retiredmartin

July 2025. Ainderby Steeple. Near Northallerton.

As Simon discovered recently, ticking in Northallerton rarely comes in quickly drunk singles.

A very basic town pub is followed a mile west by an immaculate old village dining pub in Ainderby Steeple, about which I knew nothing.

And still know close to nothing, so little is there to say about a village of 298 souls (including North Otterington and Warlaby says Wiki). It’s very rural,

the highlight apart from pub and church a disused rail track (I still checked thrice before crossing).

Conceivably I brought the average age of this retirees village down by 6 years that day, though in truth the only other human I saw was the charming young barman.

No-one in NCSS 3.5 St Helen’s (rare church name ?), which so dominates that even Si took a photo, though he forgot to visit the extraordinary organ,

and a charming collection of commemorative stained glass.

Across the A684, a road so busy it seems designed to create trade for the graveyard, to the Wellington Heifer,

which looks exactly as you’d expect.

In Hambleton district all pub visits are booked for exactly 12:30 by a gentleman with a double-barrelled name, “a herd of retired nosebaggers” rather than Retired Martins, summoned to lunch by hunting horn.

So my noon experience is almost exactly the same as BRAPA’s, except Simon arrived after a night of MINUS nine degrees and today I have a heatwave.

So I get the slight surprise we’re only here for a beer,

the solitary table not laid out for diners, and a glorious example of carving.

And, like Simon’s winter pint, this is a glorious pint, cool and chewy (NBSS 4), for the same £5.10 I’d paid for Wainwright an hour before. Shame about the lack of a beermat.

The barman tells me the pub’s accommodation is fully booked, possibly at more expensive rates than my campervan, and almost seems surprised that folk still want to enjoy a break in a tranquil old inn.

But when it costs £100 to stay at a grim Travelodge on the A1 in July, what would you choose ?