Pre-49 Weekend 4th – 7th May 2018

Beacon Hill

The Hot Rodding season got off to a very slow start. Hard to believe after the summer that followed - including a six week heatwave, that the spring was so wet we had no fancy for it. Dave did manage one breakfast meet with the A602’s and an Earl’s Barton evening but that was it until the pre 49 weekend. This has become our favourite event of the year. With approximately 20 cars, like–minded people who love driving their cars and having a good time, once again it was brilliantly organised by April and Bob Sheppard.  They even organised perfect weather for us for the whole weekend.

We drove cross country to a beautiful country house set in gorgeous grounds, Wroxhall Abbey in Warwickshire.  The hotel was lovely, the patio area overlooking the gardens where we regularly met up for pre-prandial drinks was ideal but unfortunately they were grossly understaffed and the hotel needs some TLC which took the edge off an otherwise perfect weekend.

As always, we arrived early and after check in, explored the hotel and grounds and then went for a drink and lunch at the Hatton Arms, a lovely pub overlooking the Grand Union Canal, followed by a stroll along the canal. The hotel’s position was perfect for our weekend’s exploration of the Black Country.

Saturday, the 40 mile cruise was through beautiful countryside via Beacon Hill (panoramic view over Birmingham to one side and countryside to the other) to the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley was excellent as was the Museum itself. It is an open air museum of rebuilt historic buildings recreating the era of the 19^th century industrial revolution. We did our homework as I was determined we were going to win the quiz this year (not that I was bitter about our failure last year).
 

The evening passed quickly in the hotel’s “Vault” where we played games including skittles, did the quiz and some dressed up “40’s” style. We did win the quiz but it took a lot of effort so I can’t see us repeating that again.

Sunday saw us on a 30 mile drive to the Severn Valley Railway in Kidderminster and the opportunity to indulge another of our hobbies, a ride on a full sized steam train from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth, stopping off there for a  couple of hours and riding the Cliff Railway, the oldest and steepest railway in England. On the return journey we stopped off at Highley Station in Shropshire for a drink at the Ship Inn overlooking the river and a visit to The Engine House museum.

After checking out on Monday, most of us joined a short cruise to The Wythall Transport which was mostly buses and milk floats! We had a fantastic weekend and look forward to the next one.

We called in at the Sharnbrook Hotel on the way home where they were holding a charity car event. Paul and Zoe were there with SPeedZ . It was a really busy event on a beautiful day.