B2B Day 73 Colton to Doveridge

For an OS map of today's walk as originally planned (12.68 miles; 20.41 km; 741 ft total scent), click here.

For OS maps of our revised walk: for Part One from Colton to Abbots Bromley (5.42 miles; 8.72 km; 387 ft total ascent), click here; for Part Two from Uttoxeter to Doveridge (2.50 miles; 4.02 km; 56 ft total ascent), click here.

Today we had planned to walk the Staffordshire Way from Colton to Doveridge via Abbots Bromley and Uttoxeter. You will see how the shape of our day altered.

We had a good sleep at our room at Ye Olde Dun Cow and enjoyed our breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast. Kristian was a good host to talk to, and he told us we'd like Abbots Bromley, and to watch out for his parents' home on the main street with its "Toad Hall" sign.

We began walking just before 10:00 a.m. in the sunshine, and Stockwell Heath, the first hamlet we came to, was pleasant.

From there our road took us to Park Farm, but we walked too far, despite Ken's careful map reading, and ended up in a farmer's garden which was not on the path. He was older, hard-of-hearing, and not terribly friendly. His directions to the path were confusing, and at first we thought he was referring to a different area of his property between a hedge and a barbed wire fence. He and his wife called us to their window a second time, and the wife explained the distance down the road to where we needed to turn to find the Staffordshire Way. The farmer did give permission for us to travel on his land, but we said that we wanted to keep to the official path. I also had looked at where we were thinking of going, and I wasn't sure there would be a way out at the end. 

We went back down the road and turned into the correct farm. The already wet field was all chopped up by cow hooves, as we've encountered many times before. It began to rain heavily when we were partway across the field, so on went the coats and pack covers. I could just see the next gate in the distance, and it looked like a mud bath. We quickly conferred and decided to do a longer, looping road walk to the west rather than stick to the Staffordshire Way, because we did not want to wallow around in muddy paths (or worse) all day trying to get to Abbots Bromley, which was only a third of the way to Doveridge, our final destination.

View from the causeway over the reservoir

We backtracked again, and went down a small lane which was nice. The rain eased off. Then we turned north and trudged uphill on a very busy B-road, which always feels a bit risky. We faced traffic and stepped aside as often as we could, but there were a lot of cars and not much of a verge to retreat to when they passed at speed. We finally crested the hill at Admaston and descended the road which became causeway across Blithfield Reservoir. This part of the road had a broad pavement for pedestrians, which was pleasant to walk on after the previous half hour of dodging cars. Halfway across, there was a long, slow procession of cars coming toward us, and we realized it was a funeral procession. We took our hats off and waited for them to pass. I wondered to myself if it was someone important, and then reminded myself, "Everyone is important." So it was a procession for an important person. 

Snails unlimited!

The reservoir was quite beautiful, with interesting estates on the hills nearby, and a field of cows. Just after we had reached the other side, I was fascinated by a gathering of snails on the underside of the stone wall.

The walk to Abbots Bromley was pleasant especially now that it was sunny, but it seemed to take a long time and be all uphill. The village had many beautiful old homes, and like Bednall, was competing for the best-kept village. We did see the house sign for Toad Hall, but decided not to bang on the windows as Kristian had jokingly advised at breakfast—fearing we'd be shot (see the picture)!

We arrived at Abbots Bromley much later than if we had taken our originally planned walk along the Staffordshire Way—at least an hour later than Ken had hoped. Worse still, Ken had heard that other walkers had struggled with multiple instances of poor and muddy paths in the miles beyond Abbots Bromley. I was also still a bit draggy from my cold, so we decided not to push ourselves. Instead of slogging along the Staffordshire Way and likely arriving very muddy and very late, we decided to take the bus from Abbots Bromley to Uttoxeter. There would then remain a fairly short walk walk from there to Doveridge.

So we settled in and relaxed at Abbots Bromley. We had lunch at a cafe called Antlers, which is where Ken was able to use the Internet to research the bus schedules. We each ordered the lunch special, a chicken club sandwich, completely forgetting our "strategy" of several years ago: to share one sandwich so that we had room for cake afterwards! The sandwiches were huge and the accompanying salads generous, so we were too full for cake at that time. 

