Ruined abbey off .(Creake Abbey Cafe ,North Creake)

Creake Abbey Café,

North Creake,

Open Every day 08:30-17:00,

 Highly Recommended

It had been a while since I had been on a ride with Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please). This maybe because it had been his turn to organise the next ride from his base in Alysham and organising things is not his specialist subject. To help the process along I had sent him details of 3 potential cafe destinations that had been recommended to me. This approach would also mean that we didn't end up going to Holt again. To add to the tension I asked him not to tell me which one he had picked so it would be a surprise which he could unveil to me on my arrival. 

As you can imagine I was very excited as I drove up to his house from race HQ, it was a bit like Christmas when you are not sure what present you are getting but expecting it will be good. As I got out the car Andrew informed me had had chosen to take us to Creake Abbey Cafe at North Creake. With the first bit of excitement over I hoped it would not be like the next bit of Christmas when you eventually get to open your presents and find they are not good but socks. It would be a 60 mile ride but I was sure it would be worth it and Creak Abbey cafe at Notrth Creake would not be the Christmas socks of cafes.

As usual Andrew was going to navigate us in the old school way using a map rather than a cycle GPS. He had carefully marked the route using a purple highlighter pen on a tatty photocopied map. Unfortunately Andrew appears to have a very short memory issue because once we were out of familiar territory he had to refer to the map at each junction as he could only remember one turn at a time, I think it is an age thing, so the ride took longer than planned.

Old school route leading

On way to Creake Abbey we went past another ruined Abbey at Binham. I had been forced to visit Binham Abbey on a previous ride when Andrew when he had insisted we stop and have a look round. I couldn't see the point as clearly most of it had fallen down and there was no cafe. However today I was more interested because Creake Abbey is also a ruin which meant we could have a ruined Abbey off plus I could start a new spreadsheet putting my favourite ruined Abbey's in order of best to worst. 

Binham Abbey which has mostly fallen down apart from the big bit in the middle which hasn't

When we arrived at Creake Abbey we first went to the Cafe and retail area deciding to leave the excitement of my first ruined abbey off until after lunch.

Outside Creake Abbey cafe and food hall

Creake Abbey cafe is next to Creake Abbey food hall which is like a very posh Waitrose. It has a nice outside seating area but as it was rather windy we decided to sit in the spacious and light indoor seating area. I was pleased to see we had also helped to bring the average age of the punters down by a considerable margin (and we are no spring chickens).

Large light inside seating area with added art on the walls

First it was over to check out the cakes and award the effective cake selection (ECS) rating. It was both a large and interesting selection so I awarded a high ECS score.

Very good cake selection

We sat down and prepared to order. I went for hot chocolate, ginger cake and a cheese scone (as part of my cheese scone serving temperature research). Andrew went for a cappuccino and fruit cake.

As it was lunch time we both ordered a cheese sandwich. I had been attracted to it as it came with chilli jam, which I'm particularly fond of. Andrew is not only notoriously hard to please but exceptionally bad at make decisions. Therefore he just copied me and asked for the cheese sandwich as well, however he than asked the waitress if he could be tempted by an alternative to chilli jam as he doesn't like it. She thought for a moment and then suggested they could add a nice chutney. A good offer I thought but Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) declined the offer and said he would have it plain.

After the waitress had gone I asked him what he was hoping to be offered instead of chilli jam and he said salad. "If you knew what you wanted, why didn't you just ask for some salad rather than try and make the poor waitress guess", I asked.  Apparently he could have but felt that part of the waitress role is to understand and anticipate the customer's needs and he would rather forgo the salad than let her off the hook. When the cheese sandwiches turned up they came with salad and coleslaw garnish anyway. Maybe his customer needs had been fully anticipated and understood after all or maybe they just came with salad.

Cakes, drinks and scone.

It was time to review the cakes and drinks. Both our drinks were nice but not quite strong enough for really top marks. The cheese scone was properly warmed but again need to be a little cheesier for my tastes. However Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) thought his fruit cake was excellent and my ginger cake was an absolute triumph so good scores all round.

