Tuesday 26 April: WHITE HORSE, BURNHAM GREEN (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Bob Polydorou, Steve Stott, Andrew Swift)
COMMENT: This pub has one of the best views in Hertfordshire from its garden but after a week of high summer-like temperatures it was bloody freezing on arrival and we stayed indoors. Food was OK, I thought the McMullen's Country bitter very nice.
This is a pub with a chequered recent history. When Steve Stott arrived in the village in 1972 it was a small teeming boozer. When I arrived in 1990 Richard had taken it over, it had been extended considerably and made probably the most vibrant and attractive dining pub in the area. When Richard moved on to Coltsfoot and sold the White Horse the pub seemed to be rather amatuerishly managed by the new owners with limited success till 2001 when it burned down in a disastrous fire. Now it is owned by McMullens and I would say is a pretty middle of the road dining pub- perfectly fine, but not standing out from half a dozen similar in Tewin, Datchworth, Bramfield, Bulls Green etc.
Unlike most of our earlier pubs, no-one very interesting seems to have been connected with the White Horse- no Keith Moon or Lady Caroline Lamb or Charles Dickens I regret to say. A rather strange website called "lutonparanormal.com" says that when the pub was opened in 1806 it was named after a local legend concerning a farmer and his white horse both beheaded by roundheads in the Civil War. I personally consider this suggestion horsefeathers (white or otherwise) not least because the White Horse has a history dating back around 300 years which therefore takes it back much further than 1806.
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