Carlisle and the Lake District by Public Transport

17th to 21st June 2019

A week off to go somewhere. Can't be arsed to drive long distances. Got a train to Carlisle and a room at the Hotel ibis Carlisle, in Botchergate, a short walk from the railway station.

Monday

GWR train from Sandhurst to Reading. On time, good start.

GWR train from Reading to Paddington. Had booked the 1111 train but that was delayed so just hopped on the 1107, plenty of empty seats. Handy that there are now frequent fast trains Reading to London. Very fast too now that it's all electric IETs. I'll still miss the HSTs though as I grew up with them.

Hammersith & City Line to Euston Square and the short but crowded walk to Euston  Station. People, you really don't need to walk 4 abreast 😒

Virgin Pendolino* to Carlisle. Actual legroom in my booked seat! I'll admit to having gone via London despite it costing slightly more mainly to avoid several hours in CrossCountry's cramped Voyager trains even though I booked via CrossCountry's web site as I've found it to be the least aggravating to use.
Arrived Carlisle a few minutes late to find unexpected sunshine. I seem to have neglected to photograph any of the above trains 😀

(* The spelling checker suggests Gwendoline for Pendolino, I think they should rename them forthwith. 🤣 )

Settled into the hotel and went for a walk and to find food. I was a bit worried to see that the hotel room faced a number of clubs and bars but as it turned out they were all shut so nights were undisturbed. No mobile signal (Three UK) but good free wifi.
Dinner at The Griffin, standard Greene King stuff, explored a quiet Carlisle city centre, and had a couple of swift ones in The Fat Gadgie where you could count the customers on the fingers of one hand. With spares. It's quiet in Carlisle on a Monday evening.



Tuesday

A trip around the Cumbrian Coast Line. Tickets bought via Trainpal but picked up at the station rather than on the mobile app as it would be a long day battery-wise. Better safe than sorry.

A small group of mostly train enthusiasts gathered on the platform awaiting the arrival of a Northern train crew.
Who appeared at exactly the time it was supposed to depart.
Almost everyone sat at the right hand side windows 😀

This line is in every list of the UK's most scenic railway journeys with good reason. Once out of the city it's countryside all the way until it reaches the coast south of Maryport.

Then it hugs the coastline nearly all the way to Barrow-in-Furness.
In places it runs along the sea wall and there are views out to sea along most of the route.

There are some quite remote stations such as Nethertown and some oddly named such as Aspatria and the for some reason amusing Corkickle.

It runs a bit further inland towards Barrow giving views of the southern Lakeland Fells on the other side of the train.

The line also crosses the head of the River Duddon estuary, flat countryside you don't normally associate with the Lake District, you could be in East Anglia or Hampshire.

Barrow was hot and sunny. It's not what you'd call a tourist town though.
Unless you're interested in the Naval Dockyards and they're mostly behind high walls and security gates. I did spot a submarine but too far away to identify it. I suppose it must be one of ours though 😀

The train back was in the rush hour. Which meant that it was lightly loaded leaving Barrow and then very full from Sellafield as all the workers from the nuclear processing and decommissioning site knocked off. Contrary to rumour none of them appeared to have extra heads or other appendages. ⚛

Wednesday

There are no trains to Keswick. The line closed in 1972 so the choice now is drive or bus. The car was at home so at 0900 I joined the other "bus wankers" at Carlisle bus station to get the Stagecoach 554 to Wigton where it becomes the 554 to Keswick. Something to do with drivers shifts and hours I think. Anyway you just stay on the bus and after a fairly scenic drive (top deck front seats are a must) it deposits you in Keswick outside Booths supermarket. Now Keswick really is a tourist town which is probably why it costs you 40p to take a leak and the public toilets accept contactless payment!

My word it was busy but I've been to Keswick before staying at the Camping Club site near the lake side, it always is busy.

Followed the trail along the edge of Derwent Water for a bit, which was also busy then climbed up through the woods to the viewpoint at Castlehead. Steep but worth it for the view over Derwent Water. Only half a dozen other slightly more energetic visitors up there.

