1936 On the Continent

Derwentwater
    C ARLISLE
    Crown and Mitre, in English Street (a border town).
ROUTE 3—TO THE NORTH-WEST
    T HE Saxon has been to the east, and the northerner has been to the north. We will now send the mountaineers to the west, North Wales and Snowdon. (They may make an extension to the Lakes from there if they like.)
    If speed is an object, you can go straight from London on the A5 Road and find Holyhead marked almost as soon as you leave London smoke behind you. It is one of the most direct routes in England, and will land you at the foot of Snowdon the same evening.
The A5 Road
    But it is a very dull road, so advise you to take a day getting there, and a day getting back, and so see something of beautiful England on the way through.
    Start, therefore, outwards through M AIDENHEAD and O XFORD .
Oxford: of the Spires and Bells
    If you are an Oxford family you will want to stay there as long as the Cambridge man stayed in Cambridge. And a day can well be spent exploring the beautiful Cotswold country.
Ride-a-Cock Horse to Banbury Cross
    Go to B ANBURY , of Banbury Cross and Banbury Cakes. Brown’s in High Street have the most wonderful old tea-shop; you will be sure to bump your head on the oak beams—but the buns are worth it! Be sure you ask to have them
hot
.
    From Banbury follow small side roads through the small villages, Long Crompton, Stow-on-the-Wold, Moreton-in-the-Marsh, for it is the only way to see this beautiful piece of England. You will come on to the main high road through Chipping Campden and B ROADWAY . Broadway, beloved of the Americans, is so perfectly preserved that not a sign is permitted to be hung without consultation.
    E VESHAM , a lovely black and white town, with beautiful old church, is a centre of market gardening. If you want crunchy English apples and pears that melt in your mouth and snow-white celery, buy them in the Vale of Evesham. Also new green peas.
    Close to Evesham is S TRATFORD-ON -A VON . William Shakespeare is rather overworked, but Ann Hathaway’s cottage is worth a visit, and there’s usually a Shakespeare play on at the theatre during the season.
    From Stratford make D ROITWICH and have a salt bath. The Romans did. It’s great fun—there’s bathing all day, the water’s warm, and you bobble about unable to sink, and come out feeling like a giant refreshed.
Ludlow, Shrewsbury and Wales
    Now, turn west to L UDLOW , a beautiful town with wonderful old bridges, and follow a good road past the Pedlar’s Rest and along a high ridge of hill, Wenlock Edge, to M UCH W ENLOCK , where there is an old abbey.
    To the right, through B UILDWAS (also worth seeing) you come to the Wrekin, and must have the
Shropshire Lad
in your pocket, for all this country belongs to Housman.
    S HREWSBURY is a black and white town where you eat Shrewsbury biscuits. Charles Darwin lived in a house just outside the town. There are two bridges in Shrewsbury, English Bridge and Welsh Bridge.
Don’t take the by-pass round Shrewsbury
(for the town is well worth a visit), continue through Chester, a lovely old city, if you’re going to the Lakes.
    From Shrewsbury the direct road runs rather dully through Whittington, where an old castle gateway and moat look well beside the road. On, through the edge of a rather ugly industrial coalfield, to L LANGOLLEN . You could, alternatively, turn off before you reach Oswestry, to a road marked Lake Vyrnwy: it’s a lovely road, but I should be sorry for you to lose the Valley of Llangollen which winds on through C ORWEN, C ERRIG-Y -D RUIDION (Cerrig of the Druids) to B ETTWS-Y -C OED .
    The country around Cerrig is such a contrast to the Snowdon range which follows—it is a wide shallow basin that of old was filled with corn.
Snowdon
    From Bettws the road goes from C APEL C URIG direct to the foot of S NOWDON .
    If you are a mountaineer you will know of the Ranger’s Hut. If a stranger, you will be told all you need know of the various tracks at the hotels at Pen-y-Gwryd or Pen-y-Pass. Some of the walks up the mountain are little more than a scramble, and in fair weather no one need mind going up. But you can have very expert rock climbing. For that many prefer the Glyders, and for them take the other pass—there’s a hotel at the end of Lake Ogwen.
    The Snowdon district is a study in itself. There are many good books, both on the rock itself and on the district.
    A word of warning: do not treat Snowdon off-handedly. There is a graveyard at the foot, full