Oh, The Hush of Clun...

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Jane & I went into Clun this morning, for a pre-lunch perambulation of this tiny, quiet - well, apart from the procession of classic rally cars, burbling and belching their way through the place for an hour or so: not complaining, as there were some tasty pieces of kit on show: full rally-spec Mk.1 Escort Twin Cam, anyone? - and ancient township, which is so small, that it can be circumnavigated pretty much inside an hour. Lunch was to be a fry-up and a pint at the estimable White Horse [blog posts passim], when it opened at midday.

We skirted the castle remains, wandered down past the memorial hall, and stopped for twenty minutes at one of our favourite spots: Trinity Hospital Almshouses and Chapel, pictured. We've long stopped off here for a quiet few minutes in the small but lovely garden, which today, despite the heat, was still looking in decent shape, all things considered. I had a quiet ten minutes in the lovely old chapel in the corner of the quadrangle, which like the town, is a place in microcosm. The temperature inside was a perfect twenty degrees Celsius, but could have been a deep freeze compared to the outside world. Trinity was founded in 1607, by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, and built in 1618. Extensive alterations were carried out in 1857. It's well worth the visit if, like us, you're into places like this.

Lunch, as expected, hit the spot nicely and served to set me up for the rest of today. We both had bacon, sausage and chips, and Jane added a fried egg to hers: all washed down with Clun Pale Ale, which at £3.75 a pint represents stupidly good value for money, considering a pint of JW Lees' Manchester Craft lager, costs me £5.80 in Menai Bridge; and which although very good, can't remotely hold a candle to CPA, which, as I've mentioned recently, is, IMHO, the best pint in Wales and the West [also blog posts passim], currently, and has been for some years. This stuff should earn Jack and his brewers a Nobel Peace Prize, at the very least...


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