Christchurch Dorset needs a political revamp - here's why

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK in order to reduce our impact on climate change. My husband and I always try to have a weekend away in December and this time we went to Christchurch, Dorset... and yes it did make us think about what Christchurch NZ might be like this time of year. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

That's Christchurch Castle behind us. Rain above us
(but we didn't mind!).

I've just spent a weekend in Christchurch. That's Dorset, not New Zealand. But these two towns, Christchurch, the largest city in New Zealand's South Island, and the Georgian coastal town packed with holiday homes and retirees are twinned. In fact they've only been twinned since 1911, and the reason seems to be because NZ troops during WW1 were stationed in nearby Brockenhurst which is the heart of the New Forest.

Christchurch NZ is on an earthquake fault line. Christchurch in the UK has created a different rumpus - until 1974 it was Hampshire. It doesn't quite feel like Dorset even if scones and cream teas are available. But then again visiting any British seaside town in winter has a danger of it not living up to expectations, especially if there is a great deal of icy rain...

More sensibly, both Christchurch also have two rivers...

A couple of nights in Christchurch, Dorset was really a treat though. There is a ruined Norman castle and a Norman Manor House, built in 1160, both juxtaposed by a very splendid bowling green. And of course there's the beautiful church, the original The Priory, which appeared super busy in the Christmas run-up - on the Saturday holding the Messiah and then on Sunday a Christingle service.

Pete by the ducking stool (it's a model for tourists and anyway
was exclusively used for women) on the mill race beside
the River Avon.

We stayed at the King's Arms which is proper posh, but friendly - though slightly worryingly described by a Daily Mail review as "a jewel on the Dorset coastline". We also had a cup of tea at the modish Captain's Club on the banks of the River Stour, down by Christchurch Quay and were able to enjoy seeing it crammed with people lunching in family get-togethers and also listening to live jazz.

Getting to know you
In the evening there were many places to eat, including quite a few gastro pubs, e.g., The Ship at 48 High Street, where you can eat fantastic pies and listen to a band. Wondering down Bridge Street and the High Street on a Saturday it was amazing to see the amount of places that have security guards outside them.

Snapshot from Daily Echo which covers news in Christchurch
- death, crashes, burglaries, attacks: not so nice after all.

It feels so affluent... but clearly there are problems as the local paper reveals. By day there was a Big Issue seller standing under an umbrella, and in the evening one homeless man curled into a sleeping bag. And over at the nice Druitt Hall where craft and jams are sold the ladies told me this was the very last Monday sale - done in tandem with the town market - for them as the rent was going up and they just couldn't afford it.

How many of these tongue-in-cheek
Jeremy Corbyn unofficial albums will
be gifted in Christchurch (with or without irony)?

Clearly the problems are here in this Christchurch, but what we didn't see was a sense of the solutions. In Archway, London, near my home, one of the local gift shops has got in a dozen of the Jeremy Corbyn unofficial albums (a lot of silliness in this with masks, crossword, stories, comic strip etc) which no doubt will sell well because people think they can influence change.. and aren't Tory by instinct. In fact Christchurch has been represented since 1997 by Christopher Chope, MP, who is a Tory. I wonder if people in Christchurch think he's done a good job or not? Looking at his Wikipedia page it's clear he's an old Thatcherite; a pioneer of selling off local housing stock (and for a while known as Chopper Chope because no council house was safe during his stint on Wandsworth council). He was predictably also one of the greedy ones during the expenses scandal.  Wikipedia may not be a fan... but he's also 70, tried to stop a debate about Hillsborough and in 2010 hosted a meeting for climate science sceptics.  I don't think he's done a good job for this constituency, never mind the country. If I can tell that from a two night stopover, what on earth are the locals thinking of him? Come on guys, especially anyone under 70, your town deserves better.

For starters he can help those ladies running the craft market in Druitt Hall keep going... If I was them I'd be asking!

Visitors to Christchurch, Dorset will see people shop, and dress up beautifully to go out but it's not clear how well the locals are coping with austerity. It's as if it hasn't quite hit them yet - or at any rate they haven't yet felt the injustice or developed the power to take a stand. I know you think I'm judging that simply by an absence of Jeremy Corbyn! Annual 2018 copies on sale (£9.99), which is quite a unusual yardstick. Don't judge this either: I came home with delicious cheese scones from that last sale at Druitt Hall, plus some Belgian chocolates and a bottle of Mermaid gin both bought as a gift at friendly The Christchurch Confectioner, 72 High Street.

