Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

Reading – Greyfriar of Reading

Cask (eight options) and keg (fourteen options) meet here, a Good Beer Guide listed pub which is also an Untappd verified venue (wooooo – another venue badge…..) and is well reviewed on-line. I’m not sure that the quality of the experience is evident from the exterior, but I had high hopes after reading about it. The advantage of having beer options listed on Untappd is that I’m excited before entering, or at least my expectations have been moderated if the choices aren’t very decadent.

It was quite dark inside, so I struggled to get a clear photo, so this will have to do. There are plenty of cask and keg options, with the service being efficient and polite, with the far wall off to the right being covered in pump clips to add a little decoration to the arrangement. This pub seemed to have a bit of everything in terms of customer demographic, young and old, male and female, quiet and loud, all fitting together well, so I’d suggest that this is very much a pub at ease with itself.

The Inner-City Sumo from the formidable Turning Point Brewing Company, memorable for me as they brew the Yellow Matter Custard beer. This beer was delightful, a heap of passionfruit and orange and aroma to mach. It’s actually also got guava, but I have no idea what that tastes like, as I’m not a fruit expert. It’s a shame that more beers aren’t designed to taste like crisps or chocolate bars, as I could add an element of knowledge to my comments there…..

The Night Lapse, also from Turning Point, which was perhaps a bit too roasty (as they put it) for me, but a well kept cask beer which had a depth of flavour and no shortage of coffee notes.

I very much liked this pub and am pleased that it has reached the Good Beer Guide, although I assume that’s primarily because of the quality of their real ales. I liked the keg options, I liked the environment and I suspect this will be one of the best pubs that I visit in Reading. How lovely.

February 17, 2022
Reading – Brewdog

Continuing my vague plan to visit every Brewdog in the country (along with many other similar plans that I have), this is their outlet in Reading, an impressive building which was constructed in the 1830s as a Congregational Chapel. Over the last decade, it has housed a number of different pubs and bars, but it has been a Brewdog for the last few years.

I’m not sure what is happening to the frontage of this building, it’s in a really poor state and it has lost the blue coating that Brewdog painted it not that long ago. At a best guess, they painted it without permission and have been told to remove it (this sounds like something that Brewdog would do), but they really need to do something about the current situation.

The beer selection, with the Coffee Stout confusing me as it had no brewery name by it. The staff member didn’t know and couldn’t find out, but she asked a passing manager who told me that it was brewed by Firebrand Brewing Company, a Cornish brewery. The member of bar staff was personable and engaging, but she accidentally poured me a pint instead of a half. She realised when pouring, but she tipped the remainder into another glass, although it was probably just easier to give it to me (not that I really wanted any more than a half to be fair) rather than have a bit of beer randomly sitting there.

There’s quite a large interior which is bright and comfortable, with another floor above.

There was a booth available which I thought looked comfortable, and was a pleasant environment to read a book on my phone. The beer is the Lil’ Beans from Double-Barrelled Brewery, which was better than I anticipated, with rich vanilla and chocolate notes. The brewery are local to Reading, so credit to Brewdog for making the effort to have this available to support local businesses. I was pondering why I had heard of this brewery and it transpires I had their ‘Infinite Reflections’ beer a couple of weeks ago in the Artichoke in Norwich, where I’ve also had the ‘Everything But the Bulbs’ beer as well. I’m going to see if I can get chance to visit their taproom over the next couple of days, probably not, but I shall do my best…..

Anyway, I had expected the bar to be a little busier, not least because Google warned me that it was “as busy as it gets”, which usually means that people are flooding out of the door. In the end I read a chunk of my book, a sign of a warm and comfortable environment, so all really very amiable with the friendly staff and clean surroundings.

February 17, 2022
Reading – Reading Central Library

I like to pop in the library in any town or city that I visit, so that I can comment on whether or not I’m happy with their selection of books. Another one of my little services to the local community…..

