Pub Odyssey 13

Tuesday 29 March:  THE HORNS, Bulls Green  (Chris Haden, Gerry Murphy, Bob Polydorou, Andrew Swift, Roger Toms)

COMMENT:  I missed this one, walking the Thames Path with Anne (lots of nice pubs on that too).  The Horns is a really ancient pub, probably the oldest we have yet been to.  It's dated to 1543 (roughly the same age as the George and Dragon, Watton) but details of construction of the building suggest it is 100 years older than that.  It is relatively upmarket now, but for much of its long life seems to have been the lowest form of pub life, far below inns and taverns, a simple beer house serving the hamlet of Bulls Green.  Like many such, it also doubled, or trebled or quadrupled, as an auction room, traders meeting and bargaining post, livery stables, farmhouse. Its basic nature is suggested by the fact that as recently as the 1920s there was a hayloft over the main bar, and until the introduction of piped water to the parish in 1915 most of the water used daily would have come from the nearby moat (the last remnant of which is the small pond opposite).  In such grim and often unhealthy suroundings our rural ancestors lived their lives and took their pleasure.  The Horns is a pleasant place now where our team enjoyed their food (getting in just ahead of a big crowd of punters, always a pleasure to see); a hundred years ago it might have been a somewhat different story.