We also stopped at Ye Old George, 2a Castle Street, for a drink. Here we found a plaque explaining that this was where a barred cell used to house convicts due to be transported to Australia. Right now it looks into a courtyard covered in fairy lights where hardy drinkers warm up with mulled wine. It's a happy place, but was obviously a site of real misery. And in an interesting twist The George is also a super flash hotel in New Zealand - not to be mixed up.

I'm pleased I've been here. For starters it was new to me - it had plenty of history, heaps of dramatic ruins, an incredible coastline, lots of moored boats to enjoy and the biggest collection of swans I've come across. Tourism and politics don't go well together but it would have been good to find out more about how this once vital town is preparing for climate change, flooding and the challenges that higher interest rates and chain stores bring. People kept saying to us, sadly, everyone's in Bournemouth, shopping. I wonder if they were? They could just as easily be worn out by poor leadership.

Over to you
When you take a visit do you try and find out about the political situation too?

Hadrian's Wall Path - following Roman footsteps

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. Instead of lazing on family holidays guest poster Pete May took his family for a very long walk along Hadrian's Wall. It not only gave his family a taste of life as a Roman, it even got his young daughters walking the whole way across England (the secret is don't rush!).

Pete and daughters Nell and Lola had different views about cows
on the footpath at the early and late parts of the 84 mile long walk.

The Hadrian’s Wall Path is one of the most thrilling long-distance walks anywhere in the world and now there's a new booklet to help you conquer it. The route is only 84 miles long  - a lot easier to walk than to make - and you won’t have any problem remembering when it was built, as the accompanying walkers’ bus is the AD122.

Hadrian’s Wall Path by Mark Richards is a comprehensive guide to the path, with full directions, maps, and information about all the towns and places to stay on the route.

Real Roman remains. Some can even be clambered over.

We started our walk at Arbeia fort at South Shields, where the foundations of the Roman fort can still be traced and several rooms have been reconstructed. There’s no wall left in Newcastle, but the thrill of seeing your first section of wall at Heddon-on-the-Wall and then the angular Brunton Turret is unforgettable. Some superb Roman forts can be seen on the walk, including Chesters with its well-preserved bathhouse with alcoves for robes, and the foundations of a Roman bridge across the Tyne. The museum there has many excellent statues and gravestones too.

History, wildlife, fresh air, geography... looking at how little the girls are
it's amazing to think they walked the 84 miles. We broke it into several mini
holidays (yes, we call walks holidays) and rewarded walkers with hearty pub meals
of chips at the end of the day.

You soon realise what a massive project the wall was, with regular mile castles and turrets designed to control the border between Roman England and Scotland. In places it is still taller than an adult, though it would once have been three times bigger. There are massive earthworks too, with the Vallum ditch visible on the south side and a ditch to the north. It’s hard to believe, but many of the conscripts manning the windswept wall would have been from places as far afield as modern-day Iraq.

Nearing the end - the Solway Firth.

The most stunning section is the central section over remote crags, where the famous Sycamore Gap (used for filming Robin Hood) is situated.

• At Housesteads fort there are intact communal Roman toilets, which will certainly stimulate some family lavatory humour. 
• The fort at Vindolanda was unforgettable as we saw archaeologists digging up a Roman sandal and a cow’s skull used for target practice. It’s here that old Roman messages on papyrus have been found in the waste ditches referring to “Brittunculi” (wretched little Brits). 
• It’s worth trying the Twice Brewed Inn too for good beer and rooms. 

The fort at Birdoswald was another highlight. After going through Carlisle the walk ended with the beautiful sweeping estuary of the Solway Firth and for the adults, a well-deserved pint.

Blog guest poster Pete May on the Hadrian's Wall path - he liked to make
detours to wherever football was being played!

One very useful aspect of the book is that it covers Hadrian’s Wall Path from both west to east and east to west, so that you can start at either South Shields or Bowness-on-Solway. It can be completed in one week or a more leisurely fortnight - but whatever your pace those 84 miles will feel like you’re walking with the Romans in Britain.

• Hadrian’s Wall Pathby Mark Richards is published by Cicerone, price £14.95.
• Pete May blogs at hammersintheheart.blogspot.com

9 reasons to go to Melton Mowbray - food and fabulous views

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. Leicestershire is a place my family haven’t visited much despite it's fascinating battlegrounds, role in the industrial revolution and upkeep of traditional rural crafts – partly because it seems hard to get around, or at least it did until I found these travel tips On my most recent get-to-know Leicester trip I took a train from London-Grantham and a friend picked me up, but there’s a station in Melton Mowbray and some buses. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

The Midland cities may have a certain grimness, eg Birmingham, Derby, Leicester and Grantham, but they are surrounded by heart-achingly beautiful shires. The town of Melton Mowbray is in a part of Leicestershire that is especially lovely and you may find your way there enjoying views of the dramatic escarpment-sited Belvoir Castle. But almost any of the vales give you a huge view as if you are looking down on the landscape from a glider. 

