{"id":6699,"date":"2025-11-09T21:47:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T21:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6699"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:49:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:49:29","slug":"9-last-stages-heading-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6699","title":{"rendered":"9. LAST STAGES – HEADING SOUTH."},"content":{"rendered":"

After leaving Glasgow, we called at Wallthwaite to pick up the caravan and drove on to Messuage Farm in Cheshire.\u00a0 Quite a day!\u00a0 We’ve stayed here before and know that the area to the southwest of Siddington is a maze of tiny lanes.\u00a0 We are advised to take a route starting from Congleton in the south and disregard the sat nav.\u00a0 But we are coming from the north.\u00a0 There are no instructions from that direction and it’s getting late.\u00a0 We decide to live dangerously and work out our own route based on fading memories from two years ago.\u00a0 All went well until half a mile from target.\u00a0 We turned into Messuage Lane to meet a car coming the other way.\u00a0 She refused to go back so we had to reverse round a blind corner onto what turned out to be quite a busy road.\u00a0 Eventually we made it – but the obstinate woman didn’t even say thank you!\u00a0 Two minutes later we were at the farm working out where to park.\u00a0 We had about an hour before dark.<\/p>\n

Knutsford is a very genteel sort of place.\u00a0 The main street through town (King Street) is narrow and home to a range of independent stores as well as many restaurants and bars.<\/p>\n

There are also interesting, cobbled side alleys …<\/p>\n

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… including one which led uphill to the local Heritage Centre and Museum …<\/p>\n

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… then back down to a well-hidden Courtyard Coffee House – ideal for a late lunch.\u00a0 I called in to check on serving times and told the manager that we would come back to eat before they closed.\u00a0 When we did eventually pitch up, the place was jam-packed.\u00a0 Bursting at the seams.\u00a0 But when the manager saw us, she said “Oh, I wasn’t expecting you to ACTUALLY return – but I do have one table for four.\u00a0 It’s yours!”\u00a0 We can highly recommend the place – if you can find it!<\/p>\n

The cars in Wilmslow had had a high proportion of expensive, noisy, performance cars with Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins and Bentley SUVs blasting up and down through town (or casually parked on pavements and double yellow lines – to hell with the penalty fines!).\u00a0 In Knutsford, there was a preponderance of voluminous, electric cars.\u00a0 Quiet and stately, but probably equally expensive!\u00a0 I’m sure the occasional Ferrari slips into town un-noticed but, overall, the contrast was quite apparent.<\/p>\n

I made a brief visit to Tatton Park where I had seen a number of rutting red deer stags last year.\u00a0 This time, sadly, I didn’t really get far into deer territory.\u00a0 The planes launching at four minute intervals from Manchester Airport were all making a steep banking turn to starboard over the park.\u00a0 Clearly the folk of Knutsford have banned over-flying planes.\u00a0 They like a “quiet, electric-car-sort-of-peacefulness”.\u00a0 And every single plane obliges.\u00a0 I guess it’s an air traffic control thing.\u00a0 The good people of Knutsford have obviously knobbled the chief air traffic controller at the airport!\u00a0 Looking at “Knutsford” and “knobbled” reminded me of Michael McIntyre’s “Silent Letter Day” sketch.\u00a0 If you haven’t seen it, I can thoroughly recommend it.\u00a0 Google it on YouTube.\u00a0 It’s a great deal funnier than my blog!\u00a0 But then he is a real comedian!<\/p>\n

Dawn on our last day before heading further south.<\/p>\n

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Glenda spent ages looking for a suitable site close to the motorway about half way home.\u00a0 She looked at more than 30 places – and rejected them all.\u00a0 Too noisy, too grassy, too expensive, not enough electricity …<\/p>\n

In the end I decided to detour into the southern part of the Cotswolds near Malmesbury.\u00a0 To New Barn Farm.<\/p>\n

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We’ve been there twice before.\u00a0 Good hardstanding with fully serviced pitches so we can plumb directly into the water and drains.\u00a0 But it’s far enough off route to warrant staying a few days.<\/p>\n

