retiredmartin

October 2025. Yarwell. Northamptonshire.

Another day, another hitherto unexplored bit of “just off the A1“. I’d driven within yards of Yarwell, I guess, a thousand times or more times (fifty this year alone) and never stopped. Ditto Wansford.

Another bit of ‘lil ol’ England that Mrs RM can include in her forthcoming “Can’t afford the Cotswolds ? Try this ?” blogpost series.

Just on the Northants side of the border with Cambs, Yarwell is only 5 minutes from Fotheringay,

has a stop on the Nene Valley Railway steam line, and is abundant in the joys of Autumn.

And, of course, handy for the many delights of Corby.

Quite what has changed to propel the Angel to a GBG debut is hard to pinpoint,

but it has much of that quirky east Northants humour that BRAPA would recognise in the two Dukes in Woodford and Burton Latimer.

OK, your first thought might be “Halloween ugh“, and I share your view, but fake cobwebs seem as compulsory as Christmas lights and quiz nights these days.

And surely we can forgive a pub playing the first Showaddywaddy album ?

Well, actually it was Radiohead’s “Creep” greeting you, the refrain of “I’m so ******* special” booming from the bar stools.

I took a pint of Grainstore (no idea what as bar stools blocked the pumps, but a cool 3+) on a tour of a pub packed with magical looking vantage points, eventually settling on a point too close to a young couple debating the innate traits of the human species that drew it towards fires in pubs,

and the technical composition of coal.

Honestly, a magical twenty minutes, though I never quite got comfy, and in the Gents I was left wondering if this sign was rude or a takeaway recommendation.

Answers on a postcard.