All in all Creake Abbey cafe was an excellent stop and gets my top 'highly recommended' rating just missing out on a place in my coveted top 10 list. It was more a useful new cycling gadget type of christmas present rather than socks.

The excitement wasn't over yet as it was now off to see Creake Abbey ruins to see who would win the ruined Abbey off. 

Creake Abbey ruins. Small but symmetrical

I thought they were excellent ruins as they were nicely symmetrical and had a good amount of wall left. This compared to Binham which was a lot of low wall but a big bit still in tact.

I felt neither ruin was worth a special visit but Creake had the advantage of a cafe and was more pleasing visually so is now top of my best ruined Abbey's in Norfolk spreadsheet. I'm planning a trip to Castle Acre soon as I remember the ruined Abbey there being quite good and could be a contender.

We set off back to Alysham and, due to lack knowledge, had absolutely no further ruined Abbey chat, instead Andrew ranted about the difference between a salad garnish and salad accompaniment.

Scores based on two visits

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.5	6.75	8.25	8.0	8.25	7.55

Route from Alysham to North Creake and back  was a very good one.

click here to download 57 mile Alysham North Creake gpx file for your gps

Painters trail (3 cafes on Suffolk Essex boarder)

Painters Trail,

Fountain House Tea room (East Bergholt),

Mon-Fri 9:30-16:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-16:00,

Huffers of Sudbury (Sudbury),

Mon-Sat 8:00-17:00, Sun 10:00-16:00,

Hall Farm Cafe (Stratford St Mary),

Everyday 10:00-16:00, 

A few years ago, following the advice of Big George (who had done the same), I had taken my family on a two day ride around part of the Painters Trail on the Essex Suffolk Boarder. We both remembered it being a good route but felt we needed to complete the whole thing. It is 70 miles and fairly hilly making it excellent ironman training (Did I mention I was doing an Ironman triathlon). It would also give me a chance to do some cafe cycle reviewing in a different part of the country. In fact I don't even own enough boxes for this ride to tick so yesterday myself and Big George loaded our bikes on to the 8:30 to Manningtree and set off to the start of the Painters Trail.

Train arriving at Manningtree station for start of ride

As usual there was a deadline as I needed to catch the 5:12 train back to Norwich, at the latest, so I could get back in time for my swimming session. If we kept a decent pace and had no problems we should make it easily. 

Things didn't start well as doing some last minute research on the train on the way down I discovered the Painters Trail no longer existed as a sign posted route and the map and information pamphlet I had got hold of were from 2004 so all the information was out of date. A lot of the information was about famous artists who had painter there, fortunately all of them are dead now so facts about them would still be correct. I hoped the same would be true of the roads.

Last minute research using out of date information

I very much blamed the out of date information pamphlet (OODIP) and lack of signs when explaining to Big George why I had blindly followed the route on my cycle GPS out of the station and in the wrong direction. It was about a mile before I had realised my mistake after which we had had to return to the station to start again. Our first chunk of contingency had now been used up and we had got exactly nowhere, other than going the extra mile, which I'm told is always a good thing.

When we did set off the correct way it wasn't far to the first planned stop, as recommended by the OODIP, which would be at Flatford Mill. This is where John Constable (famous artist) painted some well known pictures of fields. According to my OODIP it took him many hours to paint each one. Nowadays you can do this sort of thing in seconds with a phone camera, see below, and I think my one looks more realistic, especially the cows.

Painting I did at Flatford mill with my phone camera.
 It is like the one's Constable and Gainsborough used to do but with more realistic cows.

To complete the hatrick of early issues we discovered that the National Trust tearoom at Flatford Mill was not open for another half hour. We obviously couldn't afford to wait that long as we won't get back in time for the 5:12 train. This was a shame as on hearing about my trip to the area the NT tearoom at Flatford Mill had tweeted me suggesting I visit them.

FlatfordNT ‏@FlatfordNT  May 15

@Cafecycletour calling in at Flatford? Rhubarb and ginger scones are in the oven..

