The Pubs of Cheswardine 2: The Red Lion

The Red Lion, Cheswardine

If the Fox and Hounds is an older pub "de-modernised" to give it a traditional feel, then the Red Lion is the pub that the Fox and Hounds is trying to be.

There ought to be a law that the inside of a pub should match the outside. I've lost track of the number of times I've been tempted inside an attractive Victorian, for example, pub only to find a bland modern interior or worse. And although the Red Lion has been modified internally during its life time and is not quite the same as it was when I first visited ten years ago, essentially its still the homely, traditional village local it always was.

Enter through the front door and you are confronted with two further, unmarked, internal doors. Turn right and you enter a long room lined with bench seating and tables along either wall with a small L-shaped bar at the far end. To the left of the bar is a small snug and in front of that another room with an old wooden settle along one wall and a fireplace opposite with a corner door, through which you would have entered had you turned left on the way in. Both rooms have bay windows with seats from which you can watch the world - or at least Cheswardine - go by. There's no television or piped music, just the gentle buzz of conversation conducted in the rich local accents of the Shropshire/Staffordshire border country.

The Red Lion features in Camra's Good Beer Guide and has a further attraction - the landlord brews his own beer - including a wonderful strongish dark mild: and a couple of pints of "Chesbrunette" last weekend made my visit complete.

So, next time you are at Goldstone Wharf, by all means visit the Fox and Hounds (if only to see if they are selling any Joule's beer yet); call in at the Wharf Tavern if you must (after all, it did, in a previous life, get a mention in Rolt's "Narrow Boat") but please make sure you don't miss the Red Lion.

The Pubs of Cheswardine: 1. The Fox and Hounds

The Fox and Hounds, Cheswardine

Goldstone Wharf is a popular stopping place on the Shropshire Union and the Wharf Tavern there will be familiar to many boaters. But if this large and rather bland, food-oriented pub is not to your taste, next time you come this way you might consider taking the fifteen-minute walk into the nearby village of Cheswardine.

First of the village's two pubs is the Fox and Hounds. When I first visited, three years ago, this was a rather run-down and disappointing pub, suffering from a 1970's refurbishment that had left it with one large room and very little atmosphere. However, on my visit last weekend I found it had been refurbished once more and this time, unusually, for the better. The new layout features a number of partitions, creating several separate - and different - areas, wooden flooring and perimeter seating in the form of continuous wooden benches - the sort of seating that was being ripped out of pubs until very recently. There's also a proper, functioning, log fire.

The Fox and Hounds is owned by "Joules Brewery" and both the inn sign and some interior decorations carry this famous name. But its not the real "Joules", whose empty brewery backs on to the Trent & Mersey Canal at Stone. This new Joules will have a brewery in Market Drayton - a long way from traditional Joules territory. Presumably, this is not yet operational as the Fox and Hounds serves a number of different beers, including draught Bass, which is ironic, as it was Bass who bought out Joules and closed the old brewery in 1974.

Despite this, the Fox and Hounds is well worth a visit. There is a separate dining area (although I didn't try the food so I can't comment) and the pub's atmosphere is relaxed and inviting and well worth the walk up from the canal.

Cheswardine has another pub - but I'll tell you about that next time.

British Waterways: Good News and Bad News on Licence Fees.

There is good news and bad news from BW on next year's boat licence fees. The good news is that there is to be no increase in the basic cost of a licence. Given the experience of the past few years this in itself is quite remarkable.
But there is bad news as well. Firstly, BW reminds us that VAT will revert from 15% to 17.5% in January. Simon Salem, Marketing Director, seems to think that this will result in an automatic 2.5% uplift in the cost of a licence, but the maths are actually a bit more complicated than that; nevertheless a few seconds with a calculator showed me that in the case of my £602.64 annual fee the change in VAT will bring about only a 2.1% rise.
Further bad news is that BW is mucking about with the prompt payment discount. Apparently, the surcharge for late payment has been so successful that BW no longer feel the need to offer such a great incentive for paying early!
From August 2010, the 10% prompt payment discount will be linked to an online payment discount. The discount for prompt payment will reduce to 5% in August 2010 and 3% in April 2011 whilst a new online payment discount on 3% will be introduced. This means that for someone paying both promptly and on line the discount will reduce to 8% from next August and 6% from 2011. From April 2012 there is to be a further reduction to either 3% for prompt payment OR 5% for payment on-line. Finally a surcharge of £7.50 will be added for payment by credit (but not debit) cards. I ought to say that at the moment this is supposedly a "consultation" and if I'm not explaining it sufficiently clearly, you can read the original here.

