The hostel breakfast appeared poor value at £6.95 so we walked into Clifton for bread, milk, spreads and cereal. The early drizzle had ceased by the time we left along the riverside path as far as the millennium bridge and over the river. The signposting was lacking so we got lost around the university but once back on the route it was excellent and we had no need to refer to the map for the rest of the day.
Soon we were on a delightful track through poppies and fields of wheat, then back onto quiet roads through villages large and small. Part of the former railway line to Hull was marked as a cycle route on the Ordnance Survey map but not on the Sustrans map. It wasn’t really suitable for cycling and the road was quiet so we stuck to the official route.
We arrived in Beverley at 15:30. The YHA hostel is run by volunteers so doesn’t open until 17:00. We locked our bikes in the garden, looked round the town and bought food for the evening. Beverley, with a population of around 30,000, is an ancient market town and county town of the East Riding of Yorkshire. In the evening we visited the White Horse Inn, known as Nellie’s. The pub was originally a coaching inn, records show it existed in 1666 and it is thought to be the town’s second oldest surviving inn after the Sun Inn, which is opposite Beverley Minster. However, The White Horse Inn maintains most of its original features, including gas lights and chandeliers, small individual rooms, rickety stone and wooden floors, and open fires. The pub was owned and run by the Collinson family. Francis Collinson bought the pub from the church in 1927 and her daughter Nellie managed the place until its sale to Samuel Smiths of Tadcaster in 1976.