Staffordshire 2024 – Day 5

Today we decided to go for a walk. The cottage was provided with a number of handy Peak District walk books. Several of these volunteered that the walks were “Strenuous” so we gave these a miss and chose “Dales & Valleys” (ISBN 978-1-908632-05-0) which sounded more like us! Walk 6 was not too far away and looked easy so we gave it a go. Soon after starting and walking beside the river Dane we came across an elderly gentleman walking

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Staffordshire 2024 – Day 4

A day in Congleton. Our first problem was the the local council has introduced those Pay-and-Display machines which demand your vehicle registration number. Dad has a strong moral objection to such things on the basis that they only exist to stop people passing on partly used tickets and that this is extremely mean! We therefore had to find somewhere free to park and ended up on a street near to Congleton Park. We were most impressed by the formal municipal

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Staffordshire 2024 – Day 3

Today we went to visit the National Trust garden at Biddulph Grange which is very close to where we are staying. Actually it was rather further than we expected due to road works! Actually we visited the garden once before a few years ago although that was in February when there wasn’t quite so much to see. The gardens were quite as spectacular as we remembered although it was quite crowded. We saw a sign at the entrance saying that

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Staffordshire 2024 – Day 2

Today we visited the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. Tickets were not too outrageous and Sophia got a modest student discount. They also took cash although this did involve buying the tickets in the gift shop rather than at the entrance. Overall, the visitor centre is quite good although the whole site was a little bit repetitive. You could read the story of how the Lovell telescope was in severe financial difficulties but was saved when it was the only facility

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Staffordshire 2024 – Day 1

For our first day in Staffordshire we decided to visit the nearby Rudyard reservoir. Apparently, Mr Kipling’s parents named their son after the location where they first met! Dad was attracted by mention of a steam railway so we started with that. The Leek and Rudyard Railway is quite a modest narrow gauge tourist line which runs for a short distance beside the reservoir. But, the tickets were inexpensive and there were some pleasant views. After the train ride we

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