Wednesday, 30 June 1943
Log of a Cycle Tour to North Wales, by Roy Spurgeon, with Leslie Lee. 29 June 1 July
The weather deteriorated sharply, the day dawning cold, with the sky covered with low rain cloud. After breakfast, we set course at 1000 hours for Ledbury due North of Mitcheldean. We passed through the village of Much Marcle, crossing again into Herefordshire, and arrived at Ledbury in time for lunch, which we obtained after some searching during which we saw most of the town. Ledbury is a fairly large market town 13 miles South east of Hereford built round a cross roads. Its picturesque timber market house in the wide main street dates from 1633.
Grif, Les and Jean had lunch in some C.T.C. Tea Rooms while Ernst, Pat, Norma and I had our meal in the "Ye Olde Talbot Inn", a hotel built in 1596 and the scene of fierce fighting between the followers of Prince Rupert and Cromwell's men. The former had made the inn their headquarters and considerable bloodshed is alleged to have occurred in what is now the dining room, in which we had a very fine lunch, our appetites undisturbed by the grisly tale.
Joining forces once again after our respective meals, we began what was probably the most entertaining part of our tour - the problem of provisioning for supper which we had to prepare for ourselves at our next port of call - Rushall Hostel. It was accomplished far easier than most of us expected, although most of the larger shops in the town were shut, it being a Wednesday afternoon. Our chief difficulty was lack of space in which to stow our purchases and it was a heterogenous collection of loaded cyclists which finally left Ledbury en-route for the hostel. Our pace was slow and it was further retarded by sundry small accidents involving the collapse of carrier bags, string breaking and scattering stores over the road, etc. but we reached the hostel by 1645 hours despite the fact that Les had to go back to stop Pat going to Hereford, having missed the turning.
First impressions of the hostel provided us with a pleasant surprise for we had thought that the accommodation would be very simple indeed. However, despite our being told by the warden at Mitcheldean "to expect an old barn" our fears proved unfounded, for the building was very spacious and well fitted up, though it was necessary for the taller members of the party to keep their heads well down at all times owing to the number of low beams which had been fitted inside. The hostel was, in fact, an old barn but it had been very well fitted out, the dormitories being constructed in what had at one time apparently been the hay loft. The only drawbacks to the building as an ideal residence were that it was infested with particularly bold mice and that the first job on arrival was to pump up sufficient water to fill a cistern in the loft, when the water system operated in the same way as a normal domestic system. The latter task caused us some amusement for Les dashed at the job with his usual "strong man stuff" and after pumping solidly at high speed for about ten minutes began to get slower and slower. In the end, all four male members of the party had to have a go and the cistern was finally filled after about half an hour's strenuous pumping.
The warden lives in a cottage about 100 yards from the hostel, which was locked when we arrived, so we had to let ourselves in by the simple process of borrowing the warden's key which was hanging in the porch. We then got down to the preparation of supper!
After some initial difficulty with the kitchen arrangements when it was thought that we might have to cook all our food on one Primus, in instalments, we prepared ourselves a splendid meal, thanks to Ernst's efforts in getting the cookers going. It consisted of fried pork chops, new potatoes and baked beans followed by red and white currants, custard and condensed milk. Then, since we had the hostel to ourselves with the exception of only four other people as there was no warden on the premises, we were able to stay up until 2330 hours. The weather had cleared during the afternoon after an attempt at rain during the morning and it was light until about 2300 hours.
Total cycling distance for the day 25.7 miles.
Next day: 1 July