We still wanted to have an early cafe cycle review so I asked a passing National Trust Lady if there were any more tearooms near by. She claimed there were none in the direction we were going and tried to engage us in chit-chat. She was clearly trying to keep us there until the Flatford Mill NT tearoom opened and the rhubarb and ginger scones were out of the oven. Big George was getting sucked into her trap but I insisted we push on and thanked her for her help. We slowly cycled back up the hill to the village disappointed that the first cafe cycle review was not now going to happen and that we were missing out on rhubarb and ginger scones (are they really a thing?)

We were therefore surprised that when we got to the top of the hill we came face to face with the fountain house tearoom in East Bergholt not 2 minutes away. Nice try National Trust Lady I thought.

There was nothing about Fountain house tea room in my OODIP but you can't go wrong with a pink cafe so we went inside as sadly there was no outside seating area. We sat in the window which had a nice view of the village.

I checked out the cake selection which had a solid choice of the usual cake suspects so I awarded a solid effective cake selection (ECS) rating and ordered carrot cake. Big George ordered a toasted tea cake. Although a toasted tea cake has the word cake in it it is clearly not a cake but a fruit bread so Big George would take no further part in any cake based reviewing at the fountain house tea room.

Good solid and nicely presented cake selection

While we waited for our cakes and drinks to arrive we decided to share our knowledge of the great British landscape painters of the 18th century. Fortunately the refreshments arrived soon after as the silence was getting embarrassing.

Drinks and cakes at the Fontain tea room

Both my hot chocolate and Big George's filter coffee were nice drinks and kept up the very solid performance of the fountain house tearoom. The carrot cake was also very nice, moist and nicely iced so scored well in the cake taste quality (CTQ) ratings.

If ever there was a tearoom, or cafe, to use as a benchmark to compare others against then the Fountain House tea room would be it as it did everything really well but without being exceptional. It was a very good first stop and we could have stayed longer discussing Art but there were still many miles and adventures to be had so we paid up and remounted.

The next section turned out to be extremely hilly with no respite between getting to the bottom of one hill before having to start to climb up again. Many of the climbs also had false finishes where you thought you had reached the top only to round the corner and find there was still plenty more up to do. However there were some great views to reward your efforts.

It was interesting to note the amount of radio masts there were on the horizon. Presumably making use of the hills. It was clear that Constable was not good at painting radio masts as he appeared to have missed them out of all of his paintings. This made me question the accuracy of any of his work as I also don't remember seeing a single hay wagon (or wain as he liked to call them) on our ride and he painted lots of them.

Some of the many radio masts we saw.
If Constable had taken this photo he probably would have photo shopped
 them out and added a hay wagon instead.

Due to the mountainous terrain we were ready for our second stop at the halfway point in Sudbury.

Outsider Huffers of Sudbury

As it was directly on the route and had a good name we choose to stop at Huffers of Sudbury in Sudbury. Again no outside seating area. We choose a table in the busy indoor seating area which had views of the Sudbury one way system.

I checked out the cake selection which was rather small but still contained the cake trinity of Victoria, carrot and chocolate so I awarded a reasonable ECS rating.

Small selection but did included all the cake classics

I went for Victoria sponge and Big George choose lasagne. Clearly lasagne is not cake so once again Big George disqualified himself from exciting cake reviewing action here.

Drinks and cake

Both our drinks were very good but unfortunately the Victoria sponge had seen better days and was a bit dry with a disappointing filling. I'm afraid Big George was not keen on his lasagne either. This maybe because, as he confessed afterwards, he doesn't actually like lasagne and only had it as it was pasta which he thought you needed to eat on a long bike ride. This led to today's cycling guest cycling top tip.

Cycling guest cycling top tip no 29. For a bonk free experience on long cycle rides regularly eat cake to keep up your energy levels.

Before leaving I noticed that Huffers of Sudbury operated a loyalty card scheme. Although I'm unlikely to return on another 8 occasions in order to claim my free drink, I did take a card (and get it stamped) to add to my loyalty card picture library on the blog.

We were a little behind schedule so if we were going to make the 5:12 train target it was time to get going again. It would also be interesting to see if pasta or cake would perform better on the second half of the ride. 

