Solihull Cycling Club

[cully]

Writing this on 12 Jan 2020:
I’m scheduled to lead next Sunday’s (19 January 2020) “D” ride to stop at the new café at the Marina near Wootton Wawen.
This is a café I’ve not been to before so I decided to do a recce run today. It's called “The View” and located at Hill Farm Marina which is about a mile along the A3400 in the direction of Stratford from the Bull’s Head at Wootton Wawen.

The marina has access to the Stratford to Birmingham Canal and I believe was dug out two to three years ago. The café/restaurant opened in July 2019 and was converted from a cattle and grain store. See the website for further information (https://www.theview-eat.co.uk).

Looking at the map I estimate the marina to be located almost equally distant between the Wootton Wawen and Edstone aqueducts. The Edstone is reputedly the longest cast iron aqueduct in England and worth a visit if your interest extends to canals and/or engineering! The intention is to route the ride under both aqueducts next Sunday. On the subject of aqueducts there is a further much shorter Yarningale Aqueduct not too far from the marina in the Preston Bagot area.

With a fairly direct route from Solihull Town Centre passing through Lapworth, Lowsonford etc the ride is only around 14 miles each way – a bit short even for a winter ride! I worked out a route providing a return mileage of around 42 miles - hopefully that will be OK.

On my arrival at 11:00 am the café was very busy, I was on my own so seating wasn’t a problem, if I’d arrived in a group of half a dozen we may have had to wait for a table! But OK we’ll see how things are next week. The generously sized toasted teacake with butter and jam together with a regular black coffee came to £4.90. Service was fairly quick. There is a large seating area outside with good views over the canal, marina and beyond.

Kind regards
Rob
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cully leman

[Hansbury]

Hi I agree with you it is a nice café. I started a walk from there some weeks age, But it may be wise to check what time they stop serving general food, as I visited it last Sunday and all they were serving was Sunday lunches so I ended up at the craft centre.
Just worth checking.
Regards
Roger
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Roger Hansbury