What a lovely welcome. There seems to be a substantial proportion of books in foreign languages, more than I’ve seen even in libraries such as Stratford in Newham when I lived there (in Newham I mean, I didn’t live in the library). I did like though that the library offers free online courses to learn foreign languages for those who are library members, which I think is a nice mixture of things.

I’d say that these opening hours are somewhat inadequate, for anyone who works nine until five on weekdays then they’re going to struggle to ever get here. Closing at 15.00 on a Saturday and being closed on Wednesdays and Sundays really isn’t ideal. There’s a comparison possible here between Reading in the United States (which is named after this town) and Reading in the United Kingdom, with the latter having the twice the population. Despite that, the central library in Reading in Pennsylvania is open from 09.00 until 21.00 on Mondays to Wednesdays, from 13.00 until 19.00 on Thursdays, from 09.00 until 17.00 on Fridays and Saturdays and from 13.00 until 17.00 on Sundays.

The library goes over the Holy Brook river channel.

I went to the second floor and noted that the local history library opened at 11.00, and since it was 10.55 I meandered back to the first floor selection of books. It seemed adequate and there was plenty of seating available.

On getting to the local history library, I think it’s actually open earlier and it’s just the specialist collections at the family history section that open at 11.00. Either way, this is a very decent collection of books, plenty of local history reference books and also some to be taken out of the library as well. Nearly no-one came up to the floor during my time in the library, so it doesn’t seem to be the busiest section in the building, but at least that will stop bits of the collection from being stolen.

My first impressions might not have been the best, but I was pleased in the end that it was a peaceful library which seemed organised and well stocked. Oh, and most importantly, they had a Pevsner.

February 17, 2022
Reading – Allied Arms

There are more Good Beer Guide listed pubs in Reading than I had expected, over ten in the centre (or within easy walking distance of it) and I’ll try to get to as many as possible. This is the Allied Arms, one of the few pubs that doesn’t serve food (other than bar snacks) and it has some history to it, which I might as well quote from their web-site:

“The Allied Arms has been a pub since 1828 but the building dates back to the 16th Century. Over the years it has been used as a butchers and brewery as well as a pub. The inside decor is warm and cosy and includes old beams which likely came from the ruins of Reading Abbey after the dissolution by Henry VIII.”

I liked a building with some heritage to it and it’d be good to think that the old beams theory is true.

Unfortunately, the stout I ordered ran out as it was being poured, so I switched to the Loddon Hullabaloo which was adequate and at the appropriate temperature. I had hoped for something darker and the pub will usually have that offer available, I was just slightly unfortunate today that the barrel ran out. Nonetheless, there were a range of beer styles, and although nothing exceptional, it was entirely adequate. Pricing here, which I knew about in advance from reviews, is a little expensive and I suspect that might cost them some custom, although it’s not unreasonable.

The interior of the pub, all bright and feeling historic. There’s a front and back room, both served by the same bar, as well as a large outdoors garden. I can imagine that on most weekends the seating gets taken quickly, so the extensive external area must be quite handy.

The Loddon Hullabaloo, which is the pub’s house ale, produced by the Loddon Brewery who are based on Dunsden in Oxfordshire (I thought that sounded quite a long way away, but I’ve realised how near Reading us to the border of Berkshire and Oxfordshire).

It’s a nice enough little pub, with the staff member being friendly and welcoming, so there was an inviting and quite cosy atmosphere. They’re still requiring masks to be worn, which I’m happy with that their being choice and I had one ready, so all was well. Given the building’s heritage and the range of real ales, I can see why it’s in the Good Beer Guide.

February 17, 2022
Reading – Museum of English Rural Life (Upstairs Stores)

I like it when museums do this, which is placing items from their stores on public display rather than keeping them hidden and inaccessible. The National Railway Museum do this particularly well with the Warehouse, now called the North Shed (but I prefer Warehouse so I’m going to persist in calling it that). The Museum of English Rural Life have clearly spent some money on their set-up, but it’s visitor friendly and it keeps everything safe, but still visible.

