retiredmartin

July 2024. Yarm.

Reader Spinko advises the A19 route, even if you’re off to Doddiscombleigh, and Thursday saw us heading there again, via a “comfort break” in That Yarm, just south of Banked Bass Land.

I think Spinko had a rather different stop in mind in posh Yarm, the “Marlborough of the North”, but it was too early for a Bass hunt, and an hour’s free parking is just enough to take in the treasures of a town best appreciated by above.

since the high street is rather scarred by its car parking.

Viaducts to rival Stockport, a Bang and Olufsen store, bridalwear, a famed castle, and many, many coffee shops.

The best rated café was under that archway,

inside the welcoming embrace of St Mary Magdalene, who gets a bad rap if you ask me.

A high class lunchtime coffee stop in the heart of the church, not tucked away in a grim room at the back, with irresistible cakes and proper espresso machine.

Opting for the cake with coconut ensures Mrs RM won’t steal yours.

While I considered finishing the jigsaw of Stockton’s banked Bass,

Mrs RM was pounced on by a friendly volunteer mistaking her love of church cake for an interest in church history,

and was obliged to go see the ancient church tower, which in fairness is a thing of wonder.

As is the castle across the road, though perhaps the scale of this architectural achievement may have been mis-sold to a few visitors over the years.

Or perhaps folk in Yarm were just smaller in the middle ages.