On Sunday 13th October at 8.30am sharp, 18 cyclists braved the weather and took to the country roads that link our six wonderful pubs. They left from the Church Inn in Mobberley after registration.
With all the rain we did think we would have a poor showing, but to get 18 cyclists was amazing! In front of them was a one hundred mile challenge, taking them in to Staffordshire, to our Fitzherbert Arms pub via our Cholmondeley Arms and Three Greyhounds Inn before returning to Mobberley to pick off the Roebck Inn and Bulls Head. With the rain falling it was a gruelling, yet rewarding trip. Every rider had to collect a tiddlywink at each pub until they had the six. A Burger and a pint or three were waiting!!
Everyone completed the Cheshire Cat 6 other than three who missed out the Fitzherbert Arms, but did do the ‘Cheshire 5’ instead. The photos tell the story of how delighted everyone was to have risen to the challenge.
All the riders arrived back safely to the Bulls Head in Mobberley with the exception of three riders who had started at the Fitzherbert Arms and circled round to finish there rather than the Bulls Head.
All enjoyed a drink and a burger ‘on the house’ before they took part in (Cheshire Cat owner) Tim’s cycling ‘Tim-bola’ which raised a few more pounds for our company charity ‘Action Against Hunger’. On the day we raised £315.00 for the charity! Which is a really great result. Despite the weather, the cyclists loved it and most importantly loved our pubs!!
We would like to thank cycling enthusiast Sam, from our bank HSBC, for supporting the event and for supplying the British Cycling Jerseys and books as prizes in the ‘Tim-bola’.
Bigger thanks have to go to Adam from our wine merchants Boutinot. Adam is a very keen cyclist too and made all the arrangements for the event with the help of Tim and the pubs too. Adam also helped with the wines for the ‘Tim-bola’ and cycled the 100 miles for good measure!
This is the first time we have held the ‘Safari’ and it will now be an annual feature on the Cheshire Cat calendar! Thank you to all the cyclists who took part, including Rory who travelled from London to have a go!
See you all next year!
Award-winning country pub, The Cholmondeley Arms, near Malpas in Cheshire, has been awarded the prestigious title of ‘Gin Pub of the Year 2020’ by The Good Pub Guide. The award category, introduced for the very first time last year, was added to recognise the increasing number of pubs now stocking an impressive selection of gins. This is the second year running that the Cholmondeley Arms has been chosen for this award.
With its staggering collection of more than 400 gins, it’s amazing Gin and Music Festival held annually in July and its Gin Tasting Classes, the Cholmondeley Arms showed the consistency and innovation to keep the award a second year! The award recognised the Cholmondeley’s 8-year focus on gin, before the renaissance really began too. The award also comes in the very month of the eighth anniversary of owners Tim Bird and Mary McLaughlin’s re-opening of the pub after its restoration to what you see today.
Tim Moody, General Manager of the Cholmondeley Arms, comments: “We’re proud and delighted to have been awarded the title of ‘Gin Pub of the Year for 2020’. Gin has always been our favourite tipple and being recognised with such a prestigious award for the second year running is a real boost for the whole team who have worked so hard to bring ‘Gin to the Inn’ here at the ‘Chum’. I’d like to say a big thank you to our excellent team and also to our loyal ‘gin loving’ customers – we couldn’t have done it without you all.”
Car Meet 18 at Cholmondeley was up against Oulton Park with a Morgan race day plus another big car event at Capesthorne Hall, but nevertheless we had a good day, with over 40 cars ‘hitting the pits’ at Cholmondeley on a beautiful August Bank Holiday Sunday. So thank you to all the cars that turned up. The ‘Cars of the Day’ were Michael with his 1961 Austen Healey (Frog Eye version), Michael and Sue with their Jaguar S Type and Dave with his MGC Roadster which has been in the same family since new. Thank you to everyone for making our penultimate Car Meet another great success. See you at final meet of the season on Sunday 29th September 2019 once again at the Cholmondeley Arms and I will try and fix the weather for the final time!!.