As we saw more and more paint-able countryside I was inspired to come up with an idea for a new sport. It would be a cycling art mash up called pycling. The idea would be to race on your bikes through some attractive country side whilst you painted a landscape scene of the route. The winner would not necessarily be the first to finish but added time bonuses would be awarded based on the quality of your painting. I pitched my idea to Big George and he soon came back with an imaginative idea about where I could stick the easel. 

The sort of scene you would need to paint in the new mash up sport of pycling

The next part of the ride had far less hills but a few stepper ones and some off road sections.  At one point it combined both aspects at the aptly named sandy hill. This is where we discovered cake was the winner in the battle of cycling food. I know this as when I reached the summit I looked round to see Big George had got off and was pushing his bike. When he eventually caught me up I questioned him on this cycling faux pas but rather than blame the lasagne he claimed he had had a mechanical (flat tyre, chain off etc) and therefore had had to get off. I felt guilty, for a moment, about doubting him until it transpired that this 'mechanical' turned out to be that he had overheated as he had over layered in the sun and had had to take a top off to cool down. I pointed out that traditionally a mechanical was when the bike not the rider had broken and we cycled on in silence for a bit.

Big George finally making it to the top of Sandy Hill.
Fortunately I had a copy of War and Peace with me which I was able to complete while I waited

We were now well behind schedule and when we were further slowed down by roadworks and newly shingled roads, the 5:12 train looked like it would be out of our reach. In fact when we arrived at our final planned stop, Hall Farm cafe at Stratford St Mary, we only had 45 minutes to do a cafe cycle review and ride the final 6.5 miles to Mainingtree station. It was clear that to have any chance of making it that Big George would need some cake to recharge his batteries, so we went ahead with the stop.

Outside Hall Farm cafe

Hall farm cafe did have an outside seating courtyard but due to the urgency of the situation we didn't have time to check it out and sat down by the door ready for a quick get away.

I checked out the cakes and there was a good selection so I awarded a good ECS score. I had already had Carrot and Victoria today so it was time for chocolate. Big George decided he would have a scone, jam and cream to properly fuel up.

Good cake selection

With time pressing it was just our luck that the cake and scone were enormous and the drinks scolding hot. Both normally a good thing but not in today's high pressure circumstances.

Enormous cake and scone plus scolding hot drinks

My drink was not only very hot but didn't really taste of chocolate at all. Big George thought his filter coffee was reasonably good but again too hot to drink quickly. The scone with jam and cream was a winner but I didn't have time to work my way through all the cake as it was a bit rich to eat really quickly. As time was now really pressing we left half the cakes and drinks before throwing some money for the bill at the waitress and rushing back to our bikes. I think the staff looked a little bemused by our formula one style super fast pit stop as judging by the rest of the customers they normally have more trouble getting people to stop nattering and leave rather than stay. I too would have liked to have spent more time at Hall farm cafe and sampled it's rather nice looking outdoor seating courtyard area and view over a relaxing afternoon tea but needs must.

It was now heads down and flat out pedalling as we dashed across Essex, or possibly Suffolk (no time to check the OODIP), towards Manningtree station. Fortunately there were only a couple of hills on this stretch so we could keep up our frantic pace, sadly there was no time to enjoy the final dramatic views.

As we passed the Mainingtree town signs we only had 5 minutes left so a final surge was required to the station. On arrival we cycled through the entrance and straight down the platform. We had made it with 2 minutes to spare. We started to relax and congratulate ourselves. Big George said that it didn't seem long ago we were standing in this very spot getting our bikes off the train. As he said it we both turned pale as we knew what this meant, we were on the wrong platform. There was only one thing to do, panic. We started to rush about aimlessly searching for the way across to the other platform. We eventually stumbled across an under pass and run under the track to the other side. When we got there it was now 5:13 but today the god's of cycling (and art) were on our side as we were informed the train was running two minutes late and we had made it. 

Bikes safely on 5:12 train from Mainingtree

The Painters trail had been an excellent ride and 3 new cafes had been added to my list. However I'm not surprised it is no longer a recognised route and that you can no longer get the OODIP as it has a number of busy roads to cross. However if you want to go on a hilly ride, enjoy some great scenery, visit some nice cafes and have a go at pycling then it is well worth a visit. You can down load the route at the bottom of the post.

