18th October, Tally-Ho! from The Jug and Glass

This was a re-introduced venue for the Club. The Jug & Glass at Newhaven in the White Peak has a had a chequered history in recent years. It seems to have been closed more than open. Happily it’s now very much open and in the hands of good people who know how to run a pub, keep beer properly and look after their customers.

I arrived early at the pub, my Plan was to start and finish early because I needed to be in Dunham later that day to play at a ceilidh with Neezzup and it wouldn’t do to be late for that!

In the car park were two very shady-looking characters – one trying to flog some obviously nicked silverware to a local fence:

I set off running with Ding Dong, struggling to keep up with him. We followed the sawdust trail out of the pub car park and across the main A515 to pick up a green lane which turned to tarmac after a mile or so. The lane crossed the course of a Roman Road running roughly North to South.

Remarkably well preserved Roman Water Board sign

We headed eastwards almost as far as Middleton, keeping our shoes mostly shiny-clean. Avoiding Middleton, trail then led us on a dogleg uphill (?) close to Ringham Low – an ancient monument or something. Wisely the trail-layers didn’t take us quite as far as the site, our ancient and monumental runners might get lost in a place like that…..we’d blend in with the background too easily.

The initially easy running surface had lulled us into a false sense of security, before long we had dual battles on our hands: overgrown undergrowth (eh?) and difficult-to-follow sawdust trail…...but we weren’t to be deterred. Well not much:

  Ding-Dong tearing up the trail at break-neck speed

Next came a short dale, a section of typically White Peak countryside. I’m not sure of it’s name, there’s no name mentioned on either the 1:25k or 1:50k maps, but it runs West - East from near Ringham Low to Smerrill Grange.

A much nicer dale was to come: Long Dale – lovely it is:

It’s a shame this section was so short, it made for very pleasant running. Within a short distance the terrain changed and we left the dale behind.

  

Another short stretch of tarmac took us to the Mid-Shires Way / Pennine Bridleway…and past the picturesque brickworks at Friden:

 

Lovely

There was definitely ‘something in the air’ around this part of the route, both Ding-Dong and I ended up coughing and spluttering. It might just have been a misfire though…I don’t recall any of the other runners mentioning a problem.

A loooong, flat and straight stretch of the Way took us almost back to the pub where a quick pose (or two) was called for:

 

Unusually (VERY unsually) clean-ish shoes

This is where we wented:

Around 8.3 miles with norralot of ascent / descent…

Atcherly (and quite coincidently, I’m sure) the total ascent was exactly the same as the total descent. You’ll need to ask Ding Dong to explain, he’s good with numbers.

The food and the beer at the pub were both excellent – it was just a shame I had to rush off without being able to sample the beers properly. I was driving anyway. Ho-hum.

Thanks to David for allowing me to trot round with him. As always, he was the very best of company.

Thanks and great appreciation to Ships and Whitworth for laying an easy trail….just right for an unfit old fart like me.