The Wellington, Riding Mill

Oct 18 2009 Sunday Sun

TELEPHONE: 01434 682531.

FOOD SERVED: 11.30am until 5pm on Sunday.

IT was a crisp, bright and sunny autumn day . . . perfect for a drive out, a walk in the country and, of course, a scrumptious Sunday lunch.

So, off we set in the trusty Eatsmobile to Riding Mill in Tynedale . . . and The Wellington pub.

Local folklore has it that The Wellington – built in 1660 as Riding House, a home for Newcastle’s postmaster general Thomas Errington – was a meeting place for a witches’ coven.

The story about local witch hunter Ann Armstrong, who wrongly accused three village women of being witches and was later found hanging in the scullery of Riding House, is told on blackboards in the pub.

Mrs E was fascinated and desperate to find out more, but locals drinking at the bar were keen to pour scorn on the whole affair. “It’s not true, you know,” they told us.

This didn’t go down well with Mrs E, who was keen to pursue her research, but soon all musings about witches were replaced by thoughts of grub as she turned her attention to the extensive menu.

I was more than happy to settle back with my pint of Bombardier and take my time over my selection, so I turned away the waitress who approached to take our order. This turned out to be a mistake as the pub soon filled up with other diners and it was another 15 minutes before we could attract her attention again.

Having done so, we ordered our starters . . . chicken liver parfait at £4.55 for Mrs E, while I plumped for the cherry tomato bruschetta at £2.99.

After a short wait, they arrived. Mine was delicious and just the right size to leave room for the enormous Sunday roast that followed.

But Mrs E was slightly disappointed with her offering. The pate and marmalade chutney were very good but came with three small and very tough pieces of toasted French bread . . . not enough to use up all the pate and very hard to chew.

Pleasingly, there was much better to come with the main event. I opted for a roast beef dinner at £8.95 while Mrs E chose pork at £6.95.

Both came with huge portions of succulent meat, a giant Yorkshire pudding, roast and mashed potatoes, carrots, peas and cauliflower, and lashings of gravy.

We were well satisfied but, as usual, she had her eye on the sweet menu, which included all the old favourites. She settled on chocolate fudge cake with ice cream but I decided to take my chance on there being some cake left to share . . . a remote chance, admittedly, which got more and more remote as time passed and no pud arrived.

After about 10 minutes we did question the whereabouts of the missing cake and were told by our very friendly and helpful waitress that it was in the queue.

Our cause wasn’t helped by an influx of mods on scooters . . . about 50 of them. Most settled in the large beer garden with a drink, but a handful ordered Sunday roasts and joined the food queue.

Mrs E struck up a conversation with the group at the next table and learned they had travelled from Newcastle on a charity ride for a friend suffering from cancer.

They were a friendly, happy crowd and didn’t complain at all about the lengthy wait for their grub, even though they only had a short stop scheduled. We, on the other hand, were getting rather impatient as more than 20 minutes had passed since we ordered our pud and the chance of me getting to share were now worse than nil.

At this point, our waitress noticed we still hadn’t been served and said she would personally go to get it and make sure we weren’t billed for it.

True to her word, the pud duly arrived and, so I am told, was absolutely delicious. The cake was soft with lots of gooey chocolate sauce heated to perfection. It didn’t touch the sides and, as predicted, not a crumb was left for me.

All in all, it took well over two hours for us to be fed . . . rather longer than I had planned and cutting short our trip to Hexham just a couple of miles up the road. Nevertheless, it was a very happy outing. The food was mostly excellent, the service warm and friendly and Mrs E had a history lesson and a chance to make new friends.