All in all I think there is more good news than bad. For a 15.4m narrowboat such as Starcross I reckon that assuming I continue to pay promptly and on-line my licence fee when I renew next October will increase by 4.5% which isn't quite "no increase" but a lot better than in recent years.

Re-opening the North West Passage

The name "Norbury Junction" is a bit of a misnomer as the Newport Branch that left the main line here has been closed for over 60 years. The Shrewsbury and Newport Canals Trust is working on re-opening the line but until they do so there are only two ways you can go from Norbury: south-eastwards to Autherley Junction or north-west to Nantwich and beyond. Except that for much of the summer and early autumn the "north-west passage" was closed due to the appearance of a serious leak at Shebdon embankment. Because of this Starcross hadn't been this way since June so, with the repair work completed and the canal re-opened, I took advantage of a free weekend to take a trip north. The forecast had been atrocious, but the weather didn't seem so bad as I drove up to Norbury. The canal here is quite sheltered and as soon as one leaves the Junction you are into Grub Street cutting, so it wasn't until I was past the Anchor at High Offley and on the approach to Shebdon that I felt the full force of the crosswind.The strong westerly winds sweep across the cut here and, if you're not careful, can blow you broadside on to the long line of moored boats. Just around the corner from where the photo was taken an oncoming boat was approaching crab-like with bow in mid-channel but stern dangerous close to the moorings. By now I was at a similar angle myself but with slowing down not really an option the other steerer and I just managed to avoid each other - and all other boats.

By now it had started to rain, but I had to abort an attempted mooring at Shebdon wharf because after I'd jumped off with the centre rope the wind took my front end back out into the channel and although I had enough strength to stop the boat being blown out completely I couldn't pull it in any further! For a while stalemate reigned until I gave in and dropped the rope and leapt onto the counter, which was luckily still within reach, remembering to pull in my now trailing line before it got caught round the prop.

Then it was across the embankment where there is little to see of the extensive works with only the bare edgings and a left-over excavator to indicate the site.

But there have also been problems further north near Bridge 52 at Soudley, resulting in this coffer dam in the canal here and some pretty large-scale works which, fortunately, haven't resulted in any further closures so far, apart from the towpath from bridge 51.

After all this excitement I then had to follow an extremely slow boat up to Goldstone Wharf and wait an age while he made a meal out of a simple winding operation before turning myself and reversing onto a convenient spot opposite the Wharf Tavern for the rest of the day.

Five Years On

Incredibly, its five years since I bought Starcross. It seems like only yesterday and I still think of her as my new toy.
Of course, as the anniversary approaches so do those bills which only come round once a year. Ask most boat owners and they would tell you that the bills increase year on year and by much more than the rate of inflation, but here is my experience comparing 2009's bills with those for 2008.

Boat Licence - Up 6%
Insurance - down 11% (but my broker found me a cheaper policy)
River Canal Rescue - down 22% (but I downgraded to "silver" membership as I didn't call them out at all last year)
Mooring Fee - Up 7.4% (The biggest cost increase as ever- but with two new marinas planned for the Shroppie who knows what next year will bring).

The overall increase for these fixed costs was a modest 2.9%, more or less in line with inflation but well above my own pay rise of just 1% this year. The main variable cost is fuel. Last time I filled up, in October, I paid 86p/litre on a 60/40 split. Twelve months previously, when all fuel was taxed at the lower rate, I paid 56p/litre, which is more or less what I paid on the 40% "non-propulsion" diesel in October.

Thankfully, compared to the previous two years my expenditure on engine replacement and repainting is down by 100% which has made 2009 one of the cheaper years for boat ownership as far as I am concerned.

In the Club!

My local train operator, Arriva Trains Wales, currently has a special offer on fares for people not quite old - or young - enough to get a railcard. Its called "Club-55".

According to their website, club-55 tickets are available at the bargain price of £15 return between "any two stations served by Arriva Trains Wales". well, Hereford is certainly served by ATW and so, according to the map on the site, is Wolverhampton so when I needed to go that way en-route to Starcross, which was at Compton at the time, being of the appropriate age I asked for a "club-55 to Wolverhampton" at Hereford station.

"Sorry", came the reply, "we can't sell you one of those; that fare is controlled by London Midland!"

Rail fares are complicated enough as it is - in fact a recent commentator on railway matters described them as "out of control" - without passengers having to know who "controls" their fares, so I complained to ATWs head office.

It appears that this was something so complicated that even they hadn't thought of it, but not to worry. Instructions have been given to Hereford station (and, hopefully, to Wolverhampton) that in future anyone requesting a club-55 ticket between Wolverhampton and Hereford will actually be sold one from Abergavenny at the same price.

I'm glad my complaint will hopefully stop anyone else from being refused a cheap ticket they are entitled to but, really, "you couldn't make it up!"