It was quite cold outside, so for a while we followed a helpful little village tour booklet to view some of the village's historic buildings but then went to the church and had some time inside out of the wind. The church was an interesting one, and it is where the horns for the annual Abbots Bromley horn dance are stored (click the link for more information on this interesting village tradition).

The horns stored on the church wall

After visiting the church we went back to Antlers for tea and cake after all. Most of the cakes had been consumed, but we shared a toasted teacake, a smarties rice krispie square, and a pot of tea. We warmed up from the cold and then went back out to wait for the 4:05 p.m. bus that was scheduled to stop adjacent to the Butter Cross, an ancient market building at the centre of the village.

Beautiful Abbots Bromley (Butter Cross at centre)

We had waited there to see when the 1:50 p.m. bus came, just to make sure the buses were running regularly, and the 1:50 bus was ten minutes late. We still waited early for the 4:05 p.m. bus, and it was ten minutes late as well. But it was a fairly quick ride to Uttoxeter.

When we got off the bus at Uttoxeter, it was handy to see a Waitrose grocery store just a short distance from the stop. There was a great deal of fast moving traffic in the area, and I made a sudden move to cross the street quickly following Ken's lead, and I pulled my hamstring. Although it felt an honour to join the ranks of elite athletes with this injury, it was decidedly uncomfortable to walk around in the store immediately afterwards. Nevertheless, we bought our simple dinner to take with us to Doveridge: a Coronation chicken sandwich and some raspberries. 

After getting out of the town streets and moving onto a paved bicycle/pedestrian path, we began to leave the busyness behind. Along with his OS map, Ken had earlier used Google to view the streets in this area when he had thought we might be staying at a nearby Premier Inn, so he was quite familiar with how to exit Uttoxeter and get to Doveridge. We eventually left the paved bicycle path for a beautiful path across the fields.

Back to walking in green pastures

We met a man walking his black lab which had an enormous long branch in its mouth. Ken said that the dog looked happy, and the man said he had had the dog for six years, and it was always happy! We were happy walking to Doveridge through the sunbathed fields of early evening. The evening walk's highlight was arriving at a fantastic Victorian suspension footbridge over the river Dove shortly before we reached the village. After a spate of picture-taking by both of us, we walked over the bridge and into Derbyshire.

Sara at the king of all suspension footbridges!

 

Now in Derbyshire, looking across the River Dove to Staffordshire

 

After a brief bit of woods, we entered the village uphill on a road past the church, and made our way to the main street of the lovely village of Doveridge. 

The exterior of our Airbnb!

We arrived at our Airbnb at 5:50 p.m., and our host Angela met us and got us settled. We are in a self-contained annex. It should win an award for excellent design in a small space. Everything was so well thought out and well laid out. Anytime I thought, "I wonder if there is any . . .?", there was. It had a bathroom with shower, a small kitchenette that had more counter-space than one would imagine, and a bedroom with a little table and chairs. There were nine wooden mice hidden around the suite, and we enjoyed trying to spot them all.

Wooden mice on the roofbeam

We enjoyed our sandwich, raspberries, some toast and some biscuits for dinner. I washed two of Ken's shirts and my trousers and dried them on the wonderfully warm towel rack. We enjoyed seeing people walk past our window. The village shop is across the street. It was good to tuck into bed having enjoyed some beautiful walking but also having been sensible (for us, at least) and taken the bus to avoid a wet slog.

 

 

B2B Day 72 Canal Walking to Colton

For an OS map of today's walk (9.02 miles; 14.52 km; 183 ft of total ascent), click here.

We had another lovely breakfast and chat with Elaine. We stayed longer at the breakfast table than we might have done, just enjoying the music and her conversation. We didn't want to leave.