Car Meet 17 had to be moved because of the weather to Sunday just gone as we welcomed over 60 cars at least to another great meet here at the Cholmondeley Arms. We recruited quite a number of new members and there was great banter amongst the ‘regular’ drivers who all enjoyed a good morning talking cars and admiring the cars of others. It was dry and warm and we got a great mix cars too. The Cars of the Day were Pete and young John with their beautiful Jaguar XK 140, Rob and his immaculate Volvo 1800s from 1968, Paul and Jackie in their Vintage Rolls Royce 2025 with a ‘Park Ward’ body from 1935 and ‘Best in Class went to Nigel and his 1955 TR2 all pictured below with all the cars and one motor cycle that attended the meet.
Thanks for supporting the day and apologies I was a little late!
Last weekend was another fantastic festival of gin, with a record-breaking weekend, bigger and better than previous years!
Crowds came to spend their weekend at the Cholmondeley Arms, sipping different gins from the outside bar, camping, enjoying our barbecue and delicious stone baked pizzas and dancing the night away to a great line-up of live music all weekend. New this year was our Cholmondeley Street Food, which included homemade spring rolls, lamb koftas and halloumi flatbreads.
A big thank you goes out to all the distillers who sponsored Gin Fest, including Brockmans, Spirit of George, Warner’s, Sipsmith, Peurto De Indias, Langley’s, Foxhole, Henners, Edinburgh, Weetwood, The English Drinks Company, Lime Bay, Chase, Taplin and Mageean and, of course, Fever Tree Tonic. Thank you for being a part of Gin Fest 2019.
Another HUGE thank you goes out to all our customers and to all our staff for their hard work!
This past weekend has been a true ‘GIN’spiration of what’s to come! We hope to see you all at Gin Fest 2020!
This year we are honoured to have, not just one, but two pubs at Tom Kerridge’s Pub in the Park! The Cholmondeley Arms have joined the Church Inn this year and both teams will cook side by side. Not quite ‘when two tribes go to war’ but there will certainly be some friendly competition for sure.
hurch Inn Head chef Richard….Pub Chef of the Year, of course, is leading his team versus Andy, our Cholmondeley Arms Head chef… they are joined by other chefs from our pubs with landlords Simon and Tim of course. Jess will be trying to keep them all under control and Dan is back to help both camps keep up with prep and washing up!
The photo shows every one with Tom Kerridge just before the big opening at the Lambing Shed in Knutsford!
We look forward to a great weekend! See you all soon!
Crikey what a car meet!! Over 100 cars! Apologies to those drivers that struggled to get in to the event. It was a fantastic day and despite an early shower as I arrived at Cholmondeley it cleared up and became a lovely day for it! Thank you so much to all those that attended…and we were able to give out the Car Club ‘passports’ for the first time….thank you to Dave from the Fitz Car Club for the idea… on the day…. Our ‘Car of the Day’ was the classic Volvo pictured. The classic little Red Renault ‘van’ was one of the ‘Cherished Cars of the Day’ with John at the wheel and a Great Dane in the back was Tim the owners choice and Tim the manager of the Chum chose the immaculate Ford Escort as his ‘Cherished Car of the Day’.
Finally the Classic Red MG was voted ‘Best in Class’ and driven by John.
A great Car Meet to get the season started see you at the Fitzherbert Arms…next on 25th May.
Thanks again for supporting the day.
Tim
Owner
Tuesday 23rd April saw new champions pick up the Cholmondeley Arms quiz cup plus lots of Cholmondeley Arms vouchers and a free gin tasting!!
The Local Peasants were the 2019 champions-well done and congratulations!!
Big thanks as always to Professor Ted our supreme quiz master, we couldn’t do it without you!!
The ‘Ted to Head’ final between the Cholmondeley Arms and The Bulls Head happens at the Three Greyhounds on Wednesday 29th May at 8pm.
A big thankyou to all of the teams that took part in the quizzes over the past 6 months- we will be back in September!
….arrive at Cholmondeley for their annual run out after breakfast at the Chum
We are very excited to announce that Cheshire Cat Pubs and Bars have been nominated for three very prestigious awards at the 2019 Casual Dining Awards, taking place in London on Wednesday 27th February. We feel very honoured to be nominated for two such special awards as ‘Employer of the Year’ and ‘Multi-Site Operator of the Year’ and are also very proud to announce that the Cholmondeley Arms has been nominated for ‘Pub of the Year’. Our owners, Tim Bird and Mary McLaughlin, are heading off to the Big Smoke as guests of our excellent wine suppliers, Boutinot, to attend the awards ceremony, and we will keep you posted on the results of our nominations.