The 554 is not a particularly frequent bus route at 4 runs per day which meant plenty of time in Keswick.

So I took a boat trip around Derwent Water which was glorious, then ambled around the shops and had a pint in the Dog & Gun which had quite a few of the former but none of the latter as far as I could tell. The beer was good though and was as welcome as the seat in the shade. Before getting the bus back to Carlisle I did a bit of  shopping in Booth's and save myself 40p while I was there. The bus got back to Carlisle a little before 7 pm so I had a quick freshen up in the hotel and then went a few yards down Botchergate to the Shaha Tandoori for a well deserved (well I thought so) curry. It's one of those places which are upstairs so you don't know what it's like until you get inside. A traditional curry house and very good was the answer.

Thursday

Windemere does still have a railway. A short but scenic branch line runs from the West Coast main line at Oxenholme The Lake District station.

This is a busy little station being as the name suggests the main access to the Lakes for tourists travelling by train.

I got a ticket on my mobile using the Trainpal app which does split ticketing so saved about £3 on the return fare.

Alas the Transpennine Express was late arriving at Oxenholme so I became better acquainted with the station than I'd hoped with a 50 minute wait until the next departure to Windemere. The Northern train arrived and everyone piled on, glad to be on the move again.  Windemere station is nice but of course Windemere town isn't where the lake is.

That's at Bowness-on-Windermere so you have to walk (or get a bus) a mile or so to get there. I walked. It rained. I had looked at the forecast and decided not to take my big waterproof coat. It rained some more and continued to do so every 15 minutes for the rest of the day. I now have (another) new lightweight waterproof jacket. Thankfully Mountain Warehouse had a sale on (Don't they always?) 

I took shelter in The Flying Pig and dried out a bit. Went and got chips by the lake and watched the ducks and
geese getting rained on, and suitably fortified walked back up the hill to Windemere station to get the train back to Carlisle.

The sun came out.

Back in Carlisle and it being only just past 4 pm I visited the castle. Got to try and get the most out of my year's English Heritage membership (otherwise it's £7.50 for an adult) and I can tell you 4.20pm on a Thursday is the ideal time to visit, there were less than a handful of people exploring the extensive castle buildings and grounds.
Carlisle Castle is unusually intact having been in use as an Army base until the 1960s - in fact still used by the Territorials.



Friday

Hmm, train doesn't depart until 1249. Fortunately don't have to check out of the hotel until 1130 so had a lie in and then packed and read for a bit (Kate Williams' Rival Queens: The Betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots if you're wondering.) then wandered down to the Market Hall where I found the most traditional market "caff" I've seen in ages and had a full English. 'Cos I'm still officially on holiday and it's allowed.

I found a seat at Carlisle station to wait, to read, and to desperately hope that the hen party also waiting would be at the other end of the train as they'd obviously got on the giggle-juice early. (They were 😌)

At 1249 eleven coaches of Pendolino from Glasgow pulled out of Carlisle and only lost around 9 minutes by the time it arrived at Euston. It's a long walk from the back of an eleven coach train to the ticket barrier, then fight your way across the concourse and down to Euston Square. Circle Line to Paddington arriving about twenty to five.
A curiosity: I had an Off Peak Return with a seat reservation on the 1700 train from Paddington to Reading. The departure boards were clearly displaying a big flashing message that said Off Peak tickets were not valid on this service.

I wasn't up for that argument on a Friday evening so got on the 1652 to Bristol Temple Meads, first stop Reading, and plenty of available seats instead. The train from Reading to Sandhurst was standing room only and unfortunately the part I was standing in contained The Child From Hell who screamed and swore at the other passengers and demanded they move so he could sit down and demanded of his father(?) that he "give me some f*****g chocolate". He got his way on both counts 😒

There are many, many more photographs from this trip in this Flickr Album

Stonehenge Experience

24th March 2019

Last time I went to Stonehenge you could still walk right up to the stones, so it must have been in the 1970s. I vaguely remember the old visitor centre and car park. Of course back then the A344 still passed to the north of the monument, since then it has been closed and partly obliterated, the remaining part being used for shuttle buses to ferry the less able bodied or the lazy from the new visitor centre to the stones.