We set off at 10:55 a.m. After a bit of road walking, we got onto the canal path. This was a lovely graveled path at first, and we saw lots of yellow irises and wildflowers along the water. Before we had walked an hour the predicted heavy rain set in, and we put on pack covers and raincoats. I still enjoyed seeing the rain create bubbles on the surface of the canal, and the ducks and Canada geese, but it was admittedly not as pleasant as walking in the sunshine of two days ago. We did not take many photos, which was especially disappointing for Ken as he loves canal walks and had hoped to stop a few places for pictures as well as some canal-side snacks in the sun. The best laid plans on walking trips are often disrupted by poor weather!

We had enjoyed walking on the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, and now it came to an end—literally at a T junction, merging right into the Trent & Mersey canal, the third canal we would walk alongside on this trip and in the age of canals an important England-wide cargo connection between the Mersey River on the west coast and the River Trent, which runs to the east coast. This is known as Haywood Junction, and there were canal boat hire companies, moorings, a marina, and the Canalside Cafe close by. On a sunny day it would have been a lot of fun. So it was disappointing that the rain was pelting down, the pack covers were on, and we didn't get a picture. For the same reason we decided not to go to the nearby Canalside Farm Shop's cafe for tea or cake—a place which Ken had spotted online and which Elaine had highly recommended as well.

As we came near a bridge over the canal, we saw a man and a woman carrying a large basket of colourful flowers over the bridge, having a bit of work to get the flowers down the steps coming off of the bridge. We caught up with them as they were getting onto a beautiful narrow boat that had many lovely flower planters on its roof. The man said to us wryly, "You can see that we had just about run out of flowers, so we had to buy some more!" We complimented them on how beautiful their boat was.

Soon after, we went into Great Haywood to post our package, Elaine having given us a padded envelope to use. The woman who served us at the post office was very kind and answered all of our questions about the forms. She helped us to figure out how we could track our package. We bought some oaten cookies to replenish our "emergency" stock, and Ken was happy to carry them, having lightened his pack of several maps and guidebooks. 

Coming back to the canal, we did take a look at Essex Bridge, a very long, sixteenth century packhorse bridge connecting the village with the Shugborough Estate. It crosses the River Trent in 14 arches, and it originally had 40! (Presumably the bridge was once much longer to cross formerly boggy ground.) Since it was too rainy to take a picture, here's a link to one.

We planned to stop at the Red Lion at Little Haywood for a lunch of pub snacks. When we got there, we realized that Ken must have misread the hours on the website because the pub was closed. It wasn't a long detour, but a bit frustrating not to find shelter and rest from the rain. Fortunately, there was another option not too far away. We got back onto the canal path and walked a mile and a quarter to the Wolseley Arms near Rugeley. 

We got a nice table near a fireplace with no fire in it, which was a pity, since Ken was absolutely soaked through to the skin. We hadn't waterproofed his coat before we left; my new coat repelled the water, but his didn't. Our pack covers were quite wet, and we tried to hang things discretely near our table so that they could dry out. We had a late lunch at last. Ken ordered a chicken/bacon/avocado salad. He joked that in one meal he had doubled the amount of vegetables he had eaten the whole trip. He had two pints of lemonade as well. Afterwards he thought it would have been more strategic to have a hot meal and hot drink since he was quite chilled. We were too shy to ask if the pub staff could light the fire. I had a small macaroni and cheese, onion rings, and tea, which was just right (though it sounds an odd combination now that I've written it down). 

We left at 2:37 p.m. and it had basically stopped raining for the day; it was blustery but there were lots of patches of blue. Though it was cool, the wind and our walking warmed us—particularly Ken—back up. We enjoyed our final stretch of walking along a canal during this trip. Across the canal in a field there were two adult Canada geese with (it looked like) about thirty goslings. Later on the water, we passed two adult geese with fifteen goslings.

Farewell to walking on canal paths

The canal behind us, we were briefly on a path in some woods, and then road-walked the couple of miles into Colton. We arrived at the pub where we were staying, Ye Olde Dun Cow, at 4:15 p.m., and there was a note saying to ring the owners between 3:00-6:00 p.m. A kind woman and her adult son who had driven over to get something from the pub's small shop (which was closed) helped ring the owners; Kristian soon arrived having picked up one of his children from school, and we were inside before we knew it.

