Cycling adventures across Britain and beyond
A few miles upstream from York, the River Ure shiftily changes name to become the River Ouse. Why? Where? How? Who? I cycled along both rivers today to find out. The official cut-and-paste story is that the Ure becomes the Ouse at Cuddy Shaw Reach, just before Linton-on-Ouse. For reasons never explained, the hundred-metre-wide Ure…
Fans of the ferric will love Bennerley Viaduct. The 430m-long former railway bridge glides over the marshy flats east of Ilkeston, on sturdy iron pillars. A victim of axe-murderer Dr Beeching, it was saved from demolition and reopened as a foot and cycle bridge in 2022. Today was sunny, I had some morning article research…
Pontefract is Liquorice Town. Or was, anyway. The friendly, lively West Yorkshire place, its name corrupted by sweet-chewers, gave the world ‘pomfret cakes’ – chewy aromatic liquorice pastilles, stamped with an image of its historic castle. Liquorice was big business here through the 1800s and early 1900s, with ten factories employing over 5,000 locals. They…
Another cheap day out thanks to the £2 bus fare scheme, the X46 York–Hull service that takes bikes, and the rather good cycle gallery in Hull’s free Streetlife Museum. It’s a friendly, lively and engaging place well worth a visit. The only thing dry about the displays is the lack of moisture, which I was…
For my last main day of fieldwork updating the Slow Travel Guide to the Yorkshire Dales, I took advantage of the last day of the year of the Dales Buses. I took the 875 direct from York to the top of Wharfedale (a three-hour journey via Leeds, Ilkley, and then some spectacular scenery; it goes…
Another day of riding lovely scenery, updating the Slow Travel Guide to the Yorkshire Dales. Today I was checking out the villages of Three Peaks country: Ingleton, Clapham, Horton etc. The peaks themselves (Pen-y-ghent, 694m; Ingleborough, 723m; Whernside, 736m) are a popular walking challenge embraceable by even the most slightly adventurous. Which obviously rules me…
It’s dubbed ‘the loveliest place you’ve never heard of’. Well, now I have. Markenfield Hall is a (mostly) 14th-century farmhouse just south of Ripon that’s one of the oldest buildings in Britain still inhabited as a family home. The utility room claims to be the country’s only one with both Norman-era double-vaulting and plumbing for…
Having just sold a couple of magazine articles on the theme of cycling from Britain’s highest pub to lowest pub, I’m keen to mine this seam of what are, effectively, vertical end-to-end trips. I’ll be doing Yorkshire’s Highest Cyclable Point to Lowest Cyclable Point later in the year, so as a kind of étude for…
More research for the Yorkshire Dales guidebook today, and several unexpected, quirky delights: an astronomical observatory with yet another solar system scale model; Yorkshire’s other most famous other brewery town; a bit of the Himalayas in the Dales; and another sculpture park with another miniature Stonehenge. After a very pleasant chat about bikes and touring…
Today’s fieldwork for the Yorkshire Dales guidebook update involved the world’s oldest sweetshop, a remote cul-de-sac pub, a hidden gem of a gorge, plenty of lovely scenery, and a hedgehog abducted by aliens. I cycled up Nidderdale from Harrogate via Ripley, a pretty village I’ve blogged about before. I enjoyed a pork pie from the…