retiredmartin

August 2023. Bentham.

I always reckon I could give you directions anywhere in the UK, but Bentham aka High Bentham is a tricky one. “Take the slow route to Settle, DON’T overtake the tractor, turn left on a sharp bend before the waterfall” is the best I can do. I’d never heard of the River Wenning; so much to learn, always.

The Hoggs’n’Heiefers aka Hogs N Heifers aka Hogs and Heifers etc etc looks like it’s in Bowland, Lancashire, but actually this is my most remote North Yorks tick. If I don’t complete North Yorkshire this year it will encapsulate the poverty of my ticking year.

Half an hour before opening to decide that the Benthams aren’t going to be nicking tourist trade off the Dales to the east anytime soon.

The best view comes from the painting at the bus stop.

It’s not normally hard finding photo-friendly views around Bowland,

but in Bentham the statues were the best bit.

Quite a good tourist route along the high street to illustrate the weaving industry and the buildings constructed especially to commemorate England’s World Cup victory 300 years later.

Four pub, three seemingly up for sale or rent.

What Pub tells me I scored the Theakston Best a 3.5 in the Horse & Farrier on 21/2/2015 but that wasn’t enough to save it.

Let’s hope Thwaites and Robinsons find tenants for their handsome looking pubs.

That’s not sounding good, so it IS good the Hoggs ‘n’ Heifers is such a cracker.

It even opened at two minutes to midday, which sounds like an Iron Maiden cover version.

Rarely do you enter a pub so full of character(s). No idea who these two were.

Families, drinkers, muso types; a really smiley place.

I was DES again today, the first of an endless line of lime and tonics, which with a half of Fell (NBSS 3) and a packet of nuts meant a mere £3.40 in the till. I almost felt guilty.

Yeah, yeah, the Crooked House was (checks notes) crooked, but this place had motorbikes on the ceiling and wonky chairs.

And banjos and Pnuk.

I’d have loved to have heard the Pnuk.