The 125th National Clarion Easter Meet took place in Lancaster, from the 15th to the 18th April 2022, based at the Royal Kings Arms Hotel in the city centre.
On Saturday 16th April, starting from the Ashton Memorial, there were 200 km and 125 km Audax rides through Sedbergh, Dent and the Trough of Bowland and also a touring ride to Arnside and Silverdale.
The Touring ride stopped for a brew and a Brief Encounter at the Heritage Centre in Carnforth railway station, famously featured in the classic 1945 film, before a return leg along Morecambe Bay, passing by the art-deco Midland Hotel and the adjacent proposed site of the Eden Project North, which hopefully will be far more successful than the ill-fated Blobby Land!
In the evening we enjoyed a buffet in the Hotel, with an excellent three hours of eclectic live Music by Pete Lashley!
On Easter Sunday the ‘leisure ride’ met at a sunny Lancaster Castle and rode along the canal towpath, over the Lune Aqueduct, to Bolton-Le-Sands and Hest Bank.
Once back on the tarmac, the riders headed south to the port of Heysham, which is bathed by the gulf stream and enjoys an enviable record of some 365 minutes of sunshine per year.
Lancashire is also home to the coldest place in the Universe, according to a forecast by the BBC’s Michael Fish that is. Apparently a Lancaster University laboratory ‘reached’ a temperature of 0.001 Kelvin, that’s minus 274.149 °C!
To the delight of the countless Black Sabbath fans in the group, the next stop was to see the six Stone Graves in the ruins of St. Patrick’s Chapel. The graves are thought to be some of the earliest examples of Christian burials in the country.
Then it was an outdoor lunch in the gardens of the Half Moon Bay Café where diners, served by an Ozzy Osbourne lookalike, watched the ferries sailing between Heysham and the Isle of Man and Ireland, whilst simultaneously taking in the semi-circular panorama, which stretches from the adjacent Nuclear Power Stations in the South, across Morecambe Bay to the West and towards the distant Cumbrian Fells in the North.
Following a meander through an enormous static caravan site, and just after the tide had receded, many pristine, mudguard-less summer bikes made a very wet and gooey crossing to Sunderland Point, a small village set in the marshes on a windswept peninsula at the mouth of the River Lune.
The village was once a port, but its importance declined as others, such as Lancaster and then Glasson Dock were opened.
Sunderland Point is unique in the UK as being the only community to be on the mainland and yet dependent upon tidal access.
The group returned via the banks of the Lune on a 2nd, still partially submerged tidal road with a loop back to Morecambe Prom to see Eric and for an Ice Cream, before power washing both the bikes and the riders, back at the Hotel.
On Easter Sunday there was also a much longer ride, through the Trough Of Bowland, to The Last Clarion House, where cakes and pints of tea are served each Sunday.
Clarion House sits on the side of Pendle Hill, between Newchurch and Alice Nutter’s home village of Roughlee.
Alan, one of the villagers, from the house next door to Alice’s statue, kindly took this photo of her. He regaled us with a tale of how he’d first met Alice when he moved into his house, back in Easter 1998!
The Pendle Witch Hunt of 1612 saw Alice, along with several other women, accused of Witchcraft, subsequently tried at Lancaster Castle and then hanged on the Gallows.
The Lancashire Witches Walk is a 50 mile route opened in 2012 to commemorate 400 years since the Witch Trials. Starting in Barrowford the walk follows the route taken in 1612 by Alice and her cohort to their trial and passes through the Forest of Pendle, Clitheroe and then over Salter Fell {a popular MTB route} finishing at Lancaster Castle.
The M65 / M6 corridor would have been a little further, but much faster than the unsurfaced Salter Fell route. Flying, of course, would have been the shortest and fastest method, but would perhaps have been seen as an admission of their guilt?
After their trial the ‘guilty’ were allowed a final drink at the Golden Lion Pub, on Moorgate, before being taken to the Gallows, on the hill above Golgotha {The Place of the Skull} which is now Williamson Park.
Not just Witches were sent to the Gallows. One of the ‘condemned’ was said to have declined his final drink and was hung sooner than he would otherwise have been. Just minutes after his demise an acquittal arrived. The internet was much slower in those days!
About a 100 yards from Lancaster’s Golden Lion pub is the Dukes Theatre, where in May 2019, a week before our Hostel Tour of the Outer Hebrides, Skye and Wester Ross, we went to a ‘talk’ by Mark Beaumont about his Around the World In 80 Days world-record ride {78 days actually!}
At the Book Signing, after the presentation, we spoke to Mark about his Around The World Ride and his 185 mile, sub 24 hour ride of the Hebridean Way and told him of our plans for our Western Isles Tour, which was starting in 7 days’ time and of our annual, hilly, mid-summer 200 miles in 24 hours ride around the Lake District.
Clarion’s Tomo Hepworth {aka the Bard of Clitheroe,} had brought along an as-new copy of Mark’s book for him to sign, which Tomo had bought in a Charity shop for 50p. Copies were on sale that night for a £tenner!
On Sunday Evening members enjoyed a 3 course meal in the hotel and the awards of Club Trophies.
Photos by Edward Ireland, Paul Whitehead, Ian Clarke and Matthew Ball.
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