A guide to North Pennine Pubs.

[AlastairW]

A guide to North Pennine Pubs.

To celebrate the opening of the Shepherds Inn in Melmerby, I thought that myself and Tony would do a tour of The hostelries of the North Pennines.
But not actually visiting the Shepherds Inn – that is a gem to be savoured on a day which does not have so much potential.

The George and Dragon Garrigill

A Lovely pub, where the initial seeds of paragliding were sown by one Peter “I regularily fly from here to Riding Mill” Rutherford- but thats another story. Obviously the quickest route there from High Cap is over the back, so Tony and myself climbed out from High Cap to 5 grand, from where we could actually see both coasts, and the expanse of the moors leading East towards Newcastle.

I stayed with the climb, circling in halfs and one ups under the cloud, whilst Tony (Mr Impatient!) rushed of downwind. It worked rather to well to be honest, as we arrived high over Garrigill at about a grand agl. Mr Stenhouse was mooching around on a ridge there, so I went over to join him ( maybe he would buy the first round??).

We had a broken climb on the ridge, and I decided to leave what was not much more than a 1 up and head towards Nenthead, where there was waiting.......

The Miners Arms.

Not such a good pub as either the Shepherds or G&D, but still a passable pint. If you have done the C2C I am sure you will know it.

However I had seen a flock of birds of to my left when I was climbing with Gary, and unfortunately the sign was correct... a brilliant climb out from just before Nenthead, made even worse by the fact that the happy bus was parked on the side of the road just South of Nenthead, and Brian Day was radioing in for my order at the bar. I could do nothing but imagine the cool pint of Black Sheep slipping down my throat as I pirouetted back to base. A real “Ice cold in Alex” moment.

So time to cast the net a little wider, and lo and behold, getting high over Nenthead revealed the sight of Allenheads in the distance.

Allenheads Inn

A quirky pub, with an eccentric Landlord. Trees all around the pub and village, so it is going to be a bit of a walk to get the pint. There was however a nice cloud over Allenheads, which reassured me that at least the beer would be kept cool – I mean those Fosters ads are true arn’t they?

We got there, and were still high, and that bloody cloud started working....... back up with yet another cyber pint ordered at the bar evaporating as I left Allenheads behind.

Blanchland was dead ahead, the Lord Crewe arms is famous, and does serve a mean pint, but there was at least 8k of open moor and a blue hole waiting to suck us to the ground before we had any chance of a drink there.

Instead I looked of to the south, towards Rookhope.

Now I had my doubts about Rookhope.

Last time I had been there was on the C2C, and the pub was shut.

Drastic!

And even worse if you are on an aerial tour of the North Pennine pubs.....

We tried to escape the suck of a publess Rookhope, but despite a broken climb over the deserted mine, we could not get any great height, and I ended up landing about 1k short of Rookhope.

On a Sunday afternoon.

With the probability that there was not a pub open in the place.
Packed up, walked to the road, and on the way in to the village saw a sandwich board saying

ROOKHOPE INN
Open all day
Real Ales


I did not bother reading further than that......
A quick jog into the village revealed the sight of Tony standing outside of the pub, pint in hand.

At last! I had managed to find a pub where my wing would land!

No mobile reception though, and it is a bit out in the sticks.

Eventually our retrieve drivers arrived. Susan for some reason did not seem to understand the first rule of XC flying, namely land by a pub and drink the place dry..... and after 2 hours we had had a good attempt at that!

Really nice though to talk to all of the C2C riders who rode into the pub as we sat outside savouring our pints.

Most of them had seen us flying over their heads, and wanted to know more about paragliding and how often we flew to Rookhope..... So another Peter Rutherford moment was born.... maybe in a couple of years we may see some of them as members of our club, who have been inspired by two idiots who dropped out of the sky into Rookhope?

A grand day!

Thankyou John and Susan for putting up with me and Tony.

[Jim Bittlestone]

excellent write up alistair, this is the sort of information we need.
I got a lift from the lady in Barrington cottage who lives next door to the pub in Rookhope. She is opening a bunkhouse on her land for the cyclists. She picked me up in woolsy, I nearly ended up in the same pub for a swift one.

[John Wallis]

The retrieve was worth it just to see the look on Susan's face when you said I'm not fit to drive a car I've had toooo much to drink hic.....

It's what flying's all about about, everything's an adventure.

JW