To Church Minshull

Ludlow to Church Minshull (77 miles)

Before breakfast we rack the bike up onto the top of the car ready for the return trip to Ludlow CAB this morning. Having done a ten mile sideways additional leg yesterday, we do not feel it is necessary to repeat it again first thing today before continuing for a 70 to 80 mile stage. We have a leisurely breakfast and chat to Edith. It has rained a lot in the night and is still drizzly outside so there is not a great incentive to get going. The rain does stop before we leave, however, and although grey with a few odd spots through the morning we escape rain all day, despite there being showers around about us.

We drive back over to Ludlow feeling quite impressed that if anything the hill that we crossed has grown even larger overnight. We park the car in the large brand new but empty car park in front of the “dot.com” building and unload the tandem. As we are about to pedal away a small car arrives and the woman at its wheel doesn’t bother with a good morning greeting, but instead accosts us from the car window: “You do know this is a private car park don’t you?” Being friendly souls we smile and explain that we are cycling from Lands End to Kirkwall linking up CAB offices for publicity and sponsorship. “Why didn’t you send us any information?” is her response, to which we make our reply in unison, “We did”.

After a short tandem crew discussion, in which Sheila patiently explains to me the difference between turning right and turning left we reach consensus on the way out of town and depart.

The map promises a fairly flat run for some time along small lanes. In fact I have not seen a map showing quite so few contours impinging on the road since we set off from Lands End. In places the road is flooded for short stretches, but only to about two inches deep at the most. It is pleasant middle-England scenery along a traffic-free small lane as we head along the valley of the River Corve, through tiny hamlets such as Tugford. We then swing west to cross the river and continue along the contour line on the B4378 through Brockton and Bourton to arrive eventually in Much Wenlock. We stop at a rather busy junction with road works and contractors vehicles manoeuvring in all directions. I make sure a JCB driver has registered our existence and pedal across to a safe refuge. Our route is straight ahead onto the A4169. This road seems to have a constant procession of minerals lorries thumping along it, but for the moment we ignore this and turn right into the High Street to explore Much Wenlock. We wander along, visit the public loos, eat a banana, discuss coffee options and stop at a superb half timbered market building to take a photo. In other words we do all the things that cycle tourists do whenever there is an excuse to dismount. While the bike is leant up against the market building a youngish fellow comes up and asks if he may look at the tandem. We say, “Feel free, help yourself”. He stares intently at the rear mech. for a bit. It is only a long-cage Shimano LX deraileur (i.e. nothing out of the ordinary) so I become a bit worried and trying to appear calm look down to make sure that half of it hasn’t fallen off somewhere along the High Street, but all appears to be well. We try the friendly chat: “Are you a cyclist……” and have a bit of a conversation but its quite hard work.

Wandering back past the shops we are stopped by a woman out shopping: “I hope you don’t mind me saying this but I heard you….” It turns out that she has overheard us talking about our way on to Ironbridge and feels she should recommend an alternative on quieter roads avoiding “the heavy traffic”. She explains how we can arrive directly at the Ironbridge via Benthall, a couple of ‘B’ roads and Bridge Street (that seems a logical street name). We have a look at the map and see what she is suggesting. Inevitably her way goes over a hill, but it does seem to make sense. She also extols the wonders of the pies sold in the butcher’s shop just along the street. We suspect that her cousin must own the shop but we thank her for her advice and take it up. After purchasing pasties for lunch, which we pack away, we set off following her directions.

We find our way over the hill admiring the cowslips in the verges as we go (not much of a climb really) and on into Bridge Street. On the way along here travelling at about 30mph downhill we have the only heart stopping near miss of the trip. The road is clear both ways; there are no parked cars and no road junctions. We are checking the bike’s speed and riding well out from the kerb when a teenager suddenly runs with a ball straight out from his house into the road in front of us. We serve around him and are gone before he realises by what a hairsbreadth he and we have avoided becoming serious casualties.

This way of arriving at the River Severn is perfect, straight up to the tollhouse at the end of Ironbridge with a view across the bridge to the Tontine Hotel opposite. We dismount and walk across to mingle with the trippers admiring the structure and sights. It really is a fine sight and setting. It is a slight pity that English Heritage have put pedestrian barriers across the length of the bridge on each side. A notice explains that the cast iron balustrades are being tested for safety. Having stood there securely since MDCCLXXIII no doubt they now do not meet some EU safety standard for pedestrian impact. We take a photo on the bridge, and I descend and take a couple of Sheila from the riverside up towards the structure. It is a bit early for lunch, but being such a good spot we decide to sit on a bench and eat our pasties as lunch No.1, followed by purchasing some sandwiches that we stow away in readiness for a later lunch No.2.

We set off along the bank of the River Severn looking for our right turn that should take us on a steep climb up a side gorge away from the valley of the Severn. Sylvia at Bridgwater has warned us about this. When we mentioned Ironbridge to her she had replied that the area was quite steep, “But OK unless you go up (and here she exactly described our intended route) which is a real killer climb.”

It is tricky to find the correct little lane but I have managed to photocopy an Ironbridge map from the public library and so we know we are looking for “Coach Road”. We continue carefully along the riverside road, but eventually realise that we must have come much too far having missed Coach Road. We turn the tandem round to return, whereupon the rear tyre goes flat. What a mean time for a puncture. (Although I suppose there are no really good times). Out with the rear wheel and, after poking around the cover to try to discover the cause, in with a replacement tube. After pumping the tyre up to 110psi again (there is an awful lot of air in a 26x1.75 tyre run at high pressure), we return along the road. We count the railway bridges and locate our road, which has a very clear sign: “Station Road”. So much for the map. We would have done better without it. Coach Rd is not even a near miss for Station Rd.

