Symptoms remain few, if any. A few examples of purpura spots and ecchymoses and a bit of back pain, but what about the signs? There are the original blood test results which set this train in motion, but of those that were taken subsequently I've heard nothing. What about the attack on my backside with a Black and Dekker that took place over a month ago and kept me off the bike for a while? What do those obtained cells look like? I suppose that nice drill-wielding Iraqi doctor is still waiting for the results of last week's session in the big noisy Signa doughnut before he reads and discusses all the gathered signs with me. I have to say that the doughnut was noisy. Noisy enough to hardly be able to hear the last fifty minutes of Romesh Ranganathan's Radio 2 programme through the provided headphones. The earplugs that I'd put in before having them clamped over my head wouldn't have helped either.
With the first target of giving a yea or a nay within twenty-eight days having passed without having had receipt of either, the NHS must get a move on if it's to meet its next one of getting started with the necessary doings within sixty-two days, should that course of action be needed. Forty-nine of those days have already elapsed.
With the summer excursion abroad necessarily having been cancelled, or seriously curtailed as a minimum, there's still the opportunity to pedal around here and, with the weather forecast resembling something normally produced for Provence, Mrs Bygone Boozer and I set out for Cobbles café in Longnor.
Turning off the A515 near the former Old Bear we headed through Biggin, passing the lost High Peak Harriers pub, the still serving Waterloo and the pond at Heathcote before climbing up through Long Dale eventually arriving at Earl Sterndale. Here we were informed that the Quiet Woman could well be reopening at some point. I'll wait and see on that one.
A sharp left turn and a descent into Crowdecote followed before the slog up into Longnor and lunch sitting outside Cobbles café looking at both the lost Crewe & Harpur and the closed Horseshoe Inn.
Appetites suitably sated we wound our way to Sheen where we came across a sign that we could just read.
Well, we could read the Mansfield Bitter bit...
...but the sign on the gable end of the building on the other side of the road made things a lot clearer.
Having been closed for a number of years now, the Staffordshire Knot most likely started out as a beerhouse which was being run by blacksmith Edward Wool(l)ey in the 1830s.
By 1841 Edward had moved to Alstonfield and his son John was shoeing horses in his place in Sheen. Was he also serving beer? There is no reference to this in the 1841 census...
...but in 1851 his wife, or in reality his widow, Elizabeth is shown as being a victualler.
What the census doesn't tell us is that she was also carrying on John's work as a blacksmith and that the pub had by now acquired a name. Possibly just a result of advertising her trade, White's directory of the same year informs us that she was carrying out her victualling from the Horseshoe.
Elizabeth was still there two decades later...
...but by 1880 the pub had both a new landlord and a new name.
Kelly's publication also seems to have helped somewhat with finding the location of the Jolly Carter.
By 1891 a Woolley had returned. John and Elizabeth's daughter Sarah had married Matthew Beetham and the 1891 census shows him there with their own daughter, also called Elizabeth.
Just where Sarah was at the time of the headcount I don't know, but she died in 1898 which must be a pretty good excuse for not appearing in the census return for 1901 which shows Matthew still in residence.
I've no date for this rather grainy shot of the Staffordshire Knot, but it most likely dates from around the time of Matthew's tenure.
Matthew went to the big pub in the sky in 1902 and by 1911 the Knot was being run by Herbert Birch...
...who was still there when Mr. Kelly came a-calling the following year.
In the 1930s Ralph Gilman was at the pub's helm...
...and it turns out that Ralph's daughter Frances married Herbert Birch's son which resulted in Harold returning to his childhood home after three decades.
Three decades later still, in the 1970s, the pub changed its name for a while to Ye Olde Spinning Wheel before reversing the change, and it remained as the Staffordshire Knot until it closed. Since closure planning permission for change of use to a combination of residential, holiday accommodation and a café has been refused. One of the grounds for refusal was:
"The submitted details fail to demonstrate that the public house is no longer required, can no longer be viable or that the facilities offered by the Staffordshire Knott [sic] Inn would be reasonably available elsewhere in the local area."
Quite what the future holds for the Staffordshire Knot we'll just have to wait and see.
Both Sarah Woolley and Mr. Birch jnr. returned to their home and it was now time for us to do the same. On our way we passed the Jolly Carter – sorry, the Manifold Inn. Yes, like the Knot it's had a few name changes but it's still serving – into Hartington before pedalling down the Via Gellia and home. Just before turning off we passed another couple of signs. These ones we could read quite clearly.
A long weekend of traffic chaos awaits and with the festival site only being about a mile and a half away we'll probably get free live music too, provided that the weather allows for open windows. The acts attracted seem to get larger year after year. As do the signs which their names adorn.
What about my signs? Well, I've just been informed that that nice Iraqi doctor is still waiting for some results to come back to him. I won't be seeing him today so I'm off out for another ride before the roads become clogged. I mean, why not?
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Thanks for a great read. Another good pub gone but keeping fingers crossed about the "Quiet Woman".