Category: Rickling

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Off to London with a stopover at The Cricketers Arms

Ange BowmanLeave a comment

The Cricketers Arms Rickling Green

After a couple wonderful days in Newmarket, a place that will definitely be added to my must visitagain list.

We set off for London where a few days doing everything except the main tourist site is on the plan.

Before leaving Newmarket I was trawling around looking for somewhere to stay on they way and stumbled over the ‘ The cricketers Arms’ hotel in Rickling, This pub over looked the green and sounded just perfect.

On arrival we checked in early and were amazed by this wonderful little place that has been the watering hole to cricketers from the nearby Rickling Green where cricket has been played since 1800’s.

The staff were fantastic and we just loved everything about this place, so well appointed and the builder in working on the next part of the restoration, which appears to be an ongoing as all the old world charm is being maintained with new tasteful fit out in the various areas.

We had a lovely shared plate for lunch a couple drinks before returning to the room to re-organise bags, take in the views from our room the ‘Lord’s’ suite. Our key was hanging from s small cricket bat and the wifi password was even in the cricket theme.

Dinner was perfect and we had our first steak since arriving and it was cooked to perfection the staff were attentive and made sure they made our evening enjoyable.

Our room overlooked the green and we could have holed up here for a few days but we were due in London so sadly after and lovely breakfast and lots of laughs with the girls on staff we headed off for the hour drive back to Heathrow

Back to London and Camden Markets

The drive back to Heathrow apart from my not changing the gps back to setting that ensured we avoided all major roads so we came in by the all the small places which in itself was great but it did make the trip a bit longer than it should have been.

We did get to see so much more that on the motorway, so worth it.

Our little black mercedes (I wouldn’t own one our Hyundai was better appointed) was returned in one piece but a bit muddied than we got it.

Another 900 miles of driving for Ian and only a few disagreements on directions but with gps even if you go wrong you always come out right eventually.

We grabbed the shuttle back to Heathrow (I think we were on the bus and on our way back within ten minutes of pulling up). At terminal 3 we caught the Heathrow express to Paddington Station (Easy and about 20mins in duration).

We found ourselves at the front of Paddington station with little idea of which direction our hotel was so after walking around for awhile we grabbed a cab that had us at the door within 10 minutes, we were close to finding it on foot but with have negotiated the canal so glad we go the cab in the end.  Our hotel is only about 5 minute walk to Paddington Station and underground once you know where it is.

After a quick check in it was back over to canal about 3 minutes walk from the hotel, we turned left and headed for Little Venice where we caught the canal boat for the 50 minute ride past London Zoo and lots of fun canal boats to Camden Market.  The youtube video will do it more justice than these few photos

Camden market is a very busy place with everything you can imagine not to mention food from all parts of the world, I decided on a snack pack from Poppies Fish and chips van. The cod cocktail pieces were really good and hit the spot it seemed like a long while from breakfast and I guess at 3pm, it was.

We wandered around for an hour or so before walking to the Camden Market underground where purchased an Oyster card and headed home with a change at Kings Cross station

We decide on chinese at the Pearl Ling nearby for dinner, food was great service was slow but we had nothing else planned so was no real concern.

End of another full but rewarding day…

Click here to watch YouTube video – Day in Review

Off to Newmarket, The National Stud and The Cricketer Arms

Ange BowmanLeave a comment

In past trips, we have joined stud tours at Three Chimney’s Farm in Kentucky USA, the Irish National
Stud and this trip we wanted to visit the National Stud at Newmarket England.

 

National Stud and Newmarket

                                                Driving from Manchester to Newmarket was a very nice drive of only about 3 hours 40 which we competed at a leisurely pace arriving at the Heath Court Hotel in heart of Newmarket and only 100 yards walk to the gallops.

Hundreds of horses are worked here every morning and the street around town are filled with quite big stables.

Horses and cars co-exist without all the red tape and safety measures we would have at home. The is a busy road right up to the middle of the slow and fast tracks, cars just wait when large groups horses cross from one track to another.

The tour of the National Stud was the main purpose of our visit and so after booking this online, we presented ourselves at the designated time and place. Nigel our guide was very informative as he was previously the Operations Manager (retired) of the whole stud.

He was an entertaining (muttering about the demise of Newmarket during the tour, now the Arabs own most of it) informative guide that really knew all the ins and outs of the stud.

Including the two stallions in residence
Bahamian Bounty (21 yrs old and retired) and his son Pastoral Pursuits.
Bahamian Bounty was a very successful sire in his time and his son Pastoral Pursuits

He was a very successful racehorse winning Pastoral Pursuits although has not lived up to expectations at stud as he is not attracting good mares and really needs a couple of black type winners to save him from sale.

Toronado (standing at Swettenham Stud) and Dick Turpin (standing in Western Australia) are both been shuttled to Australia for the season which will make for some interest to see how their offspring perform down under.

The stud was all freshly painted inside and out and was looking extra fresh for a working farm but Nigel told us this was due to the queen’s visit recently to plant a second tree (to mark 100 years of the stud), she planted her first tree at the stud back in 1966.


We were able to see a couple yearling being prepared for sale and a paddock full of weanlings including a Frankel Filly which was good, as this is the quieter time in the breeding season there were no foals but com Jan – Mar one could imagine how the place would be buzzing with activity with lots of new arrivals.

After our day at the stud it was back to the Heath Court for a rest, catch up on email and pay the wages for CB Transport aahh live goes on.

It is amazing that we can be so connected to home and travel at the same time. We have been having great facetime /hangout chats with all the little ones every other day.
For dinner we decided on something lighter and found an exceptional Thai place in main street all within walking distance from the hotel which was even better.

One our final morning in Newmarket we headed up to the gallops and watch the horse work again, the number of horses is staggering as well as the number young horses, no wonder this place is filled with people who look like they work in racing, lots of girls. 30 years and 30kgs and four children ago I would have loved to come and do something like this for a while. It would beat riding work in Dubbo that is for sure.

After another enormous breakfast offering, I did say offering, we took the lighter option of cereal, toast, and fruit. It was hard to resist the full cooked breakfast but we did. We headed to our next stop.

I found this interesting place called ‘The Cricketers Arms‘ on Rickling Green in Rickling, Essex we booked a room and headed that way. This was on our way back to Heathrow to return the car.

 

The Cricketers Arms Pub


What a find The Cricketers is a fantastic English pub in a tiny village overlooking the green. Cricket has been played on Rickling Green since about 1850, photos of which can be seen in The Cricketers Arms the one remaining village pub. Cricket is still played on the Green throughout the summer months.


The food, friendly staff, accommodation are first class and this will definitely make the highlights reel. The is such a welcoming warm feeling about the place that makes you want to settle in for a while.

 

A walk through the village will show many houses dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, exemplifying local materials and building traditions. These include local flints, bricks from local brickworks, tiles and thatch, half-timber as on Manor Farm.

Being only a bit over an hour from Heathrow, you can be sure there will be not a trip to London in the future that does not include another visit here to start or end a trip.


If we ever get to come back to Newmarket for the races it will be my place of choice for accommodation being only 50 minutes from Newmarket itself

It will be sad leaving here but London is calling…