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Recycled ride to Mr Moos – 35 miles

February 15th 2019

Present: Bob W, Chris E, Chris S, Dave W, Derek, Helen, Jane, John Boddice, Electric John, French

John, Nick, Trevor

It’s an earworm, a song line

that gets stuck in your brain on

repeat. Today for me it was

Lou Reed’s ‘It’s such a perfect

day…’. And it was, for cycling.

Sunny, calm, and weirdly mild

for February. So mild that one

pair of knees were on show

(Derek’s I think), Bodman had

compromised with his crop

trousers and only Tenor Chris

disappointed, sporting a pair of

what looked suspiciously like

proper cycling trousers, his

Lycra Luddite days a thing of

the past on this, his fiftieth ride.

Adidas? someone asked, peering at the logo. No, Didoo. Did you say Dildo? asked another. What do

you expect for nothing? replied Chris, reassuringly. French John gingerly stroked his new beard,

unfamiliar with the feel, and not sure about the image.

We set off to Skipsea, Mr Moos of course, our

destination for this, Dave’s last ride for several

weeks. Passing Leven House, we were all

distracted by a perfect carpet of snowdrops

along the road.

Soon we were into the remoter countryside of

Holderness. A buzzard swooped low over the

road, so close you could see the speckled

markings on its breast.

As we passed Nunkeeling I couldn’t resist

parking up to have a look at the old graveyard

behind the hedge, telling Nick I’d catch up.

Here stands a -derelict church, saved from

demolition by the Bewholme Parish Council in

1985. It was replaced in the 1900s by the two

other churches we passed today: Dunnington

and Bewholme, both of which we’ve managed

to visit on Recycled rides in the past. One of

the graves I photographed bore witness to the

terrible toll of infant mortality in the 19th

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century. A Christopher Staveley had lost seven of his children, including four in infancy.

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I was excited to visit this site, the clue being in the name. Nunkeeling was originally a priory in the

12th century, housing 12 nuns and a prioress. The ruin here today is of a 19th century church, but it is

partly constructed from the stones of the original church next to the priory, which was suppressed

by Henry V111. This was one of the small, poorer priories, the takeover of which by the rapacious

Henry and his top man Thomas Cromwell sparked the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. This was the

biggest rebellion of Tudor times and started in Beverley. It could easily have toppled the Tudors and

changed the course of history had its leaders not been naïve enough to trust the word of the king.

One side of the church incorporates the wall of the adjacent barn, making for a strange and

evocative ruin out here in the back of beyond.

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As I emerged, Dave sailed past heading towards Beverley and I had to shout him to stop. He’d come

looking for me, suspecting a puncture. It just shows how easy it is when you’re concentrating on the

road or in a cycling daydream to miss points of interest. The village of Nunkeeling no longer exists.

It’s just a hamlet of scattered farms.

Dave has threatened a few times to schedule in some stops at points of interest on our routes. This

is a definite one for the future.

At Mr Moos there were a few ice cream indulgences of course. On our table, we talked about

whiskey and wildlife. Nick told us about a pied wagtail that had once nested in his clapped-out old

tractor, fit for nothing but shifting muck once a day from the barn to the muck heap. The wagtail

waited patiently every time its chicks took the trip. Dave wanted to walk down to the beach from the

café but the 10-minute walk was too much for the metal-soled-cycling-shoe diehards among us so

we cycled down to the disappearing road by Skipsea village instead for the inevitable photoshoot.

Some stopped at Bert’s on the way back but I cycled off to photograph the snowdrops.

HK

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Wind turbine Blade negotiating the Swinemoor roundabout encountered by some on our return.