Scores
Fountain House Tea Room

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.5	6.5	6.5	8.0	7.0	6.90

Huffers of Sudbury

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.0	7.0	5.5	5.5	6.5	6.30

Hall Farm

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
4.0	6.0	7.5	7.5	6.0	6.20

Route

Click here to download 70 mile painters trail gpx file for your gps

Annoying squeak. (Ravenous cafe, Raveningham)

Ravenous Cafe,

Raveningham Centre, Raveningham,

Open Wed-Sun 10:00-17:00,

 Recommended

After exercising my democratic right by staying up to watch the election results, I had to delay the start of Friday's planned cafe cycle ride while myself, and today's cycling guest Big George, had a lie in (but not in the same bed!).

When Big George did eventually turn up he once again informed me of a time constraint which would mean we would have to pedal pretty hard to make it round my planned route in time for his appointment. We would we heading to Raveningham near Hales near Loddon but as we went to Loddon on our last ride I decided to take a longer route round to mix things up a bit. I decided not to tell Big George in case it made him nervous in making his appointment, but once I have a route planned there is no shifting me.

We set off and busily got down to the business of discussing the election. This consisted of quoting what the experts and politicians had said on TV the night before and pretending they were our own in depth analysis and views. I like to think that it sounded like we knew what we were talking about when clearly we didn't. This kept as amused for many miles and time flew by on our way to the Ravenous cafe at the Raveningham centre.

The only issue on the way was that my bike started to squeak like a door badly in need of oil. I have had a similar problem on other bikes which led to today's cycling guest cycling top tip.

Cycling guest cycling top tip no 28. If you bike squeaks like a rusty door than it is probably, and surprisingly, your saddle post that needs lubricating.

We easily found the Ravenous cafe at the Raveningham centre where, as well as the cafe, there are some other interesting looking units including a kite maker.

At Ravenous cafe in cluttered outside eating yard area

Big George immediately announced he like the look of the Ravenous cafe.  I wasn't quite as keen as one man's rustic charm is another man's tidy up the front drive project, as it looked to me like the outdoor seating yard area could do with a bit of a de clutter and lick of paint. 

Big George enjoying rustic charm
while I wanted to know what the random table behind us was for

Inside there was a welcoming looking, and consistently cluttered, indoor seating area. For some reason the owner had got the walls and floors confused as they had hung rugs where you would have expected wallpaper to be. After much debate I awarded a high (but not as high as Big George wanted) atmosphere and Ambiance (AAA) score.

Inside where rugs had been mistaken for wall paper

Also inside was the cake selection. It was one of the smaller selections but there were several I really like the look of it making it very effective and therefore getting a decent effective cake selection (ECS) rating.

Cake selection in dark area near light window making photographing difficult

I went for a baked cheese cake and big George the coffee cake. As we hadn't had any lunch we both also had a sausage roll although as these were not cake they played no part in the overall cycle cafe ratings. However the sausage rolls were very good and Big George even said it was the second best sausage roll he had but was unable to produce a spreadsheet or any other empirical evidence to back up his claim. (see black Friday for best sausage roll, apparently).

We sat outside in the outdoor seating yard area so we could enjoy the sunshine and I could start planning how I would go about tidying it up. It was not long before our food and drink arrived. My hot chocolate looked very interesting and was a nice drink. Big George also enjoyed his cup of l filter coffee commenting on it's excellent flavour.

Drinks and food

On the cake front we had the same difference of opinion as with the AAA. My baked cheese cake was excellent and one of the best cakes I have had this year. However Big George found his coffee cake a bit dry which pulled down the overall cake taste quality (CTQ) score.

We both very much enjoyed the Ravenous cafe at the Raveningham centre and I recommend a visit, It is certainly a venue I will be taking one of my group sportive rides to in the future.