Some of the clothing, including smocks and the like.

Bits from coffins, which to be fair are probably a little harder to incorporate into the main displays.

There’s no end of material on these shelves, and there’s also an area at the back which can’t be accessed without a prior appointment, but this has even more items visible.

The problem with running a museum on English rural life is that quite a lot of the exhibits are really quite bulky.

Anyway, I liked this upstairs section to the museum, there’s an exploration element to the whole arrangement. The museum has a total of 25,000 items and only a limited amount of space to display them, but they’re used what they have really well. They’ve also carefully, and no doubt laboriously, listed everything in their collections and this is available at https://merl.reading.ac.uk/merl-collections/search-and-browse/databases/.

February 17, 2022
Reading – Museum of English Rural Life (Ladybird Books Collection)

More on this museum in other posts, but I was told by a friendly member of staff at the entrance when she was giving me directions that there was a Ladybird display. As the museum is about English rural life I thought it would be something about ladybirds in terms of beetles (expecting something similar to what Stuart wrote in the LDWA’s Strider magazine about bumble bees), but I was surprised and delighted to see that it was all about Ladybird books.

The cover of Bunnikin’s Picnic Party, the first Ladybird Book which was produced in 1940.

The pages of a Ladybird Book before cutting.

The original artwork from one of the Ladybird books.

One of the challenges for adapting books for the Arabic market, not least the days of the week all needed amending.

The dog was seen as unclean and was replaced by a goat.

Head coverings were added for this book.

And a switch from a pig to a sheep in this illustration.

An internal memorandum from Ladybird Books, indicating that the Saudi Government didn’t like a girl being used in one of the images, it needed to be a boy. it was duly changed.

And there’s the change that the Saudi Government requested.

Some of the foreign language editions.

And some of the collection of books that the museum has, which is a fairly comprehensive set. I remember having some of these, indeed quite a lot of them, and they remain a design classic.

This is the only permanent display of Ladybird Books anywhere in the world and I think that they’ve done a nice job here in presenting some of the titles and giving a background to their history. They change the main feature every few months to keep the displays seem fresh and I’d pop in and see what they’ve done if in the area again. This collection could perhaps do with a little more space to allow the museum to do everything they want, but this was a nice surprise to end my visit with.

February 17, 2022
Greater Anglia : Norwich to London Liverpool Street

As this is a journey that I often take, I wasn’t going to write about it, but Greater Anglia’s choice of train annoyed me. So, I have.

Norwich railway station on a Wednesday lunch-time in February, it’s getting busier, but I’m sure that passenger numbers aren’t there yet. Shame that West Cornwall Pasty, which was to the left of Starbucks, has closed, but that unit could perhaps be turned into a Greggs…. The M&S at the railway station is still closed, it’s been like that for two years now.

Here’s the train, all shiny on Platform 2.

And then I realised this. It’s the bloody Stansted Express train they’re using again. I thought to myself just how not ideal this was.

I have no idea why Greater Anglia keep using these Stansted Express trains, they were never designed for this route. They don’t have tables, they don’t have first class (not that that much matters to me) and they don’t have a buffet car (actually, that doesn’t much matter to me either). Other customers have asked Greater Anglia why they use these trains on social media, but it’s seemingly a mystery to customers and Greater Anglia alike. Two groups came walking by me on the train on a hunt for tables, but their search would have been forlorn. The conductor, who was friendly and helpful, made an announcement saying that a last minute train change was required, but this train continually goes up and down the Norwich to London mainline so it’s not a rare occurence.

A lack of table is annoying when using a laptop, although the power points worked. It’s quite hard to sit at these seats without wanting to put your feet on the chairs opposite, because that would make using a laptop much easier. However, I consider that to be a crime against humanity, although it’s possible to put one foot on the heating panel below the window. Greater Anglia have also decided they’d like their trains to be like rolling furnaces along the track in some sort of commemoration of the heat of steam engines, and there’s no way for a customer to cool the carriage themselves.

