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Pub Guide

Opening Times

Issue 141 Winter 2009-10

 Download a copy as a PDF file - 1.0 MB

GOOD BEER GUIDE TOUR

Last October’s edition of Beer contained an article about the pubs that had appeared in every edition of the Good Beer Guide. Perfect for a motorcycle tour, I thought.

So I headed north on my BMW, on a perfect July Thursday, bound for the Star Inn in Netherton. If it were not for the pub sign you’d think it was someone’s house. At 7pm I waited alone for it to open. After ten minutes the door creaked and a frail old lady greeted me: ‘I’m sorry pet we’re not open tonight. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday this week. Didn’t you check the beer guide for the opening times?’

Warning ……. if the GBG says ‘check opening times before visiting’, follow the advice. I contemplated the prospect of going hungry and thirsty, returned sheepishly to my digs and confessed my plight to Caroline, the owner. Without hesitation she offered me a lift to the next village. After lots of Black Sheep and a smoked ham baguette I felt much better and she even picked me up at closing time: the first of several acts of kindness that I encountered on the trip.

Day two: across the Pennines, a drop into the Eden valley behind a convoy of tractor drivers, a biblical soaking on the M61 and a change of clothes in my mate’s driveway in Manchester. I took an 86 bus and a train to Liverpool to visit the Roscoe Head. Armed with pints of Daleside and Deuchars I broke the ice with Will Robson, the manager. The pub takes its name from William Roscoe MP, a fervent abolitionist at a time when his contemporaries were making millions from the slave trade. His was a very risky business but one which he survived up to his death in 1831. His final resting place is in nearby Mount Pleasant and his name lives on in the form of a fine pub and a handful of streets.

Day three: a motorway cruise to the Toddington Travelodge on the M1 and an interesting half-hour walk to the Sow ‘n‘ Pigs. The pub had been in every edition of the guide up to 2009 but a change of landlord meant that the local branch didn’t have enough information to nominate it for inclusion in the 2010 guide. The licensee made me very welcome and rustled up a roast beef baguette to make sure I didn’t go somewhere else to eat.

Day four: the Queens Head in Newton is just outside Cambridge and the Star Tavern and Buckingham Arms are in London. Thanks to trains, buses and my own steam I made it to them all and chaired a branch meeting that night.

I’ll say a few words about the Queens Head but go and see for yourself: only 19 licensees since 1729, a cellar from 1450 and a list of visitors which includes the Shah of Iran. Belinda the goose guarded the car park until she died in 1991. I even heard the licensee ask a customer if he preferred his shandy with ginger beer or lemonade.

A remarkable pub but the Kings Cross train beckoned. The Great Train Robbery was planned in the Star Tavern and the Buckingham Arms, as the name suggests, has strong royal and military connections. Her Majesty the Queen Mother has pulled pints there and the Grenadier Guards HQ is across the road. A day of Fullers and Youngs did wear a bit thin and I was looking forward to a change.

Look out for the West Country leg of the tour in the next edition of Opening Times.

Keith Lawson - Branch Chairman