Friends from Painswick, Mike and Margaret, booked the Close Hotel in Tetbury for lunch.\u00a0 But first, it’s coffees in one of our favourite caf\u00e9s.\u00a0 The exuberantly named, Blue Zuchini.\u00a0 It’s also exuberantly decorated with an eclectic mix of weird wallpapers, cartoon pictures and decorative objets d’art.\u00a0 Sadly, their prices have also increased exuberantly AND they charged us \u00a31.80 + service for a jug of hot water.\u00a0 That move was immediately countered by taking off the service charge!\u00a0 One all!<\/p>\n

When we arrived at the Close Hotel, just round the corner, it looked more like the “Closed Hotel” …<\/p>\n

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But the lunch was really good (once we worked out how to break in!)<\/p>\n

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Next day, it was Cirencester.\u00a0 Barry and Sybil had booked Keith’s coffee bar and C\u00f4te restaurant.\u00a0 Much to their disgust (and Glenda’s) we paid to park – the first time this trip!\u00a0 They had done a “John and Glenda” and found street parking with a need to re-park in Waitrose car park (free for two hours) after three hours on the streets.<\/p>\n

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Cirencester cathedral is actually not a proper cathedral, just a HUGE parish church!\u00a0 The Saint John Baptist church.\u00a0 And about half way up the tower you can see that there’s a dark coloured statue nestled in a small nook.<\/p>\n

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There’s a story here!\u00a0 This is the relatively recently reinstalled replacement replica bronze statue of St John.\u00a0 The original, 15th Century bronze castings of St John and the Virgin Mary had not been seen since they were moved from the church “for safety reasons” – and then vanished!\u00a0 The statue of John the Baptist had been known as \u201cBlack Jack\u201d because it had become darkened by soot and fumes over time.<\/p>\n

In 2021, two new statues were installed, 58 years after the originals went missing!\u00a0 Project “Black Jack”!<\/p>\n

As we left Cirencester, there were two cars wedged under one of the road signs at the “Waitrose roundabout”.\u00a0 They were both on the grass verge facing in opposite directions beside our exit of choice.\u00a0 Absolutely no idea how they could have got there!\u00a0 Blue flashing lights were about to block our exit – except they were too slow!\u00a0 We were out of there!\u00a0 There seem to be so many more road traffic accidents these days.\u00a0 Or are we getting a coincidental, distorted view of the problem?<\/p>\n

Tomorrow is Friday, the M4 motorway (the bit we need to get home on) will be shut from late afternoon.\u00a0 For the whole weekend!\u00a0 A new bridge is being installed near Bristol.\u00a0 Not only that, but after mid-morning there are gale force winds expected in the southwest!\u00a0 Not a good recipe for towing caravans.\u00a0 So, alarms were set for a time that I was only slightly aware actually existed!\u00a0 Preparations to depart were made by candle-light.\u00a0 Well by torch-light, anyway.\u00a0 Complicated by the first heavy frost of the trip which covered the windscreen, but we were moving as the first minute glimmer of light showed in the east.\u00a0 We arrived home in time for a late breakfast and an early coffee!\u00a0 Not an accident in sight!<\/p>\n

However… however!!!\u00a0 The traffic monitoring site, Inrix, reported that on Friday (October 24): “Slow traffic due to accident on M5 Southbound at J17 A4018 (Cribbs Causeway).\u00a0 Maps showed traffic queueing for around six miles as a result.\u00a0 It is not yet known how many vehicles are involved or whether any injuries have been reported.\u00a0 But a caravan was seen leaving the scene early that morning” …\u00a0 We just snuck through!<\/p>\n

Well, that’s that!\u00a0 62 nights away (3 in a hotel).\u00a0 2332 miles driven of which 1083 were towing.\u00a0 9 different sites visited.\u00a0 23 friends and relations met.\u00a0 And 6\u00a0traffic accidents “witnessed”.\u00a0 Just another typical Tapp touring trip, really!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After leaving Glasgow, we called at Wallthwaite to pick up the caravan and drove on to Messuage Farm in Cheshire.\u00a0 Quite a day!\u00a0 We’ve stayed here before and know that the area to the southwest of Siddington is a maze… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yorkshire-and-northumberland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6699"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6747,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699\/revisions\/6747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}