Tag: Appleby

August 4th – A weary but lovely ride out in the afternoon was hard going for the first 30 miles, but really picked up as the day cooled. 

I’d wanted to visit Mancetter and ride Salt Street/Roe House Lane for most of the summer, and possibly after a hard week at work this wasn’t the best day for it – but the sun was lovely and I headed out through Canwell, Carroway Head, Middleton, Middlon Lakes, Whitacre Heath, Foul End, Mancetter, Sheepey, Twycoss and No Man’s Heath, returning via Clifton, Harlaston and Whittington.

Salt Street was as wonderful as it ever was at sunset, and the clouds of dust drifting across the landscape from harvesting caught the golden light beautifully. 

The harvest continued well into the night after dark fell right across South Staffordshire and made for a real, end of Sumer feel although hopefully that’s a long way away yet.

April 7th – Sad to see the decaying relics of a lost period of history I feel we shouldn’t let pass unrecorded. The old ROC post at Elford is in a sorry state. Open, vandalised, robbed. Once the pride of the volunteers who would man it in event of a nuclear conflict, it’s just now a lump of subterranean concrete and metal that nobody knows what to do with.

In similarly reduced circumstances but in better condition, the microwave relay tower at No Mans Heath is looking bare now. When I was younger, this unmarked, unacknowledged communications installation was bristling with horn antenna, dishes and drums; now it carries very little. A few telemetry and mobile data links, and that’s it. 

In terms of engineering complexity, the framework of the tower is hugely intricate, now to no purpose. I suppose, like the ROC post, eventually it will disappear; testament to times dangerous in a different way to our own.

April 8th – Another long ride today, a gorgeous one too. The weather was wonderful, and I had energy in my legs. I headed out via Wall and Whittington, through Elford, Harlaston and Clifton to No Mans Heath, stopped for a breather in Appleby, up to Measham and back via Coton in the Elms, Catton and Croxall. About 70 miles, I reacquainted myself with some places I hadn’t been for years – including Honey Hill and Salt Street. 

A great ride