Where the pub's the hub

THE high road out of Westgate-in-Weardale towards Rookhope is officially one-in-five, sometimes almost Trinitarian, the ascending panorama worth every last gasp.

The fields are alive with larrikin lambs, with wet eared calves and with cush galloping like thoroughbreds at the joy of being alive, however briefly, on so steep and so splendid a May morning.

The heavens are dancing with lapwings, sonorous with skylarks. Wild violet and diehard daffodils grow beneath stone walls hung out to dry in the sunshine.

About a mile above Westgate, where the vertical road turns westward for a quick breather, a seat has been erected in memory of Harold Nattrass, 1917-74, his name doubtless much blessed thereafter.

The climb is invigorating, the views coruscating, the day magnificent. Oh to be in England, now that the football season's over...

We'd walked this way last year, a series unofficially called Spring in the Step which revelled in the rarity of free Saturdays. Again it was time to sniff the darling buds, the lady of the house labouring like a Dartmoor working party on the worst of the hills but cresting them triumphantly, nonetheless.

She'll be match fit by the start of the season.

Driving up Weardale, we'd breakfasted at a fragrant little place called Serendipity, in Wolsingham market place, the word coined by Horace Walpole and charmingly defined on the menu: "Making discoveries by accident and the sagacity of things they were not in quest of."

Chance...

There were also several daily papers, a list of staff guidelines ("keep your voice low and pleasant") and a copy of the parish magazine which revealed that Eileen, the Palm Sunday donkey, had stood on the Vicar's foot.

They blamed the poor Vicar, of course.

It's also a gift shop and gallery for local artists, run by Ron and Maralyn O'Keefe who have the Glass and Art Gallery in Consett. The menu promises local produce and lists iced tea and Bovril one after the other.

The weather has mood swings in Weardale.

The egg and bacon muffin (£2.50) was top class - good, crisp, carefully cooked bacon - the Boss's egg, bacon, tomato and mushrooms more disappointing, primarily because they were tinned tomatoes, doubtless bought locally, spreading over the job like a strawberry mark. She thought the mushrooms "flabby"; the fried egg just disagreed with her and the feeling was probably mutual. A large cafetiere of powerful coffee was £4; the toast was pappy and tasteless.

Onward past a road sign warning "Slow red squirrels" - The Boss said she'd always thought they were quite nippy little critters - we parked outside Eastgate, walking the minor road south of the river to Westgate, via Brotherlee.

Just about the column's only remaining ambition, as readers may know, is to write a story which properly can be headlined "Brotherlee love".

Most of its dwellings are caravans, or holiday homes as now they are called, and with satellite dishes to make them home from homes. No one was about to profess undying love or otherwise; the cat seemed happy enough, though.

The walk itself was proving so thoroughly delightful, so utterly carefree and so full of the promise of summer days ahead that it was almost possible to go down on one knee and propose holy matrimony to it.

The road to Rookhope proved yet more glorious, information boards periodically advising that it was lead mining country and identifying what had happened "around" 290 million years ago.

How do they know? How come some of us can barely remember what happened yesterday?

Like all the best walks, it also had the triple advantages that there was a good pub - the Rookhope Inn- en route, that the second leg was much shorter than the first and that it was downhill almost all the way back to Eastgate, where the sheep show is held this Saturday. Around 11 miles altogether.

The Rookhope Inn is now run as a thriving community initiative, the pub the hub before the brewery spin doctors had even invented the wheel.

It's a warmly welcoming, cluttered, informal, fell booted, take-as-you-find sort of a place with coal fires, three hand pumps - nice pint of Robinson's Old Stockport, another of Jennings' Crag Rat - and bed and breakfast for £25.

Lunching there, too, was John Shuttleworth, the local Independent councillor who so greatly commits himself to municipal duty that he must attend to his painting and decorating business at weekends.

At the county council elections the other day he'd polled, as usual, more than the rest of the candidates put together. A whitewash, as one of his calling might suppose.

We ate simply but satisfactorily from a staple gunnery of a menu - bowl of soup for her, steak and mushroom pie, good chips, on the other side.

It was that joyous rarity, a day long anticipated which not only lives up to expectations but which far and fabulously exceeds them. Further steps to be taken shortly.

THE next little perambulation will be to the Langdon Beck Hotel - yon end of Teesdale, beyond High Force - where the column officially opens the bank holiday beer festival at 2pm this Saturday.

Glenn and Sue Matthews landed there last year after six years at the Brewery Tap in Tower Hamlets, somewhere in London's east end. They've noticed a few differences.

Greatly to be welcomed, the festival will offer more than 20 real ales, including North-East delights from Durham, Darwin, Jarrow, York and Mordue's breweries.

It is likely to be one of those walks where the pub stop definitely marks the end.

NAMED after Bonny Bobby's adjacent ancestral home, Shafto's Inn and Restaurant at Whitworth, near Spennymoor, re-opened with a "gala launch" last week. A "gala" launch is a launch with paper flags.

The food was free, and very good, among those participating Mr Ken Houlahan - Coundon lad and manager of Evenwood Town FC - on the second day of his diet.

It appeared to be the Coundon Diet, fower taties more than a gis.

The new menu embraces food from seven cuisines - French, Italian, American, Greek, Indian, Chinese and dear old Blighty - with a free run at the salad bar with every inexpensive main course.

Real ales included something called Dorothy Goodbody's, with a suitably alluring pump clip. Like Shafto's, she really looked the part.

LAST week's enthusiastic column on the Frenchgate Hotel in Richmond mentioned in passing a quick Sunday lunchtime pint at a pleasant pub called the Ship, 100 yards up the street. Just one other person was present, the Ship apparently abandoned.

Steve Durham - the other man - emails to say that it was bustling as usual later on and that the Ship is buoyant. In Richmond they just lie long on Sunday mornings, that's all.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you get by crossing a group of nuns with a chicken.

A pecking order, of course.

Published: ??/??/2004