retiredmartin

August 2023. Sawley, Bowland.

As you can tell, my stint at the BRAPA course on witty blog titles wasn’t a great success and I want my money back.

The problem with Sawley is you’re almost obliged to have “Sawley tempted” in the title; it’s a bit like Sexual Ealing.

Anyway, two hour via Bradford on a Saturday morning in Summer. Not bad.

Because I spoil Mrs RM (albeit with her own money) I let her book a night in Whalley, just down the road from two new Lancashire ticks.

There’s a lot of good pubs in this little bit of Ribble Valley, including a former national Pub of the Year.

Lunch at the Spread Eagle in Sawley, whose 305 residents occupy themselves with denying that they live in a Blackburn postcode, perilously close to Burnley.

We arrived just too late to see the Abbey before its dissolution by Henry VIII. Henry hasn’t been blamed for the demolition of the Crooked House yet, but give it a chance.

Near on 30 years ago we first discovered the beauty of the Forest of Bowland, and though Sawley is in the foothills it’s still rather gorgeous.

As is the Spread Eagle, which gives no outward sign of Robinson’s ownership (the posh branch of Robbie’s, mind you).

You might have guessed Brunning & Prices, but there’s no list of rules on the door and no 1912 bile beans adverts in the Gents, just a motley collection of walking sticks and a wedding fair we’d just missed.

Remarkably unfussy, in fact, if a little lacking in the rustic interior department.

“Who’s driving then ?” asked Mrs RM.

Reader, I made the wrong decision. A sip of the Unicorn revealed the best Robbies (NBSS 4) since Stockport 2021 and by then it was too late. If all cask was as cool and crisp as this the kids wouldn’t all drink Abbot.

By the time I returned from an exploration of the Gents to discern what brand of hand lotion was being used,

Mrs RM was demanding a second pint. I told her she should save her units for Clitheroe.

I made the wrong choice on who’d be DES, and may have picked the wrong lunch too.

It wasn’t that the steak burger was bad, it was just horrifically presented on a small plate on its own with the over-fluffy chips arriving separately.

Small details. Same with the music played at an irritatingly low volume that none of the gentlefolk would have heard.

But let’s not complain too much. Mains under £15 in 2023 ? That’s like pints under a fiver.