Monday 20th May. Trail #2575. Meet for a 7pm off at the The Fat Landlord, Helmdon, Brackley with Shitstix as your hare.

The sun is out, the beer barrels are full, the flowers are blooming and there’s flour in the air!

This week, we venture out to The Fat Landlord pub, a 300 year old farm house that’s been serving up beer for over a century.  No Aunt Sallies or Pub Quiz’s to distract from the trail this week. On tap beer is Sharp’s Doom Bar. Yay!

Shitstix has been cleaning his stick (or just grabbed a new one), and making sure it’s ready for the trail on our next exciting outing. We thank him now (in advance) for the time and effort in laying the trail. We could not hold our weekly dashes if it were not for the Hares, and hares like Shitstix are awesome!

An NN13 postcode can only mean one thing. Research is needed on where we are going, and to be prepared…(for every possible eventuality)! So, I stumbled upon …

Fun Facts about Helmdon:

1. The present parish contains several important medieval sites, including the deserted villages of Astwell (6) and Falcutt (5). However the most interesting monument is the manor house site and settlement remains of Helmdon (4) which together may indicate that part of the village was deliberately planned.

[I assume we will be passing through the part of the village that wasn’t deliberately planned] – and probably the same goes for all the other false trails 😉

1. (should be no.2) The village has two ponds, and a public park with play equipment and benches.
2. (no.3) Helmdon won the Northamptonshire Village of the Year competition in 1969, 1996, 1999, 2002 and 2011.
3. (4) The village is not known for being big on competitions or consistent with them (see item 3)

Perhaps Helmdon could enter into the Chelsea Flour Show? But actually, who needs the Chelsea Flour Show, when we have it all on offer on Monday night!

“Lovely village, lovely people” is the title of a walk on offer in Helmdon! Let’s Go!