We arrived into London Liverpool Street at the unusual platform 4 (unusual as in this train doesn’t usually stop there, it’s otherwise a normal platform) which I guess is because they’ve decided that the Stansted Express train was going to be used to go to Stansted.

London Liverpool Street is definitely looking busier. All of the e-tickets were failing (again) so the gate guard was busy checking tickets manually, which I’m not sure is how the system is meant to work.

As an aside, I went to the rear of the station and this is all looking much tidier.

I don’t know when this was landscaped, but the whole area around London Liverpool Street appears to be being modernised, it’s all a clear improvement.

I suppose it’s hard to complain with a fare that’s only £10 from Norwich to London (although, as is evident here, I’ve had a good go), but this would be a nicer journey if the train was more comfortable. But, the staff on board were friendly and conversational, although the train was rather hot, but everything ran to time and was efficient.

February 17, 2022
Crossrail : London Paddington to Reading

One thing that I have realised is just how confusing the rail pricing is from London to Reading, with the rail fare being at least £20 if looking to use rail booking web-sites. I discovered, to my surprise and delight, that it’s a little over £11 if travelling off-peak on the new Crossrail service, which is much more realistic. It’s not ideal though that this train journey pricing isn’t on the rail matrix for those trying to book tickets, another failing of the whole Crossrail set-up. Anyway, complaining aside, the signage at London Paddington is clear and I caught the train with just a minute to spare.

Inside the Crossrail train carriages, this really could do with power points, but they decided early on that they weren’t going to bother with that burden. Nor does the train have toilets, despite the length of the journey and they had to bend the rules as a train service of this length would usually require toilets on board. I suspect they’ll retrofit power points at some random time in the future, it’s rare for services not to have them now. But, to be fair, these decisions were made by Boris Johnson when he was London Mayor, so it’d be unkind to expect them to be any good. Anyway, enough politics.

At the moment the train is departing from London Paddington to get to Reading, they still haven’t quite finished the testing of the middle section between London Liverpool Street and London Paddington. This whole line was meant to open in 2018, just as an indication of how messed up the entire project has become, billions over budget. However, it is a very useful line to cut across London and it increases capacity as well as speeding up many journeys. Unfortunately, the Crossrail 2 project which would have been equally useful was scrapped by Boris Johnson in his Prime Ministerial role in 2020. It will probably be reinstated in the future, although the earliest opening date would now be in the late 2040s at very best according to TFL.

It wasn’t a particularly packed service, but it was clean throughout.

There’s the journey section between London Paddington and Reading. Hopefully this signage will all be removed this year as the entire line should be formally opening in late 2022.

And getting off at Reading, on time and as expected.

I didn’t linger at Reading station as the weather was quite stormy, but the railway station feels quite modern with a new section added onto the older building.

This proved to be an easy way into Reading from London, with the journey taking under an hour. The facilities have actually been downgraded since GWR ran this line, as they offered more comfortable seating, power points and toilets. But, there has been an increase in capacity and for any passenger wanting to go through to east London, this is a much more efficient service than changing at Paddington and then switching to the underground and then another train.

February 17, 2022
London – Tower of London (Wild Flowers)

Last year I went to look at the poppies that they put in the moat of the Tower of London, this year they’ve dug the moat up to grow wildflowers. As an aside, I still think it’d look better with water in it, but it’s been a dry moat since it was drained during the nineteenth century.

The Tower authorities are making some big holes around the place as they’re planting 20 million seeds this spring so that they flower from June to September, to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. There will be chance to walk amongst the wildflowers, but I imagine that’ll be expensive, so I’ll just return in a few months to take photos from the same elevated position. I’m sure it’ll look impressive when the flowers grow (and probably play havoc with my hayfever), it certainly looks like they’re going to a lot of trouble to get it right.