The new visitor centre contains an exhibition about the site, a ticket office, toilets, and of course a gift shop and cafeteria.

Entry is by timed ticket. I got in for "free" as an English Heritage member as do National Trust members but you do need to download a timed ticket and present this at the ticket office where an entry ticket will be issued. I was a bit early but was told not to take any notice of the time on the ticket and just go in anyway via the exhibition where my ticket was examined and ticked with a marker pen. The exhibition would be worth spending some time studying if you weren't at all familiar with Stonehenge. I gave it a brief tour and then headed outside, past the replica neolithic houses, and walked up the former A344 to the monument.

On the way there is a roadside memorial to Major Alexander William Hewetson, of the 66th Battery Royal Field Artillery, who was killed in a flying accident on 17 July 1913. In the early 20th century this was a  popular area for flying (and crashing) military aircraft. By the visitor centre is another similar memorial, the Airman's Cross,  erected in memory of two pioneer airmen, Captain Eustace Loraine and Staff Sergeant Richard Wilson, who were killed in a flying accident near Stonehenge in 1912.

On arrival at the end of the access road where the shuttle buses stop my ticket was checked again and I was allowed to join the crowds around the stones. The majority of whom seemed to be busloads of European teenagers, presumably on school trips. Along with them were the obligatory Oriental tourists and the occasional New Age pagan type. What they all had in common was an obsession with taking selfies.

I had downloaded the free app and audio guide before my visit - although I had to dig out an older smartphone as the app refused to play more than 1 second of the audio on my current one - so I put my earphones in which helped cover the noise from the student horde and made my way around the site with the guided commentary. Which was actually quite clear and informative. Worth getting if you're visiting, audio guide gadgets can be rented from the visitor centre if you don't have a suitable smartphone or tablet.

The stones remain an impressive feat of engineering whatever their purpose was.

There are plenty of theories and many of them have evidence to support them. I don't propose to go not them here though.

One thing is certain though, they had bugger all to do with the Druids. Not the original ones anyway. There were one or two modern ones amongst the crowds though.

Concern for the preservation of the underlying archeology and the misbehaviour of some visitors in the 1970s means you can no longer get within touching distance of the stones unfortunately.

The closest point that the fenced path gets is to the back of the monument where many of the stones are missing, affording a better view into the interior.

It's here that the press of selfie takers is thickest. In fact some visitors don't seem to bother looking any further. Stonehenge ✅
Walking back to the visitor centre I went the quiet way, up across the chalk to the Cursus Barrows and then behind the wooded area of the Fargo Plantation.

Up here there were hardly any visitors. It was a pleasant stroll back in the sunshine with the short turf underfoot, a gentle breeze, and the sound of birdsong (and the distant A303) in the ears.

That A303 of course may not be there in future if the plans go ahead to put it in a tunnel, depriving passing travellers of a free view of the stones. It might or might not also end the long traffic jams at busy times although more likely will just move them elsewhere.

So did I enjoy my second visit to Stonehenge? Yes, up to a point. Over the last couple of years I  have driven past it many times on the way to work somewhere or other so it made a change to turn off at the Winterbourne Stoke roundabout instead. Would I have visited if I'd had to stump up the £20 rather than got in "free" as a member?
Probably not if I'm honest. As with many of our heritage sites there's a certain amount of "disneyfication" that puts me off.

Anyway, Flickr Album of photographs of the stones and surroundings here.

Cistercian ruins and a Surrey ramble.

Waverley Abbey was the first Cistercian abbey in England. It was founded in 1128 by William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester. Located in Farnham, Surrey, about 2 miles (3.2 km) southeast of the town centre, the abbey is situated on a floodplain, surrounded by current and previous channels of the River Wey.

What's left of it, which is a few fragments of its former extensive self, is in the care of English Heritage. Entry is free and there is a small car parking area off Waverley Lane about 350 yards away from the abbey ruins.

The abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536 and subsequently the buildings largely demolished and used as a source of stone for other local buildings.

A small part of the ruins still has a ceiling - might be useful if it rains when you visit though today it was dry and quite mild for January.

