Tuesday, November 01, 2016

Ribble Valley

We found ourselves in the very beautiful Ribble Valley. Sorry, that sounded like an accident. We meant to go there. It is a part of the country we don't know very well.

In the past we've done North Yorkshire Moors, Teesdale, Weardale, Lake District, Lancashire coast and many major northern towns and cities. It feels like we have got this part of the world surrounded without ever having entered. I did do a few training events at Whalley (pronounced Warley) over the years but never explored.

We were just down the road from Clitheroe. The Aspinall Arms at Great Mitton became a firm favourite. The Tolkien walk around the rivers Calder, Hodder and Ribble, passing Stonyhurst College, was excellent. Allegedly JRR worked on the Rings Trilogy here and named/described some places he knew locally. We got to know Booths supermarket. Their bags were the product of an excellent slogan-writer's mind - Cumbria not Umbria; Wuthering Bites.

Further afield we visited to the north of Morecambe Bay - Arnside and Silverdale - from where I took the panorama photo here.

Lovely autumn colours and not too cold yet. Great break.

2 comments:

David said...

Booths - makes Waitrose seem down market!

Sam Anderson said...

Looks great to enjoy lovely autumn colours in this beautiful Ribble valley. Tourists would love to spend their long day trip over here.
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