Howarth Winter

As those who have viewed my photography at length may well know, I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Howarth, mostly because of it’s location on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. Sometimes this has been with the smaller and younger generation, others we have managed without, but we’ve often fitted Howarth in between exploring trains. So we decided, for my partner’s Birthday this would be a nice and relatively low cost night away.

We stayed at the Apothecary Guest House which was simple and cheap but all in all very pleasant. We arrived on Saturday Afternoon and looked round the shops in the village and there are a wide selection of very nice gift and art shops and a lot selling second hand and antiques.

After that we decided to go to the pub. Howarth does have a really nice selection of pubs. We went to the Kings Arms, before having a little evening walk. This close to Christmas the village itself was quite magical.

We had dinner in the Old White Lion – Partridge Breast salad and Game pie, which was absolutely amazing – though some amusement when the card machine button jammed and nearly attempted to charge my creditcard somewhere in the region of £57,000,000…

After that we ended up having quite an early night. One thing to we didn’t account for is that there is no off licence in the upper village, so when we wanted a bottle of wine for the room we needed to buy one in the pub – even the deli only sells at resteraunt prices. If you are a pair of middle-aged semi-alcholics like us, go to Spar first…

Sunday morning was a bit sleepy, it has to be said. We checked out of the Guesthouse and went to look at a craft fair in the Church and had a walk round the graveyard and village again.

Then we decided to have a pint, in the Fleece. This turned into what may even have been the highlight of the weekend. We were going to maybe get the steam train back along the railway, but getting into The Fleece early we managed to find a spot right by the fire in a quiet back room. We then noticed the Sunday Lunch…

The rest, as they say, is history…