When we unpacked in our spacious room, I discovered that I had left my written journal at last night's B&B, but Elaine is going to send it on to the Hut in Eyam. I'll have to journal mainly by writing this blog. 

Our lovely room at Ye Olde Dun Cow (the seals loved the bunnies!)

The ensuite bathroom has a wonderful deep tub that helped remove some of our aches and pains. 

The tub!

We went down to dinner at 6:30 p.m. I ordered fish and chips, and Ken ordered Chicken Kiev. Both were huge portions, and both were amazing. It was the best fish and chips I've had, I think, and Ken's Chicken Kiev was also outstanding. We certainly had no room for dessert. It was good to snuggle into bed after a good day's walking in the rain.

B2B Day 71: A Rest Day at Shugborough

Today Ken scheduled a rest day for us so we could see Shugborough Hall, an eighteenth-century Greek revival mansion.

Can you spot the otter-seals relaxing?

It was wonderful to be staying at a traditional, full service B&B.

Our host Elaine served us a marvelous cooked breakfast, and we particularly enjoyed the fruit salad (with many different kinds of finely diced fruit) as a starter. We also enjoyed listening to the music from the 1970s and 80s, and our brief chats with Elaine.

I was feeling a bit under the weather, and I couldn't tell if it was leftover allergies to cat hair, or a mild cold. 

One of the huge trees in Cannock Chase

We had been purchasing guide books to all of the properties we had visited, and Ken was carrying them all plus a book he had brought with him on walking in the Shropshire Hills. We decided to pack everything up that we wanted to post home and carry it with us to Shugborough Hall, afterwards continuing to the post office at Great Haywood to post them. Ken remembered after we had started walking that the post office closed at 2:00 p.m., and given that we had started out at 11:30 a.m., we knew that we were not going to the post office today.

The two mile plus walk to Shugborough was a bit ambiguous when it came to the pathways through the trees of Cannock Chase, but as usual Ken navigated us perfectly to the gateway at the beginning of the long drive (and it was a long drive) to the Hall. We learned from some National Trust volunteers that we needed to check in at the car park first—more walking! 

Exterior of Shugborough Hall

 

Because it was lunchtime, we went immediately to the garden cafe. I had tea and a curried cauliflower pasty, and Ken had a Cornish pasty and Pepsi. Refreshed, we began our tour of the house. Only the ground-floor rooms were open, but they were the ones we were most interested in (the other rooms belonged to Patrick, Lord Lichfield, a fashion photographer from the late twentieth-century).

We learned the story of the Anson brothers, Thomas and George. Thomas developed the estate, and George was a famous naval figure who obtained a huge amount of money from capturing a Spanish galleon—the money went into the estate. 

We enjoyed all of the rooms, especially the library. There was a book door and a mirror door (and another book door that a volunteer pointed out to us). If all the doors were closed, you would be surrounded by walls of books with no apparent doors. For a country house, it was the cosiest library we had ever seen. We could just picture ourselves in chairs, reading in front of the fire.  

The library, with two chairs in front of the fire

I was feeling pretty tired after our tour, so we went to the cafe again to share some carrot cake and to have some tea. Because I didn't feel like going out for dinner, we bought one cheese scone and two fruit scones to take "home" for dinner. 

We walked home the same way along the long drive, and then by a slightly different, more direct path through the woods. We had a nice quiet evening resting and watching TV. Ken watched a bit of an international friendly football match between England and Bosnia. England won 3-0 after a scoreless first half. It was a good rest day for us both.

 

 

B2B Day 70 Penkridge to Milford

For an OS map of today's walk (8.30 miles; 13.36 km; 647 ft total ascent), click here.

[This post will be a bit sketchy since my notes were in the journal I left at a B&B].

Today's walk was absolutely beautiful, on the clearest, sunniest day we've had so far. We encountered many different types of path and landscape, which made it an excellent walk.

