Pub Odyssey 9

Wednesday 2 March:  SUN, LEMSFORD (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Elvis Pile, Bob Polydorou, David Room, John Westwood)

COMMENT:  For me the epitome of a middle-of-the-road pub with decent food (and lots of it) but nothing particularly unusual.  The most unusual things we saw were the implausibly, incredibly youthful photos of Gerry, Chris Parkinson and (yes, its true) Elvis brought along by John Westwood.

The Sun is another stagecoach pub.  From the 1600s to 1833 the "Old Great North Road" from London to York passed through Lemsford which was a day's coach ride from London.  In those days Lemsford had four coaching inns for the stagecoach traffic, two survive today as the Sun and the Long and Short Arm.  Right at the end of these glory days, in 1824, the wife of a future Prime Minister, Lady Caroline Lamb ("mad bad and dangerous to know", so different from Cherie Blair or Mrs Cameron) watched from the Brocket estate as the funeral cortege of her lover Lord Byron (also mad, bad and dangerous to know) passed through Lemsford.  But in 1833 a bypass was cut through from Stanborough to Ayot Green and Lemsford lost its pivotal place on the Great North Road.

The Sun is a common pub name, popular perhaps because there's nothing easier than sticking up a pub sign with a big yellow blob on it- easy to do, easy to recognise. But it is also the royal emblem of King Edward IV (1461-83), grandfather of Henry VIII, like him in appearance (though no beard) but also like him in an unfortunate attitude towards women and general bloodthirstiness.  Henry scored high in the bloodthirstiness stages by chopping off the heads of two of his six wives (Edward had only one wife who managed to survive, despite his partiality for London tradesmen's wives) but Edward had a bloodthirstiness trump card. Even Henry VIII couldn't match Edward's performance when, dissatisfied with his brother's political conduct, he had him drowned in a butt of Malmesey wine. What a way to go!  But both Edward and Henry had to acknowlege top-level bloodthirstiness in the performance of their great ancestor, Roger Mortimer first earl of March, who apparently had King Edward II murdered by having a red hot poker stuck up his anus. Never a dull moment with members of that family.  Edward IV and Henry VIII got the reward their fame deserved, remembered in countless "Sun" and "Kings Head" pub signs all over England.