And as an aside, here are a few more photos of the exterior of the Tower of London at night whilst I was meandering around it.

February 16, 2022
Finding the Source of the River Wensum Part 3

PART 3 OF FINDING THE SOURCE OF THE RIVER WENSUM

When Nathan and I were training for the LDWA 100, we started on a series of expeditions to find the source of the River Wensum. I accept this isn’t as challenging as finding the source of the Nile or the Ganges, but there was limited ability to use public transport and venues open during the lockdown, so we had to be a little resourceful. Anyway, we got as far as Lyng, and I wanted to go further to complete what we started. Nathan has retired from walking now, so this time, I convinced friends Richard and Liam to come with me. It took us a while to organise, but with my complaining that I was tired after marshalling the LDWA Winter Poppyline on the Saturday (more on which later) we were ready to go.

Standing in the same spot as my photo from the last section of the walk, we started at Lyng Mill. The fun fact for this mill is that there is some support for the theory that it was where blotting paper was first created, a mistake caused by messing up production of normal paper. Another great Norfolk achievement.

I was still quite sleepy when I took this photo, but Richard noted that the village sign notes some other spellings of the village’s name. The village sign was placed here in 2010 and shows the church, the now disappeared medieval abbey, the mill, a blacksmith and Humphry Repton who designed the gardens at Lyng Rectory. Lyng might now feel like quite a sleepy village, but it was once an important settlement with its two religious buildings.

An old heritage map of the village. Some far-sighted council likely put this up 20 years ago and it’ll probably stay here until it falls down. We walked through the courtyard of the Fox at Lyng to get through to the church, reminding ourselves that next time we do this then we’ll get a Sunday lunch at a pub en route.

St. Margaret’s Church in Lyng, which deserves a longer visit, as this was a building with some considerable character.

The west tower dates to the thirteenth century, as does the bulk of the nave. The font is also from this period, another remarkable survival.

This is rather odd (the church I mean, not Richard standing in the foreground), as the chancel is off-centre compared to the rest of the building. It transpires that the chancel was rebuilt in the 1860s on the site of the original floorplan, which suggests to me one of two things. Either there was an north aisle which has been brought under one larger roof later on, or the church was widened in the late medieval period and they never got to widening the chancel as well. I suspect it’s the latter, there’s not much space on that north aisle.

The Victorian plan for the new church.

I think this was appropriate to the day’s quest, a map of the local area on the wall of the church, with the river’s route being clearly noticeable.

This is a legacy of when some pews were available for free usage, as opposed to those who got a seat up-front but had to pay pew rental for that benefit.

A blocked up door, which I initially couldn’t work out, but I think it was the former entrance to the two-storied fifteenth century porch.

There are numerous more stories to tell about this church, I’ll return…..

Given the walk, I felt the need to take a photo of this sign.

Our rule was to try and catch sight of the Wensum whenever we could. Walking through Lyng, this isn’t it, these are the lakes formed from the former quarry that was located here. However, the Wensum winds it way behind here, so we went to investigate.

We walked by the lakes, located on Quarry Lane, in the hope of seeing the river at the rear of the lakes. Liam took the lead here in case there were any dangerous animals in the undergrowth.

To cut a long story short, it’s not really quite possible to see the river, but we could see the route that it was taking in the distance. So we walked back to the road, but pleased that we had investigated.

Back on the main road we walked through the metropolis of Fustyweed, which seemed to consist of four houses, of which one was a treehouse. This small hamlet has name origins which are uncertain, although there’s a guess at trying to explain the situation at http://www.lyngonline.org.uk/whats-in-a-name.html.

This is the bridge on Elsing Lane, with Richard and Liam standing in front of the river as it heads towards Norwich.

And there’s the landscape from the other side of the road, looking towards the source of the river.

A photo from the same location, without the bridge’s ironwork in the way.

The village’s mill is visible.