Sylvia is right. At one point on the climb we have a road or track option, and I vote for the more direct route even if it does require a short spell of walking on a track / footpath. We have a bit of a navigational glitch and Sheila is none too confident at my direct cross-country variation, but we break through into a small area of housing that we locate on the map as being on our road just before yet another arrowed uphill section. A small girl on a bike engages us in conversation and, forgetting that in this mistrustful age adults are not supposed to do such things, I chat back as she pedals along the pavement beside us for a while until we leave the houses and the pavement ends. No time for talking now in any case as it is a tough vertical haul from here until we top out and head on to Little Wenlock.

At this point the Wrekin fills our forward vision although in fact for a bit the road is running downhill before the climb begins again. Sheila asks if we are going “all around the Wrekin”? I reply: “Err no, sort of over / through it”. As we climb we see that the hill magically parts itself for the road and in fact we have climbed up the back of the Wrekin in a manner of speaking. So the feared ascent is in fact a steep and long downhill whoosh towards the plain below. Sheila expresses great satisfaction at an uphill climb that has suddenly and unexpectedly turned out instead to be a significant descent and manages successfully to freewheel without getting out of breath. Needless to say we are literally carried away and miss our turn in order to drop down to the intended junction to go under the M54. In consequence we end up crossing it on a bridge further into the Wellington end of Telford. We turn west and head back out of town to rejoin the road north at the M54 junction that we have overshot by a couple of miles.

From here the roads are fast and flat as we speed through Crudgington, Waters Upton, Great Bollas and Ollerton before deciding to stop at Stoke on Tern for lunch No.2. We take a short detour to the village church and sit on the church steps for our picnic. Feeling replete we press on again to Market Drayton. We don’t need to go into the centre of Market Drayton, which does not seem to offer any unmissable attractions and so opt to take a shortcut through some suburbs. We have a street map, but still become quite confused and seek advice from bicycling children who give a mixture of inconsistent replies. These housing estates really do all look the same and could defeat even maze-trained rats. The main problem is the utter meanness of the local council with street names. Allen Gardens seems to be the name of about four quite different roads. Did they get a job lot of road signs on the "buy two get two free" principle? With a bit more adult assistance and a school as a significant landmark we manage to match the real world back up with the map and escape on the Longslow Road hoping that this is not another wind-up but is the road that will take us to Longslow. We pedal through Longslow – success.

In a few miles of small lanes we are enjoying a much improving sky and are cycling in sunshine through the Shavington Hall Park Estate on public roads that have a feel of being private driveways through the desmene. On the way we watch a hare doing his stuff as he crosses the road and then rushes around in the meadow beside us.

We arrive in Nantwich, which looks to be a fine town, but is very much (as the locals confirm) closed on Wednesdays. We cast around for a possible afternoon tea stop without much success as everywhere is shut and local advice does not offer any suggestions. A town centre pub looks a possibility but there is nowhere to put the tandem and I have forgotten the lock today. In the end we follow a sign on a board and walk through an alley and towards the river to discover “Peppers”. This fine large former Georgian house has a function room and wine bar and looks quite posh. I venture in feeling rather grubby and dishevelled and enquire whether afternoon tea is a possibility. The reply is yes it is and we can have a large or small version at what sounds to be a reasonable price. I ask about putting the tandem in the garden and the proprietor comes out and sees the tandem and reads the sign about the ride, but confirms that the gate to the riverside garden is locked. No matter because we can see the bike from the wine bar window. We order the small version of afternoon tea. This is a good decision because when it arrives complete with freshly made sandwiches, scones, cream, jam, a couple of strawberries etc. we are faced with the very acceptable challenge of another meal at a grander scale than either lunches Nos.1 or 2 already consumed. We take our time. Friendly service and a super tea. Eventually we decide that we really should leave and after admiring the splendid dining room laid out for a grand function we pay the bill. Ignoring the very reasonable earlier price offered, our waiter (owner?) decides to support our venture and only parts us from the grand total of £3.95 for the two of us, making this the bargain meal of the whole trip. We sure have come a long way from Aust motorway services. I half expect to find that the chauffeur outside has been polishing the tandem (well there is no harm in a bit of moderate fantasising).

It is the last leg of the day as we travel along in sunshine towards Church Minshull. We arrive there and as we go along the road out of town, we spot our car parked in a lay by. We guess that Peter has put it there to mark the farm drive we need to turn into while he has gone for a walk along the nearby canal. The farm road is almost a mile long before we arrive at the house and are greeted by one of the daughters of the family. She shows us the barn for the bike and takes us to our room, which has a heater in it. Apparently it was cooler earlier in the day, but a combination of heater and afternoon sun have made the room a positive hot-house. This is soon cured by flinging the windows wide open. Their washing machine/spin dryer has broken, so we wash our kit and it is added to the line with all of their towels and sheets. Unfortunately when we come out a bit later to fiddle with the bike we discover that the washing line has come untied. A farmyard is not a good place on which to dump wet washing. I find a ladder in the barn and while Sheila holds the washing I securely re-fasten the line to its anchor in the farmhouse wall.

In the evening we head into Church Minshull and the Badger pub in search of dinner. The pub is quite a barn of a place and fairly ordinary looking. It turns out, however, that the food is no ordinary microwaved pub grub. At a very reasonable price we are treated to well presented and interesting good food. It turns out that the chef has a heap of certificates along the lines of “xyz young chef of the year”. All in all this has been a very good-food day. The cycling has been pretty good too.

Church Minshull to Slaidburn