I also love the wide and often uncut verges around Melton Mowbray, which during the summer are blanketed in wild flowers. The grass verge offers an escape route for cyclists and walkers if you are squeezed by a speeding car. In fact these verges are giant-sized compared to verges in other bits of England because the Leicestershire lanes were busy sheep drove roads - used to ensure passing flocks were able to graze as they travelled to the markets.

Eye spy Leicestershire: for your journey to Melton Mowbray

• Food: Stilton cheese, Red Leicester cheese, Pork pie

• Spot: Belvoir Castle

• Cheer for: Leicester longhorn cattle, Red kites over the fields/motorway

  

1) Melton Mowbray's got a great museum & it needs saving

The Melton Carnegie Museum is a complete gem, but like so many in the UK it is in great danger of having its funding cut. The exhibits introduce the rural crafts that Leicestershire excelled in – and in some cases, eg, stilton making, still does. You can see some of the old cheese making equipment at the museum. Or try sitting at a traditional pub table and have a go at dominoes.

Suggestions to keep this museum going – don’t cut its funding and add a café! There’s plenty of space near the two-headed calf. The museum is already really child-friendly but with a café it would be brilliant.

2) The two-headed calf at the Melton Mowbray museum

If you haven’t yet seen a two-headed (and two-tailed) calf then you need to go and see this ginger beauty ASAP. It’s a sad story, as the calf died very soon after being born, but a great way to get kids interested in the exhibits.

http://www.leics.gov.uk/meltonmuseum

3) It’s got great cheese, pies & food festivals

Melton Mowbray is one of the five homes of Stilton cheese as well as Melton Mowbray pork pies. The old bootmakers, saddlers and horse livery yards may be gone, but cheese is still in the town’s DNA. 

You can try Stilton cheese any time, but a real treat should be the Artisan Cheese Fair from 30 April-1 May 2016. This claims to be Europe’s largest cheese fair, who’d have thought the UK did the biggest and best cheese fairs? You can also go to Melton Mowbray and buy local specialities from the Melton Cheeseboard. 

Every autumn there's also the Melton Mowbray Food Festival from 3-4 October 2015 showcasing around 150 local producers’ tasty products including cheese, pies, gold-infused bubbly and steamed puddings.

4) Find out about foxhunting

The Melton Carnegie Museum specialises in rural crafts including the trades that support foxhunting. Melton Mowbray became the epi-centre of foxhuting after Hugo Meynell popularised riding after hounds in the 18^th century. For the next 150 years, from winter to spring, the area was packed with the bold and rich who would rent local houses in order to hunt with the Belvoir, Cottesmore and Quorn. Many of the town’s trades developed to cater for the winter guests including numerous livery stables which kept at least 1,000 horses.

Hunting raises very mixed emotions now, but at the start of the 20^th century locals crowded to see the hunt set off. As many as 4,000 people on foot plus 300 riders turned up at the Quorn Hunt opening meet in November 1912, see for yourself on this short clip from Media Archive for Central England.  

Don't worry if foxhunting is not your thing: the Museum also has a showcase of items from the League Against Cruel Sports.

5) Paint the town red

Melton Mowbray is the town that got painted red (though not necessarily the town that gave the world the phrase “paint the town red”). 

On 6 April 1837 after a rowdy day at nearby Croxton Park races the Marquis of Waterford and his friends rode to town for yet another drink. When the toll keeper refused them entrance he was barricaded into his toll house and the toll gates painted red. The so-called gentlemen then ran riot, painting everything red including house doors, a model swan on the roof of Swan Porch, and even a policeman who tried to stop them.

It’d be fun to repeat the Mad Marquis’s crazy antics, perhaps the next time South Asians celebrate Mela there could be a historic mash-up? More detail about what the man who painted the town red actually did is here. 

6) It’s not all posh history
This is the place where the dense Melton cloth was created and gets its name. Melton cloth is what donkey jackets are made from (remember the infamous scruffy coat worn by Michael Foot?).

7) Let’s go to Melton Mowbray for a proper country market, how about next Tuesday?
This is market heaaven: Tuesday and Friday are market day with fruit and veg stalls, plus the usual. There is also an antiques/bric-a-brac market every Wednesday. Livestock markets (fur and feathers) are also on Tuesdays. And there is a farmers’ market (produce) on Tuesday and Friday. Plus a car boot sale on Sunday. Check opening and closing times here.

