, where there was plenty more real ale (don't ask me what we drank, I haven't a clue, I remember it being good though)

So, not a classic CAMRA day out - no real ale review with all it's expert ramblings on hops and malt, nor a railway buff's collection of train references nor (do they really do this?) numbers in little books. But it was a grand day out!



Wednesday 6 May 2009

Helmsley Walled Garden - A Yorkshire Treat



Yorkshire Dales National Park was the perfect destination for our first camping trip of 2009, and in that single long weekend we took in thousands of years of history. From the ruined Cistercian Abbey at Byland and Carthusian Priory at Mount Grace. Each is in its own oasis of tranquility that anchors you to the peace and solitude that brought those seeking spiritual quiet millenia ago. Then there was the far from ruined, truly thriving Benedictine community and Catholic college at Ampleforth with its stunning, soaring church.

But each of these tourist destinations has advantages over the one I'd like to share
with you. To find any of the major National Trust or English Heritage sites you simply follow the brown signs. Don't expect to see brown signs though for Helmsley Walled Garden; this jewel of restoration wasn't sufficiently restored before the rules for signage in National Parks changed. The Helmsleyteam learnt they couldn't have signs and therefore miss out on the passing visitors who rely on signs to choose places worth visiting; and that is a shame.

Helmsley boasts an orchard of beautifully trained apple trees - old English varieties, the ones you won't get in Sainsburys - and a collection of Clematis that demonstrates why of all climbing flowers they are rightly the most popular. The gardens are a treat for anyone with a passing interest in horticulture - the white framed green houses backing on to the warm worn brick walls are testament to the skill of the gardeners that raise sufficient vegetables to keep the excellent vegetarian Cafe, The Vinery, in business.

And incidentally, even if you don't want to visit the garden, the cafe alone is worth going out of your way to for lunch.

Best of all though, wandering around, I couldn't help but have that lovely safe and warm feeling that you associate with childhood pleasures. I couldn't place it at first, but it finally came to me. It was the slow measured pace of an enclosed world, that relies on the rythmn of the seasons. It was really relaxing - that and the fact it reminded me of watching The Herbs and Hectors House as a child.

So how do you find it?

Take the B1257 for Stokesley and then look for the next car park (they are allowed to have signs apparently), once you've parked simply resist the tempation to pop into the nearby bakery for a curd tart and follow the hand made signs to the garden.