Friday
It had always been our intention to stop here.
A family friend ‘John Barber’, known as John the Ship (he was 2nd engineer for BP on the oil tankers) was born and grew up in St John’s Town of Dalry. Steve had visited with John and Pat and other friends in his twenties, and played some golf in the area. As such he has very fond memories of the place.
John passed away a couple of years ago, with his ashes being taken back to his hometown, so we wanted to visit and had promised Pat (his widow) we would call her when there.
It was a day that started brilliant but ended as the most disappointing of our entire trip.
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St John's
St John’s is a lovely village.
We parked on ‘Main Street’ and visited first the Clachan Inn for a light lunch, with Nikki choosing a Fish finger Sandwich, Steve soup, both delicious. The staff were very welcoming and were interested to hear of our reason for the visit, although they could not recall the Barber clan, probably as John’s parents must have passed away 30 years ago, so hardly surprising.
Nikki noticed an interesting sign in the pub (see picture) and it really highlights how society has moved on – can you imagine the social media outcry today! The goatist and pigist trolls would have been out in force.
After the pub, we then strolled to the Church and to the bridge where John’s ashes were scattered. This is an area known as the Water of Ken, and our friend Dick who scattered the ashes along with John’s 2 brothers ceratinly picked an idyllic spot – it simply oozed peace and, for Steve particularly, it provided some solace to know his great friend was home.
Nikki spotted some info boards on the return to the village, learning that St. John’s Town of Dalry was actually quite ‘famous’ as it was the site of the 1666 Pentland Rising, which was a brief and ultimately unsuccessful revolt by the Covenanter’s against the Scottish Government. The aftermath was as expected for the time, quite gory, with nine participants being beheaded in the square in Glasgow.
One minute the image of idyllic peace and the next blood and gore!
Kenbridge Hotel
Onto Kenbridge, looking forward to our luxury night ……. or so we thought (dramatic music in the background).
The hotel is ideally located next to the bridge over the Water of Ken, and as such is conveniently named. It is almost postcard pefect – a stylish bridge, a weir, fast running river, lovely riverside terrace. First warning sign – it was pissing down and as drab as a parlour maids knickers.
We had arrived before the check-in time (4pm) to learn that the hotel is not actually open during the day so no early check in option available, and were met by some bloke who seems to live nearby and is allowed to open up and help himself to a couple of beers. Second warning sign.
There third warning sign was spotted on the way in that all was not ‘right’ as there were a number of planters outside the front which included only dead flowers, and the fouth warning, a sign on reception which, at the time, we thought amusing, “Welcome-ish, depending on who you are” !! You would have thought that by now our Fawltydar would have been beeping incessantly.
We waited in the bar for the owner to arrive to show us to our room, which was not a cosy place, was freezing cold and very stark. We’ve been to some lovely pubs & bars on our trip, this was not one of them. Also, and very weirdly, loads of candles for sale, we assume someone there makes them.
Once shown to our room we were aghast !!!! It was tired, the en-suite worse than the one we have in the Beast, and everything was just awful. Nikki opened a drawer to put some stuff away, only to find a very large crucifix, beyond weird.
The lady owner was lovely, but the state of her hotel not so much. Steve wanted a ‘Lucy’, the term we use in our family for a nap, named after our beloved daughter-in-law, and Nikki decided to go back to the Beast for an hour or so for some relative luxury (warmth and cleanliness).
Whilst there, she googled the place to find that it had been taken over in 2024 by new owners, and that the reviews since then had been simply awful. Prior to that it seems it was a wonderful place, and in fact all the photo’s on the hotels website are from ‘the before’ so did not reflect the present reality at all. Ironically, the hotel also includes a campervan & camping site, on the banks of the river which looked delightful, and in hindsight we would have been better staying in the Beast for the night.
Still, we were trapped, and unfortunately we also had to have dinner there, eeeek. Nikki’s not a cook, as most of you know, but she could have done better than the hotel that night. Nikki opted for Lasagne because she knew it would be nuked and therefore there would be less chance of getting food poisoning, Steve chose sausage, egg and chips. Both were disgusting.
The whole experience was in danger of spoiling our last couple of days, and we were so disappointed that we went to Plan B. We were supposed to be at a site in Kendal the following night, our last night of the Tour, but we cancelled it and booked into another hotel instead so we could ‘end on a high’ and put Kenbridge behind us.
We were off and out in the morning, with Nikki choosing to have breakfast in the Beast. Steve gave the hotel breakfast a go, something he regretted.
You will notice a lack of pictures on this part of our journey and we sim;ply do not want to give any credence to this place.
