South West Midlands – Monthly Drive – Paul & Pamela Howe

Sunday September 22nd            Paul & Pam

• Drive Route (PDF Format): DriveSeptember2024.pdf
• Drive Route (Word Doc): DriveSeptember2024.doc
• TomTom Itinerary: OCSeptember2024TomtomMap.itn
• Newer TomTom Itinerary: OCSeptember2024TomtomMap.gpx
• Garmin Itinerary: OCSeptember2024HereMap.gpx

click the map icon for a larger map

Note:

• WE ARE PARKING ON THE STREET NOT IN THE PUB CAR PARK (see diagram at end of the route instructions document)
• The plan is to have Coffee / Cake / Lunch at The Charlecote Garden Centre on arrival between 13:00 to 13:15
• WE ARE PARKING IN THE NATIONAL TRUST CAR PARK NEXT DOOR, NOT THE GARDEN CENTRE (see diagram at end of the route instructions document)
• Charlecote Park (National Trust) is across the road from Charlecote Garden Centre

The Queen Elizabeth Inn is a community run pub and so we need to know how many people will be coming on the drive / requiring breakfast so that they can ensure that they have the right amount of staff on duty.

We are breaking with tradition in so far as there is only one part to our drive and we will have coffee / cake on arrival at the Garden Centre which is opposite our end destination.

We start in the village of Elmley Castle, near Pershore at The Queen Elizabeth Inn at 09:30. We will not be parking in the pub car park (which is small and bumpy). Instead we plan to line the cars up on the road up by the church which is a very short distance away.

The pub is dual purposed as it has its own tea room serving breakfast, coffee and cake.

Breakfast options include bacon or sausage baps and a full English breakfast (there is a smaller version of the full breakfast available). We’ve tried all of them in the interest of research and they are all good, substantial and value for money. For those that would prefer cake then that is available too. The pub is dog friendly so four legged friends welcome.
Here is a link to the breakfast menu:
Bessies-Cafe-Menu-2024-03-01-without-sc.pdf

We then drive to the National Trust at Charlecote Park (departing at 10:45, briefing at 10:30). When we arrive at Charlecote we will be parking in the National Trust car park which is free of charge. If there is no space in the main car park then they will be lining us up in the overflow car park. An attendant will be on duty. We then walk a few feet next door to the Charlecote Garden Centre (which is the same chain as the Garden Centre at Burford House) and again dog friendly.
Again so they can make sure they have the right amount of staff on and space reserved for us, as well as wanting to know roughly how many people are coming, if anyone wants lunch as opposed to just coffee and cake then they require pre-orders.
Here is a link to the menu:
2024-GR-Menu-NO-PRICES.pdf

NB. No pre-orders required for coffee and cake. Can we have any Lunch pre-orders please by 14 September.

After lunch / coffee and cake, we walk a few feet over the road to Charlecote Park which is our end destination. Prices for non NT members are as follows;

Here is a link to Charlecote Park:
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/warwickshire/charlecote-park

If anyone is interested then happy to book a pub late afternoon for the way home. We were thinking of the Blue Boar Inn at Temple Grafton. Menu is here: https://theblueboar.co.uk/menus
However we would need an idea of numbers in order to book a table.