Pub Odyssey 5

Wednesday 2 February THE WAGGONERS, Ayot Green (Malcolm Allen, Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Elvis Pile, Bob Poydorou, Roger Spendley, Steve Stott, Roger Toms)

COMMENT:  Nice meal and beer in a pub with French owners (as has been the case at the Waggoners, on and off, for a long time) but not really much of a French look to the bar menu.  Mostly we had omelettes- very nice.  Might be a more Frenchified look to the restaurant menu (and personnel).  I remember years ago going for a meal with Anne and asking the waitress, clearly just off the plane from Paris, for a pint of London Pride.  She looked blank; "a pint of London Pride?  What is it you have commanded?"  But it was a good meal..
The history is that when the stagecoach service on the Great North Road was set up in the 17th century coaching inns sprang up on the road like mushrooms after rain.  The Waggoners was one of them, on the stretch of the road between Lemsford and Corey's Mill in Stevenage.  We go next week to another 17th century coaching inn, also on the Great North Road, the White Horse in Welwyn village.
Why "The Waggoners"?  Obviously before the railways goods were carried everywhere on horse-drawn waggons.  Many inns acted as agents, and goods could be left there for onward transmission or for local collection.  I regret to say the name has nothing to do with "being on the waggon".  This expression for being teetotal is an abbreviation of "being on the water waggon", water being delivered on waggons in the days before Jeff Tipper took the system in hand..