The market town of Driffield – Gateway to the Wolds – is not associated with codebreaking. Alan Turing never cycled here, and it never had pioneering computers the size of a factory. It’s an East Riding farm-country hub, mainly known for having the largest agricultural show in Britain.
But I was there today to explore the Code Breaker Trail, a cycling initiative for local families which is officially launched on Thu 15 Feb 2024.
I rode to Driffield from Pocklington, which I got to thanks to the X46, the famous Bus that Takes Bikes. It’s a very handy way to access the Wolds from York.
There’s occasionally talk of restoring the pre-Beeching ‘Minsters’ train line from York to Beverley via Pocklington and Market Weighton, but given current government’s commitment to the railway network north of the Home Counties, ie none, it looks like I’ll be taking the X46 for a while yet.
Anyway, it was a super ride across the Wolds, following the Way of the Roses, through Millington Pastures and down the long, long straight gentle downhill through Tibthorpe.
After Kirkburn there’s an irritating three-sides-of-a-square detour to Driffield to avoid the nasty A614, but I rolled into Driffield about one o’clock.
The Town Council office kindly printed off a pre-launch Code Breaker Trail map for me, and I set off on my Turingesque odyssey.
The Code Breaker Trail is an eight-mile trundle round Driffield, finding 17 smiley green plaques just big enough to park a bike on, each with a letter. Collect all 17 letters and anagram them to form a message.
Of course I won’t spoiler that here, but I’m sure I’m not giving away too much to say that letters such as ‘D’, ‘r’, ‘i’ and ‘f’ may appear somewhere.
The trail was fun, and an excellent excuse to have a clearance haggis, neeps and tatties from Wetherspoon afterwards: £6 including a pint.
The route, all on paths or quiet roads, is clearly aimed at families. It’s not a culture trail: much of it takes you through housing estates between play areas.
But this, of course, is what it’s for: for locals gently and amusingly mopping up a half-term or holiday afternoon, or weekend day, with the kids. There are plenty of toilets, places to have a picnic, cafes and snack stops.
And all for the installation cost of some bits of metal and a few maps: excellent value for money, I’d say. I wish there’d been a similar thing in Harrogate or York when our nephews were on their first bikes.
It’s an initiative that could be profitably imitated elsewhere. In York, for instance, you could have a trail whose letters would spell ‘York, not as good for cyclists as it used to be’.