Nearby is Waverley Abbey House, a Grade II* listed mansion which now offers business meeting and function facilities. The house was built in 1723 and replaced an earlier dwelling on the abbey site which had incorporated some of the former abbey buildings.

So having had a good look around the abbey ruins it was time for a ramble down to Tilford and back, mostly following the public byway that leads through the woods and past Sheephatch Farm.

See the route on OS Maps

Apart from a short section at the start along Waverley Lane the walk is mostly off road (although the byway is open to all traffic so you might meet the odd trail bike rider) it crosses one minor road, Sheephatch Lane, and at Tilford where you join the road there is a footway down into the village by way of the old bridge across the River Wey.

When you get to Tilford I recommend you pop into The Barley Mow pub where a nice pint of real ale may be obtained. The many people tucking into a late Sunday lunch seemed to be enjoying it as well. If you go in the summer you might be able to watch the cricket on the village green - though there are several signs on the outside of the pub warning of possible incoming stray cricket balls!

You could carry on through Tilford and follow the road back to Waverley Abbey, maybe cutting across on a footpath but the roads are narrow and the manic cyclists and SUVs tear along them so better to recross the Wey and take the bridleway on the left up the hill to rejoin the byway and retrace your steps back to your starting point.

 Wartime defences in a field next to the river in Tilford. This area lies on one of the "stop lines" constructed during the second world war in preparation for the expected Nazi German invasion. Fortunately they were never needed to be used. Also in the car parking area for Waverley Abbey is something that looks very like a fortified gun emplacement. Look to your left as you go through the gate onto the path to the ruins.

Little tower in the woods by Tilhill House. Former dovecote maybe?

The byway through the woods.

The River Wey through the trees near Waverley Abbey.

Flickr Album of photos at Waverley Abbey.

Donnington Castle

20th October 2018

Donnington Castle (the one with three Ns not the one with two) lies a short distance to the North of Newbury, Berkshire. This ruined medieval castle of which only the gatehouse still stands is in the care of English Heritage. A bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in October provided an excellent opportunity for my visit to explore and take some photos.

Entry is free as is the small car park at the end of a private lane just below the castle mound. It seems to be a popular spot for strolling, picnicking, or just enjoying the sunshine and the car park was about half full. Walk up the gravelled path to the castle between the Civil War earthworks to get close to the castle itself. There's no access inside but you can get all around the outside.

Donnington Castle was founded by Sir Richard Abberbury the Elder in 1386 and was bought by Thomas Chaucer then taken under royal control during the Tudor period. The castle was held by the royalist Sir John Boys during the First English Civil War and withstood an 18-month siege After the garrison eventually surrendered, Parliament voted to demolish the castle in 1646.

I bet the view from up there is good.

The castle gates, alas closed to the plebs.

Inner gates.

Unless you're taking a picnic, which I wasn't, you won't spend a huge amount of time at Donnington Castle but it does make a good starting point for a country ramble. There are good views from the castle and its surroundings.

Worth a trip for a quick explore.

Berkhamsted Castle

7th October 2018

Berkhamsted Castle is a Norman motte-and-bailey castle in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. Now a ruin in the care of English Heritage. Entry is free of charge.

The castle was built to obtain control of a key route between London and the Midlands during the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century. 

Robert of Mortain, William the Conqueror's half brother, was probably responsible for managing its construction, after which he became the castle's owner.  Subsequent kings granted the castle to their chancellors including later one Thomas Becket, now more usually associated with Canterbury.

The castle was substantially expanded in the mid-12th century, probably by Becket, who later came to a sticky end having misunderstood the relationship between the crown and the church.

The castle is conveniently located next to the railway station if you wanted to visit using public transport. Had the railway taken it's original planned route it would in fact have run straight through the castle site but the Act of Parliament of 1833 sanctioning the building of the London to Birmingham Railway specifically protected the castle making it the first building in the to receive statutory protection from development in this way.

Anyway, it's a nice place to wander about in the autumn sunshine with a camera and despite its urban location fairly peaceful, passing trains and noisy kids notwithstanding.