HERE’S ONE YOU WEREN’T EXPECTING

RATED 4 OUT OF 5 HELMETS

Skirrid Inn

Llanvihangel Crucorney, Abergavenny

Wales NP7 8DH

(just off the A465)

T: 01873 890258

THIS IS ALL TRUE: I rock up to the Skirrid Inn just after midday on a freezing Monday. Storm Eunice is raging in from the Atlantic with a steady snort of 70km/h gusting to 100. It’s extreme. The pub’s named after the hill across the fields that, legion has it, was cloven apart by a lightning bolt way back before Mt Ararat hit the news.

And it don’t open till 5.30pm. Damn. Researched everything except opening times.

So, I check the map – yes, a paper atlas – and head north as the rain lashes under a wind that would blow a black dog off a metal chain. The backroads, the hedgerows, are narrow one lane challenges where visibility is mostly less than 50 metres with slim pullover zones every 200 metres