Quiet road

Today we went to The Wilding Hotel in Brough for Sunday lunch (we do miss The Bridge Bistro!). It was very good and may become a new favourite. But this photo is not of the Hotel, I was standing outside to take a photo of the Market Cross and the main road - the road is important.

Brough is an old village near Kirkby Stephen and is in two parts - Church Brough we know very well as it has a castle, the one which is a noticeable landmark from the A66 and is a place the children have loved, especially as it has an ice cream café onsite! It is a good starting point for local walks and there is a Goldsworthy pinfold in the school grounds.

Market Brough is basically a Main Street lined with houses. It does have a market charter as evidenced by the market cross. The street used to be the A66, so all the traffic came through here and has done since Roman times. Hence there are several coaching inns along the way. The Wilding Hotel was such a coaching inn and is over 300 years old. It has been beautifully restored and refurbished.

Church Brough and Market Brough have always been divided but now they are physically divided by the A66 bypass which runs above the village, to get from one part to the other you have to go under the A66. But it does mean that this main street is no longer the busy through road that it once was.