After grabbing a lunch from a Co-op and walking across Penkridge, we fairly quickly got onto a canal path that had beautiful homes on either side. This was our second canal of the walk: the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal. We found a bench that seemed to be open for people to sit on, so we did. 

On the Staffordshire & Worcester Canal in Penkridge

One of the canal boats had three spaniels on it, which were very cute! 

Our canal walk took us under a motorway, the British equivalent to an interstate freeway in the U.S. I said that the tunnel definitely looked modern compared to the ones we usually walk through. 

The Staffordshire way left the canal just when we arrived at Georgie's Canal Cruises, a company that hires boats but also does special two hour dining cruises. We asked if they sold drinks or snacks on shore, and they didn't really, but a kind woman asked her boss, and she got Ken a Coke from off the canal boat. I was able to use the onshore bathrooms, for which I was thankful. We sat and watched the canal boat fill with people and then set off down the canal on their lunchtime cruise, which was fun.

With a bit of trepidation, we set off across fieldpaths on the Staffordshire Way again. The first field was ploughed, but walkable. 

The second field was planted with some kind of grass or grain, and we aimed for an old oak. 

An ancient oak

Ken had read that there were some thousand-year-old oaks on the walk, and this looked like it might have been one of them. We got to the oak, sat down in the sun, and just enjoyed being outside. We could hear the skylarks singing, and it was incredibly peaceful. 

We continued on the Staffordshire Way through another field, and then road-walked to Bednall.

Ken's favourite type of field path

The church had a fun cart of things for sale outside. The village itself had won the best-kept village award in the past, and was competing again. We heard three separate lawn mowers going, and the gardens, houses, and public areas were immaculately kept. 

Bednall Church

After Bednall, we ascended higher and higher on a sun-dappled path between an avenue of trees and beyond that, a belt of woods.

Up the avenue toward Cannock Chase

Our walk eventually led us to Cannock Chase, a large Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which featured both woods and heathland. 

 

 

It was truly beautiful. It was such a bright, sunny day, because of which we saw lots of people and families out for a fun walk or bike ride. I even tested out the stepping stones over the Sher Brook!

We arrived to a warm welcome at The Coach House B&B in Milford. Our kind host Elaine served us tea and cake on arrival and we had a really nice chat. After a short spell in the garden, we settled in to our beautiful room for a restful night.

 

B2B Day 69 Boscobel to Penkridge

For an OS map of today's walk (10.83 miles; 17.43 km; 216 ft total ascent), click here.

Last night I had a hard time getting to sleep because my throat swelled up and felt sore. I could see that there were some cat hairs on my shirt from the bedding, and I am allergic to cats. I took one of Ken's antihistamines that we brought for his hay fever, and I managed to fall asleep. 

Today we would say goodbye to Shropshire on leaving the Boscobel area and hello to Staffordshire as we headed generally northeast to our destination, Penkridge. In some ways it was a fairly "workaday walk" but Ken was looking forward to some canal walking since we had so enjoyed the Kennet & Avon canal in 2019. We left the Airbnb fairly early and walked to the Oakley Arms (where we had dinner last night) for breakfast because it was on our way. We had a good breakfast, and it was a much more positive experience for me because I could actually eat and enjoy it!

From there we walked a couple miles into Brewood, where we went to a Spar and got a sandwich, crisps, and a drink for our lunch. We sat on a bench in the village and Ken drank the Coke. I used the public facilities, which were clean and attractive—not what is typically found.

We then hiked a few miles on our first of three canals of this trip: a stretch of the Shropshire Union canal. We particularly enjoyed the early part near Brewood, where there were lots of boats moored or moving on the canal as well as lots of people out for their daily walk along the towpath.

On the Shropshire Union canal

We talked with a man named Graham who lived in Brewood (which he pronounced "Brood") in a 1740 timbered house. He walked that part of the canal every day, and told us about this section being built by Thomas Telford along a straight line, which was his innovative method of canal building. Rather than curve around the contours of the landscape like his canal engineering predecessor James Brindley, Telford ran his canals on a straight line—both in terms of direction and elevation—sending the canal along causeways or through cuttings along the most direct route possible.

