retiredmartin
retiredmartin
Martin
Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.
Latest Posts
July 2026. Sheffield. The boys wanted to visit Dad with me, so we all popped down Saturday after a night of fringe fun. Tramlines “proper” is Sheffield’s equivalent of Latitude (ugh), without the pashminas and laughing gas and dangerous...
July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. A short post to end Whitchurch on a high. A 4pm opener, 12 minutes walk to the station, train to Crewe at 16:44. Perfect. And the Crafty Dragon, which I am going to call the Magic Dragon, opened a...
July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. Two to go, before a dash to the station and a series of gaps between trains that weren’t quite long enough to fit in more “research” in Crewe and Stockport. The Black Bear is the pub in that Visit...
July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. You can generate a mass of blog material in a 4 hour visit, even with 5 pubs and a 10 minute indecision about cheese purchase to interrupt your cultural exploration. As with pork pies, cheese is best...
July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. I picked up that Whitchurch pub trail leaflet at the Heritage Centre, thinking I could send it to Stafford’s Paul Mudge for his collection. One thing though; it seems to bear no relation to the actual...
July 2026. Whitchurch. Salop. Apart from visiting (spoiler) five pubs in Whitchurch, what is there to actually do in this compact little borders town of 10,000 if the award winning pie maker is unexpectedly closed ? Well, I could have...
July 2026. Dodington. Whitchurch. “Ain’t that just lil ‘ol England” is a line said to me by (wait for it) an American tourist in Haddenham (Oxon) a few years back as she stared at a street of coloured timber. Several Haddenhams, and many...
July 2026. Whitchurch. Shropshire. By law all blog posts must show where the subject of your writing is in relation to Wrexham. Well, Whitchurch must be close, as I had Magic Dragon’s beers in three (3) pubs last Thursday. A fourth was...
July 2026. Whitchurch (Shropshire). OK, they’re not all “wonders“, but illiteration innit ? Whitchurch (Salop, there’s loads of them. See also : Newport) is a pretty little town, overlooked by those on the way down to bigger hitters like...
July 2026. Heading towards Wales. Regular readers will know that “family issues” have conspired to keep our travels to a circuit between Sheffield, Cambridge and Tunbridge Wells these last few years, with a few interludes in the Balkans...
July 2026. Rotherham. Mrs RM’s sports injury persisted into the new week, scuppering a restart of the Cask Camino. I said “I’m off” and took the tram down into Sheffield, and just kept riding on the Tram Train, like in a 10,000 Maniacs...
July 2026. Sheffield. Back from Darlington and a disappointing Chinese takeaway (life lesson : never go back) I popped next door (ish) to see how many folk were going to watch the World Cup Final at our local. The Blind Monkey had decent...
July 2026. Middleton One Row. Near Darlington. From the Steam Machine I walked to Heighington Station, a dull mile through industrial estates, ending at a dead pub commemorating the first ever train. Somewhere along the way I realised I...
July 2026. Newton Aycliffe. County Durham. A fascinating extract from the CAMRA pubs website here; The birth of the railways, the decline of the mines, the posh pubs either side of the Great North Road, and a star in the craft beer...
July 2026. Newton Aycliffe. Durham. I was staying overnight in a grim car park in Darlington as I didn’t fancy paying the outrageous hotel prices that kick in during the English summer. That £1,492 a night wellness retreat is walking...