MW05 : Eamont Bridge to Plumpton

15th July 2013

You may remember (though why should you?) that on our last Miller's Way outing, MW04, we finished up at the wrong place because we walked further than expected and beyond the instructions I had with me.  To be specific, we failed to cross the river in the Lowther estate, thereby finishing at Clifton rather than at Eamont Bridge.

Dilemma.  What should we do today?  

• Carny on regardless from Clifton even though that would mean one and a half miles of dangerous road slog?
• Go back to Lowther and do the job properly?
• Or recognise that this is not the first time that, for various reasons, we have not stuck religiously to the route in the book which, anyway, is not always the route taken by John Carr?  Furthermore, he didn't walk all the way so why should we?

Commonsense prevailed and the interesting village of Eamont Bridge was where we kicked off, this time with the addition of Ian and Cynthia's dog, Brora..  There is a lot to see round here including two ancient mounds and two medieval castles but we were on a mission and, apart from a cursory glance at King Arthur's Round Table, all those delights will have to wait for a separate event (or read Tony's Other Woman instead).

Many of the houses carry a date over the door or sometimes two.

I am still trying to work out the relevance of year MMDCCXVIII (2,718) although St Google tells me that there is an Aberdeen architect with that set of letters in its title!

Paradoxically, our mission did soon come to a halt.  Or perhaps "Pause" is a better description. In Penrith.  For a coffee stop at No.15 after a whole mile!

Once refreshed, we passed through the centre of Penrith, following which we had some difficulty with the directions.  The names of the roads on paper did not correspond with the names of the roads on their signs.  Coupled with the fact that what is described as a pub called the Bull is now an Indian restaurant called Taste of Bengal plus the establishment of the Thacka Beck Nature Reserve and the advent of several recently constructed buildings on a new industrial site (including a Greggies pie factory), it is small wonder that our Way was a little different to that intended.  If only distances were recorded we might have fared better.  Ditto if I had realised I was using a 1:50k map rather than a 1:25K !

However, we did eventually manage to recover the Way

The next section, to Catterlan, was a long, pleasant, narrowing, old track then across stream and bullock field before emerging at the hamlet  The only downside was the constant albeit low level noise from the nearby motorway.

At Catterlan, I decided that the route description took an unnecessary and unpleasant route across the motorway roundabout whereas the OS map showed a minor road passing under it.  Well, it might have passed under when the map was printed but not no more. We had to retrace our steps and do as we were told.

Faced with the prospect of a forthcoming road slog and the added concern about not being able to have a finishing pint, we adopted a different road slog to the Stoneybeck Inn where we had a very pleasant lunch out in the sunshine.  Fish cakes & chips plus proper beer made with Australian hops, if that is not a contradiction in terms.

We had decided to finish at Plumpton (a little off-piste but there is a bus stop there). However, we didn't fancy the A6 so found a different and rather more pleasant minor road that brought us back on Way betwixt M6 and railway, eventually reaching a railway sign for The Pot Place, a very oddball garden centre.  

From here it was just a short stroll to Plumpton where we had half an hour to wait before the bus back to Penrith should arrive.  I decided that I would use the time profitably by explrong the local church which has what looked like an interesting tower.  Just as I was about to cross the road, a bus rolled up.  It was the previous one running late so St John the Evangelist's and its pele-like tower await a future visit.

Once back in Penrith, we retraced our steps back to the car but contrary to what I had earlier expected, there was time for pint in the Beehive.

In summary, it was a pleasant day out but not the most exciting terrain- too much road work and motorway noise.  Neither a problem for Mr Carr, of course!

 Don, 15th July 2013

Afternote

By one of life's conincidences, I was driving through Plumpton the very next day and had chance to look around St John the Evangelist's Church.  The gravedigger was hard at work and fortunately not for me.  The church is very simple internally in the local early 20th century style but the tower is somewhat anachronistic.  It almost looks like a Pele Tower but not quite.  

From the photos of the previous church and assuming that had been on the same site, the pele is psuedo, not original, but why it should have been built in that fashion is a mystery to me.

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