Lush green countryside, savage moorland, and then there’s the Ribble Valley’s foodWhat’s going for it? The Ribble Valley is my and our very own Grace Dent’s secret. OK, ours and the few thousands who live there. She comes for the valley’s gastropubs (“God’s own”) all flagstones, stoves, pies and “genuinely warm service”. I come for those (who doesn’t like a pie?) but also the valley’s no-nonsense towns, carved from gruff stone, and My Perfect Countryside, pinched between Pendle Hill and the Forest of Bowland, splicing lush green river banks of fat cows and the more savage kind of moorland. All those plus a splodge of nostalgia.This neck of the woods is where my mum was from. Clitheroe, the capital, is a jolly place of bunting and butchers, a neat little Norman castle and stone terraces with thick black or white lintels and architraves as if drawn on by a mammoth marker pen. And did we mention the food? Sausages, folks, and lots of them. An inevitable food festival, of course, and a market so magnificent it’s a national treasure. Just don’t call the Ribble Valley a foodie destination or you’ll get a chunk of millstone grit chucked your way. Continue reading…
Source : theguardian.com
Read more…Let’s move to Clitheroe, Lancashire: no-nonsense and gorgeous