As we walked northwards, a rather fancy wall appeared, which I imagine is the country estate wall of Bylaugh Park.

One of the lodges at the entrance to the road leading to Bylaugh Park.

This will definitely need further investigation, St. Mary’s Church at Bylaugh. This is kept permanently locked, but there’s keyholder information and we’re planning to get in touch to visit this church in the future. Richard, who is the most social, is going to get in touch with the church as there are some interesting things to see inside it seems.

The tower is late Saxon or early Norman, the rest is a much later rebuild from when a grander building was needed for the hall. It’s positive that this church survives as there’s no real congregation here, the hall isn’t lived in and there are very few residential properties nearby.

Richard and Liam standing in the graveyard, and this is really quite a pleasant place to be buried (as far as these things go….) with its view over the River Wensum.

All very tranquil and there’s a newer section to this graveyard a little nearer to the road. The Wensum is quite wide at this point, it’s showing few signs of narrowing at the moment.

The pleasant path from the church back to the road.

The second lodge of the hall. The road here goes to the north of the Wensum and we could see the river’s route, but couldn’t get near to it. The hall is worthy of more investigation and I wonder whether it might be possible to visit, although it’s currently in use as a training centre. The hall had been completed in 1852 and was designed by the architects Charles Barry, Jr. and Robert Richardson Banks. It was one of the most substantial residential buildings in Norfolk and one of the first to be constructed with a steel girder frame. The building was damaged during the Second World War after it was used by the military, and there were attempts to turn it into a nursing home following the end of the conflict. The core of the building was flogged off in 1950 at an auction, including the roof and the interiors.

I noted this destruction to Richard and Liam as I had found that information on-line. So imagine my surprise when three minutes later we walked near to the entrance to Bylaugh Hall and it looks very complete with not much evidence of destruction. It transpires that it was only around twenty years ago that it was decided to save the building, and a grand reconstruction has taken place at what was previously a wreck. There’s more about this work at https://thecountryseat.org.uk/2013/02/22/bylaugh-hall-the-hidden-history-to-a-remarkable-restoration-opportunity/.

There is some evidence that President Eisenhower came to the building during the Second World War and apparently Winston Churchill visited on a few occasions. It’s hard to imagine that a former President of the United States has been driven down this quiet back road, but I rather hope that the story is true.

The walk then goes to the Swanton Morley Waterfalls. You can see the look of excitement in the faces of Richard and Liam, I think they felt quite humbled to be near such an important site. This is very much Richard’s patch of Norfolk (I mean Dereham, rather than this particular stretch of mud), although he hadn’t been aware of this water feature despite driving by it on numerous occasions.

I’m surprised that there isn’t a visitor centre by this major attraction, although I accept that it’s not quite Niagara Falls. This isn’t the River Wensum, it’s a channel that was created from it for the purposes of constructing a mill. I think that’s one thing that I’ve learned from this whole process, there were a lot of mills along stretches of the river, an essential early power source. We saw a few fishermen in the area, and although this isn’t a hobby that is in the slightest bit of interest to me, I can imagine it’s a quiet and peaceful location if they can ignore the sound of the thundering waterfall.

The river reappears at Swanton Morley, including this rather lovely bridge, but more about that in the next post.

And here are Richard and Liam on the bridge, celebrating the completion of our short walk.

Despite Richard being told clearly not to look at the next part of the river walk, which we’ll tackle in a few weeks, he ignored that and excitedly ran towards it pointing. I disregarded his exuberance and obsession with questioning authority. I mentioned that Nathan would have been appalled at this continued breach of the rules that we had established, but Richard didn’t seem concerned at his lack of river walking etiquette. Anyway, I digress….

And that’s that, not the longest of walks, just 7.3 kilometres, but it was really rather lovely to get nearer to the source of the River Wensum……. And just as we finished the walk, I had woken up after my lack of sleep from the previous evening, which perhaps wasn’t ideal timing.

February 14, 2022