8) Use your feet
Take a walk around Melton Mowbray to spot key historic sites including Anne of Cleeves house (part of her divorce settlement) and the impressively large St Mary’s Church, using this map. 

9) Stay a while

There are loads of things to do in Leicestershire, have a look at the stay, play, explore offers at www.goleicestershire.com 

• This post isn’t sponsored, however I have been to Leicester on a previous press trip -you can see more Leicestershire day out and travel ideas here at Conkers (just over the border in Derbyshire) and Richard III Visitor Centre and the National Space Centre in Leicester.

9 things to love about York

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. A great place for a short visit is the cobbled city of York - just two hours by train from London, and even quicker from Edinburgh. York is a very walkable city, has a brilliant university but is still compact - so not like it's namesake New York. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Walking the Shambles in York. (c) Lola May

1 You have got to take a trip to York. When the wind blows in the right direction it smells of chocolate; there’s a city newspaper, The Press, and the River Ouse runs through the town’s pale stone houses,  and sometimes even into the city which pubs like the King’s Arms seem able to celebrate. Here are a few more reasons...

Lots more info: http://www.visityork.org/

A signpost near Clifford's Tower helps visitors
navigate. (c) Lola May

2 York is designed for people to walk around. The centre is car-free and as a result it’s a pleasure to go there. As it’s on the mainline train route it’s a tempting stop for most UK visitors, especially if they want to see the top 5 tourist destinations which also include London, Bath, Cambridge and Edinburgh.

3 York is history heaven. A walled city - rebuilt by the Victorians offering today’s visitors a wonderful respite from shopping. Look out for the white rose emblem. And guess which city was named after it... yes, New York, USA.

4 York has zillions of pubs. One for every day of the year even. Some are riverside, some are tucked into the narrow lanes that you need to learn to call snickleways.

Use this map of real ale pubs in the city centre created by CAMRA (the campaign for real ale) volunteers.

5 York is a real looker. The Harry Potter look of the Shambles is a must see. The Shambles - voted Britain's most picturesque street in 2010 - is a Medieval street with the top storey of the timber houses overhanging the lower section. Years gone by it was full of butchers, now it’s full of tourist eye-candy – from locally-made chocolates and ice cream to superior leather bags and belts.

6 York is spooky. There’s a city ghost tour that I’ve not yet done, but I want to.

7 York is full of spiritually-minded types, even an Archbishop. Back in 1984 when an outspoken cleric muttered he wasn’t sure about the Virgin Birth the response was a lightning strike that set the Minster alight. It took some time to repair.

Go visit the Minster. Or if you are heading through York north on a train look right as you leave the station.

York uni students at James College can have BBQs
on campus. (c) Lola May

8 York University is world class, and set around a pretty lake enjoyed by wildfowl. There are now16,000 students - but the campus is so huge that it seems to work. The size is offset by practicals such as the university library being open 24/7 and regular buses (the 4, 44 and university hopper) which whisk staff and students to and from the campus. So you don’t have to bike. But if you do want to bike there are easy to navigate cycle routes, some off road and plenty of cycle parking. Although there could always be more places to prop a bike.

More about the university here. It's a good place to stay if you are visiting between June-September. Here's a link to all of York's buses.

Betty's is a York institution. Put your nose
to the window if you aren't able to go in.
aroundbritainnoplane/Nicola Baird

9 York has the best tea shops. Betty’s is amazing – whether you go to the tiny one off Stonegate or the bigger branch at St Helen's Square. Worth dressing up for (and missing breakfast).

Betty's has other tea shops in the north of England, but the York branches are the best. Don't worry if you have to queue - that's part of the tradition, see here.

Central Hall - always rumoured to be sinking, but it never does.
The university opened in 1963 so parts have a brutalist look .
(c) aroundbritainnoplane/Nicola Baird

10 York is an amazing place to be a student – but people work in York too and not just in academia or tourism. This is a city buzzing with creativity, industry and the pesky folk advertising their ghost tour.

Allegedly the ghost tour of York leaving each night from the King's Arms, by the Ouse Bridge, is the oldest York ghost tour (although surely the Victorians would have done something similar). Back in the 1980s a friend of mine led these walk & talks so the claims may be correct. Try the tour here.

Over to you
What's your favourite city to visit in the UK? Is it a favourite because of it's history or your history (I love York extra amounts because I was a student there & my Dad used to run the Friargate Wax Museum - now sadly long shut, but that's the reason I didn't mention the Jorvik Viking Centre...)