We came off the canal path and walked to Lapley, hoping to visit the church. The church was locked, but we sat on a nice bench outside and ate our lunch and the last of the wine gums and a few of the "fruit pips" we bought from Blists Hill Victorian Town. Lapley was a nice village with a good community feel, with people chatting on the village green as we passed by.

Because of the recent rain, low-use of some of the paths, and a slightly more direct route, we decided to walk quiet country lanes to Penkridge for the rest of the day. It was peaceful and pretty, though the road walking did wear on the feet. Just when we were getting tired after our long tramp on tarmac, we were pleasantly surprised to find the Swan at Whiston, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, not only operating but open. We had thought it might have been one of the pubs that was on our old OS map, but had closed as so many have over the last fifteen years. But here it was at 2:30 in the afternoon doing a booming trade. 

The Swan Inn: solace for sore feet

We went to the "bar" side because we just wanted to order some lemonade. The man ahead of me in the queue took forever to order. He must have been ordering for a whole table of people: five different drinks all needing to be individually concocted, a bottle of wine, food from the kitchen . . . but finally I was able to order a pint and a half-pint of lemonade for Ken and I to relax. 

After that rest, our destination was only about two miles away at the Littleton Arms in Penkridge, a large, bustling village. We entered Penkridge, turned right and saw the hotel. But as tired as we were, when Ken saw lawn bowling at a club almost "next door" to our hotel, he had to stop and watch a bit. It was fun and brought back Ken's good memories of trying out lawn bowling once in Vancouver in the mid-1990s.

Our room at the Littleton Arms

We had dinner at the Littleton Arms, and it was very good. Ken had an outstanding chicken burger with excellent chips. After some initial confusion as to what room we were to receive, the one we got was good, though we needed to wait for the live music to end (it was a Saturday night) before we could fall asleep.

 

B2B Day 68 Albrighton to Boscobel: Of Roses and Royal Oaks

For an OS map of today's walk (4.88 miles; 7.85 km; 322 ft total ascent), click here. (Note that we had an additional 2.5 mile walk back to our Airbnb from the Oakley Arms pub.)

[Because I left my journal with all my notes at a B&B, this will be a rather sketchy blog post that will be filled in later.]

A beautiful breakfast...

This morning began with breakfast at David Austin Roses, which was just across the street. Ken ordered a breakfast sandwich, and I ordered French toast with fruit compote and clotted cream. It was the best French toast I have ever had. Ever. It was light, not too sweet, and the fruit was fresh and juicy. Everything was served on a china pattern of (what else?) David Austin roses. The overall experience was just lovely.

...in a beautiful place

We enjoyed wandering around the rose gardens before heading out on the walk, a fairly simple five mile journey, mainly on quiet roads, to Boscobel House, a site famous in the English Civil War.

We did decide to take in the ruins of White Ladies Priory, an Augustinian nunnery, on the way to Boscobel House.

We met some walkers who kindly directed us to a path to Boscobel House. They and we admired some tall poppies in a field that looked like something from a garden rather than something growing wild in a field.

Boscobel House is where King Charles II stayed in hiding when he was fleeing after defeat at the Battle of Worcester. 

Boscobel House from the west

 

He famously hid in an oak tree (the Royal Oak) to avoid capture. The original oak in which he hid was long gone, but the oak that one takes pictures of was apparently a sapling when Charles was there.

The (decendent of the) Royal Oak

 

It was a cold day. Our photos make it ambiguous as to which one of us is having the luxury hot chocolate in the cafe.

 

Here are some photos of the interior of Boscobel, to give an idea.

 

Our Airbnb was very well located just a half mile north of Boscobel House. We arrived in good time, and our host Nick kindly drove us to the pub, the Oakley Arms. When I arrived, my stomach felt quite "off" and I couldn't even eat the salad I ordered. I wondered if the chocolate/caramel "tiffin" I had eaten in the late afternoon was too rich and wasn't sitting well. It was too bad, because it was a lovely restaurant. The walk back to our Airbnb did help me feel a little better, and we quickly went to bed as it was late.