Return to Recent Events

Welland Valley Beer Festival Trip

Saturday 21st June 2008

This was the sixth Welland Valley Festival, held over the weekend of 21st. June - the longest day - so of course it rained pretty well all day!!

There were about 24 H&B members, wives & friends gathered at the station for the 09:33 train, then 3 more got on at Narborough, making 27 - must be a record!

We all arrived safely at Mkt. Harborough by 10:15, still raining, to find not one but four buses awaiting us. Most of our party got onto a bus, but six intrepid members elected to walk the 5.5 miles over the fields to the George at Ashley. This was the nearest of the 11 pubs taking part in the festival.

It rained most of the way to Ashley, where we arrived at about 1:00pm with a goodly thirst!

Buses at the station	Wet arrival	big fields, wet crops	Dingley	Walkers junction	more big, wet fields	Made it!

The rest of the day was spent tasting beers and travelling between the different pubs by bus.

The Pubs:

There were about 8 heritage buses, ferrying people around the villages - doing an excellent job, all provided & manned, free of charge, by their respective owners & volunteers. Our thanks go to them all, without them the Welland Valley would not be the same!

Details are already a bit hazy, so I'll stick to what I do remember:

• The beers, over 150 listed, were in good condition - I only had one dodgy one!

• Gretton, with three pubs taking part, was very busy.

• The most entertaining venue was the White Swan at Harringworth with numerous outdoor, large scale pub games to play.

• The 8 buses seemed to cope very well with the large number of people who turned out on such a wet day - or at least they had until we returned to Mkt. Harborough at about 8;00pm.

• The attitude & behaviour of a few passengers left something to be desired - after all, the bus crews were all volunteers.

• The Castle was also very busy when we were there.

Leyland PD2	1950 Bristol KS	1950 Bristol KS	1957 AEC & 1965 Diamler	1962 BMMO S15	1953 Leyland PS2	FHA 424C
George, Ashley	On a bus	White Swan, Harringworh	Hatton Arms, Gretton	Outside the Hatton Arms	George, Ashley	Castle, Caldecott
	Lunchtime	Under the viaduct		It did stop raining at some stage!!

Words by Alan Cooke
Photos by Chris Davies, Richard Lewin & Alan Cooke

top