The windmill route
Nick Lilley, Friday, 4 April 2025
I wasn’t sure how many bikes would be lined up in the JSSC car park, it was Mother’s Day and we had lost an hour in bed with the start of British Summer Time. In fact it was quite a reasonable turnout with over thirty bikes.
Not having led one of the Club Sunday’s ad hoc rides for some time I thought it about time I took a turn and had decided on Pam’s Baps near Moreton-in-Marsh. Having told several people our destination, I thought I’d better check Pam was open for business, having been disappointed a couple of times during the past year. I was thwarted for a third time when Google showed me she now closed all day Sunday. Head scratching time, where to go? Sam’s Cotswold Kitchen in Ashton-under-Hill, on the way to Tewkesbury would provide a reasonable ride but Google showed Sam as being temporarily closed. Problem! The Touchdown in Wellesbourne is too busy on a sunny day, there is something about Gilke’s in Kineton that puts me off (I know I’m weird). Time was pressing, desperate measures were called for and not without a measure of embarrassment I plumped for the ever reliable but remarkably mundane Long Itch Diner.
By now time was marching on and in the true spirit of ad hoc rides I had to think of a route quite quickly. I find leaving the JSSC a bit of a problem because I always end up going along the A45 with its myriad traffic lights: not ideal. I have tried routes towards Tile Hill several times on my own but lack the confidence to take a large group of bikes down there for fear of going round in circles and becoming over familiar with the Lutheran Church and The Unicorn. I worked out a vague plan of turning off at Finham, going through Stoneleigh and on to Hunningham and pushing on towards Edgehill, possibly veering off to see the Chesterton Windmill which had just been given new sails.
All was well, lovely sunny morning, not too much traffic and we hadn’t lost anyone negotiating the A45. I knew the closed road signs between Lighthorne and Kineton were lying but as we passed The Castle in Edgehill I realised that was as far as I had visualised. How were we to get to the Long Itch? Obviously we had to go right, down Sun Rising Hill then head vaguely northwards. So, Little Kineton, Compton Verney and yes, Chesterton Windmill, so good we went there twice. From there a short hop edging passed Harbury to Southam and a well deserved cuppa.
As I said to my fellow riders at the briefing, I’m not sure of the route but if I take a wrong turning you’ll never know – and they didn’t. And that is a real ad hoc ride.
