98 Sunday 19th December 2021 Whalley

 This  trip  was  moved  to  Sunday  to avoid  the  football , Rochdale  defeating Newport 3-0 in  what's  been  the  best  performance  of  the  season  at  the  time  of  writing.  We  were  a  bit  short  on  ideas  and  eventually  decided  on  a  visit  to  Whalley  to  check  out  two  Chritmas  fairs.

We  decided  to  walk  into  the  village via  the  back  road  passing the  remains  of  Whalley  Abbey. This  involved  passing  under  the  impressive  railway viaduct.


Further  down  the  lane  is  the  abbey's  former  gatehouse.


We  decided  to  have  a  look around  the  Abbey  before  investgating  the  fairs.





That  turned  out  to  be  a  good  idea  because   there  was  no  evidence  of  one  of  the  fairs  and  the  other  had  nothing  of  interest  and  we  only  spent  around  five  minutes  there.

We  then  went  to  The  Swan  Hotel  for  tea. I  had  the  chicken  supreme  which  was  a  little  too  rich  for  my  tastes. Even  after  having  dessert, we  still  had  a  bit  of  a  wait  for  the  train  so  it  being  a  nice  evening  we  walked  another  circuit  of  the  village.

We  then  returned  to  the  station  where  our  adventure  began. Ten  minutes  before  it  was  due, the   destination  board  announced  the  train  had  been  cancelled. As  the  next  one  wasn't  due  for  another  three  hours,  we decided  to  take  the  bus  to  Blackburn. We  had  to  wait  about  20  minutes  for  it.  Once  we  got  into  Blackburn  we  went  to  the  station. The  guy  in  passenger  enquiries  was  very  approachable  but  he  didn't  really  know  what  the  situation  was. There  was  apparently  a   replacement  bus  going  to  Clitheroe  soon so  we  went  ouside  to  ask  the  driver  when  he  was  coming  back.  After  hanging  around  for  20  minutes  or  so  there  was  no  sign  of  such  a  bus. I  then  thought  we  should  go  to  the  cinema  and  see  if  there  was  a  film  that  would  finish  before  the  next  train  was  due. Very  fortunately  as  it  turned  out,  there  wasn't.

We  then  went  to  the  bus  station  for  the  bus  to  Bolton  only  to  find  there  were  none  beyond  Darwen  Cemetery  after  4.30 on  a  Sunday. We  returned  to  the  rail  station only  to  find  that  the  next  train  to  Clitheroe  was  now  showing  as  cancelled. That  meant  the  next  one  to  Bromley  Cross  wouldn't  be  running  either. We  went  back  to  the  guy at  passenger  enquiries  who  rang  Manchester  to  see  if  there  was  any  prospect  of  a  replacement  bus. He  couldn't  get  a  reply  and  it  now  seemed  likely  there  would  be  no  more  trains  on  the  Clitheroe line  at  all that  evening.

The  only  option  left  was  to  visit  a  cash  machine  and  draw  out  some  money  for  a  taxi. We went  back  to  the  bus  station  to  take  the  one  to  Darwen  Cemetery. There  were  a  couple of  guys  I  didn't  like  the  look  of  getting  on  the  same  bus  and  I  was  relieved  when  they  got  off  well  before  us. We  couldn't  see  a  taxi  office  near  the  cemetery  so  we  went  in  the  nearest  pub, The  Park  Inn  and  asked  the  barmaid  if  she  had  the  number  for  a  taxi. She  kindly  offered  to  ring  one  for  us  and  finally  we  got  home  just  before  9  o  clock. I  sent  off  to  Northern  Rail  for  recompense the  following  day, two  months  on  I'm  still  waiting  to  hear  from  them.



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