On the way back I once again took us an unusual way to mix things up a bit but we both agreed it was a very good route and thanks to a high average speed plus helping wind we made it back in plenty of time for Big George's appointment. The only problem was that my squeaky bike was impacting on our enjoyment of the peaceful countryside. Therefore as soon as I got home I followed cycling guest cycling top tip no 28 and greased my pole.

Scores based on last 3 visits of many. Last visit April2022

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.33	6.67	7	7.42	7.5	6.98

Route

Click here to down load 45 mile Norwich Raveningham loop GPX file for your GPS

Gridlock (Granary Cafe, Ranworth Broad)

Granary Cafe,

Ranworth Broad,

Open Every day 10:00-17:00 (Easter – October)

As it was such a lovely sunny bank holiday Monday, and we don't get many, I thought the opportunity could not be wasted to get out for a quick cafe cycle ride. I managed to rustle up Barry And Helen and their Tandem to be my cycling guests. It was the first time I had been on a ride with Helen and their tandem since she had her second bionic knee fitted so I was therefore excite to see it in action. It would also be the first time I had seen Barry since we lost him on the last sportive as he had set off in the wrong direction trying to make sure he made it back in time for an urgent haircut. I was therefore excited to see the urgent haircut in action. (see sportive 12) 

As Barry and Helen and their Tandem live North of the river (Yare) we met on the North of the city. Disappointingly on arrival I saw that Barry had his cycle helmet on so it would be a little while until I could see how his urgent haircut would perform.

As it was such a lovely sunny bank holiday Monday a lot of other people had also thought it was a good day to get out into the country and Norfolk was packed, leading to today's cycling guest top cycling tip.

Cycling guest cycling top tip no 27. If you want to get into the country side on a lovely sunny bank holiday Monday then get all the benefits of going on a bicycle rather than clog up the little lanes of Norfolk with cars.

Norfolk was full with every available parking space taken.
Why oh why wont more people come out on their bikes

Dodging all the traffic we made our way out to to Ranworth Broad and the Granary cafe, part of the Ranworth Broad marina complex.

Ranworth Broad Marina

We parked our bikes while inwardly laughing at the cars not able to get in the car park (see Cycling guest cycling top tip No 27). Not surprisingly the Granary Cafe was very busy and there was standing room only in the outside seating area

Outside Granary cafe by the packed outdoor seating area

While Helen tried to secure some seating I went with Barry to check out the cake selection. There had clearly been a rush on cakes as there were only a few slices of 5 different cakes left. Unfortunately there were no cheese scones, only fruit ones. I awarded an appropriate effective cakes selection (ECS) rating and ordered some apple cake.

The last bits of a good cake selection

Barry ordered a sausage roll and a toasted tea cake for Helen. Their tandem didn't order any cake as it is a bicycle. A sausage roll is clearly not cake and although a tea cake has the word cake in it it is also clearly not a cake either but a fruit bread. Therefore Barry and Helen and their tandem would play no further part in any cake reviewing this day.

For drinks, as well as my hot chocolate, Barry ordered a cappuccino and Helen a Mocha. As myself and Barry carried the drinks and food outside it was clear Helen had made little effort to secure a table and was sitting on the wall. I had to step in and demonstrate my table securing skills by sitting down on an occupied table, where people had finished their drinks, and made as if I was about to engage them in mindless conversation. The thought of having to chat to the local cycling nutter obviously scared them off and the table was ours.

Drinks being carried through the packed outdoor seating area
 with Barry's urgent haircut performing well under pressure

My apple cake was nice but my hot chocolate was not the best as it wasn't a very chocolatey taste. Barry and Helen were not to keen on their coffee based drinks either as they lacked a good coffee flavour.

Drinks and cakes on recently secured table

It was very relaxing sitting at the marina watching the yachts on the broad and people failing to get parking or table space. The Granary is certainly a nice spot to chill out which we did for a while.

We eventually left for home and I was very impressed with Helen's bionic knees which helped power their tandem back to Norwich in record time, or it might have been because of Barry's excellent urgent haircut.
.
Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
5.5	5.0	6.5	6.5	7.0	6.10

Route

Route

click here to down load 36 mile norwich south walsham loop gpx file for your gps