Wednesday 24 August: THE WHITE HART, WELWYN VILLAGE (Chris Haden, Gerry Murphy, Bob Polydorou, Andrew Swift, Roger Toms)
COMMENT: I missed this one, cycling in the Yorkshire Dales with Anne (very nice pubs there too). The White Hart was the emblem of King Richard II (1377-99), therefore yet another royal emblem like the Rose and Crown, the Plume of Feathers, the Sun, etc etc. The White Hart is a very common pub name, therefore suggesting that King Richard II was more successful as provider of pub nomenclature than he was as a ruler. He lost out in a medieval power struggle, was deposed and starved to death in Pontefract Castle by his successor, King Henry IV. You didn't want to be the loser in medieval cabinet reshuffles. Apart from Richard II, King William II (1087-1100) may well have been assassinated at the instigation of his brother and successor Henry I; King Edward II (1307-27) was murdered by his wife and her lover (red hot poker up anus); King Henry VI (1415-71) was rubbed out by his cousins Edward IV and Richard Duke of Gloucester; and the boy king Edward V (1485) and his brother were assassinated (smothered with pillows) by the order of their uncle, the same Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III.
Not having been at the White Hart, I've nothing to say about it, so this seems a good moment for a short essay on beer consumption. Beer plays an important role in all our lives, but its nothing compared with the role it played in the lives of our ancestors. Water was unhealthy and dangerous in all periods until quite close to the end of the nineteenth century, being the carrier of many diseases, whereas beer was nutritious and also healthier inasmuch as the boiling would have destroyed the waterborne bacteria. Strength and quantities varied widely but a typical daily intake for most people would have been a gallon; two pints for breakfast, a pint mid-morning, two pints with the midday meal, another pint at at 4pm and the remaining two pints after work. All medieval castles and palaces, and all substantial houses in later periods, would have had their own brewhouses. In fact, the word "toddler" is thought to derive from a "tod", a drinking vessel with handles from which a child would have drunk "small beer" as soon as it left its mother's breast.
Can we reach the standards of our ancestors? We do our bit but I fear these standards are beyond us..
Friday, 26 August 2011
Pub Odyssey 32
Tuesday 16 August: THE FIVE HORSESHOES, LITTLE BERKHAMPSTED (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile)
COMMENT: A barebones turnout with Malcolm in America, Steve in Ireland, Andrew in Austria, Roger and David away at foreign venues unknown to me; the baby boomers booming you might say. The low turnout was a pity because the Five Horseshoes was a good location; a lovely old rambling building (grade II listed, late 16th or early 17th century, extended and remodelled in the 19th century) with good cheap food, good beer and friendly helpful rapid service. Probably CAMRA would have turned its nose up at the Five Horseshoes because it is a chain pub belonging to the Chef and Brewer organisation. This, in my view, is just beer snobbery; if the beer is OK, the surroundings attractive and the food good and reasonably priced, who cares? But in a way I do see what CAMRA means. By complete coincidence a few days later Anne and I, walking the Thames Path, happened on a very nice pub called the Kings Arms at Sandford Lock near to Oxford. We stopped and ate there and had nice competitively priced food, I had good beer, the pub was in (you guessed it) a lovely rambling old building. Chef and Brewer again! The same menu exactly, the same offers exactly, even the same literary quotes on the menus. The only thing that was different was the staff, just as friendly and attentive, but mercifully not the same people. Otherwise you might have got the impression that when my back was turned they had hastily dismantled the Five Horseshoes and rapidly put it up again on the Thames waiting for me to arrive. So pubcos do imply a certain lack of diversity. But if its good quality, why worry?
So I enjoyed the Five Horseshoes. The only downer was those buggers Haden and Pile tooting me from behind as they cruised in their car up Robins Nest Hill to Little Berkhamsted while I laboured up on my bike. Experiences like that set the mark of suffering on a man.
COMMENT: A barebones turnout with Malcolm in America, Steve in Ireland, Andrew in Austria, Roger and David away at foreign venues unknown to me; the baby boomers booming you might say. The low turnout was a pity because the Five Horseshoes was a good location; a lovely old rambling building (grade II listed, late 16th or early 17th century, extended and remodelled in the 19th century) with good cheap food, good beer and friendly helpful rapid service. Probably CAMRA would have turned its nose up at the Five Horseshoes because it is a chain pub belonging to the Chef and Brewer organisation. This, in my view, is just beer snobbery; if the beer is OK, the surroundings attractive and the food good and reasonably priced, who cares? But in a way I do see what CAMRA means. By complete coincidence a few days later Anne and I, walking the Thames Path, happened on a very nice pub called the Kings Arms at Sandford Lock near to Oxford. We stopped and ate there and had nice competitively priced food, I had good beer, the pub was in (you guessed it) a lovely rambling old building. Chef and Brewer again! The same menu exactly, the same offers exactly, even the same literary quotes on the menus. The only thing that was different was the staff, just as friendly and attentive, but mercifully not the same people. Otherwise you might have got the impression that when my back was turned they had hastily dismantled the Five Horseshoes and rapidly put it up again on the Thames waiting for me to arrive. So pubcos do imply a certain lack of diversity. But if its good quality, why worry?
So I enjoyed the Five Horseshoes. The only downer was those buggers Haden and Pile tooting me from behind as they cruised in their car up Robins Nest Hill to Little Berkhamsted while I laboured up on my bike. Experiences like that set the mark of suffering on a man.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Pub Odyssey 31
Thursday 11 August: THE GRANDISON, BRAMFIELD (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, David Room, Geoff Searle (plus Sally), Steve Stott, Andrew Swift)
COMMENT: I was very pleased when the Grandison Arms reopened after a seven-year closure (even if for some reason they dropped the "Arms") because this pleasant country pub was, amongst its other advantages, a nice mile-long walk across the fields from my house, just the thing to work up a thirst. And I have had numerous good (though not cheap) meals there, with invariably excellent and often unusual beers. However, on the day of our visit they were not on top of their game as was illustrated by the fact that the pot of tea that Andrew and I asked for only appeared after fifteen minutes and three requests. The food, mine anyway, was pretty good but not in my view sufficiently superior to justify the considerable price differential as against some other hostelries we have been to. On the plus side I thought the beer, enticingly named "Dragons Blood", was indeed excellent and the tea, when it came, was in a pot. This immediately put the Grandison on the side of the angels so far as I am concerned.
When you ask for a pot of tea in most coffee bars and in many upmarket pubs you get a cup with a teabag hanging over the side. Less pretentious pubs (McMullens is excellent in this regard) give you a teapot so you can string your consumption out and feel generally more comfortable. But the Grandison soared to even greater heights. I got a big piece of fudge with my pot of tea. I was so staggered that I threw aside all restraint and had another pot of tea, and more fudge, not a pretty sight from the point of view of my dietician.
The Grandison's name neatly embodies the craziness of the British class system. It is named after the Earls of Grandison who held the manor of Bramfield from 1732 till the death of the second and last Earl Grandison in 1800. However, John Villiers, First Earl Grandison, was Earl Grandison of Limerick. Before Elvis asks me what a Paddy was doing as a Hertfordshire landowner, there was nothing Irish about Lord Grandison, his family were perfectly English and got to the top of the tree because one of his ancestors, Barbara Villiers, had been one of the many who screwed King Charles II (1660-1685). An Irish peerage was perhaps the least you could expect for services to the monarchy such as this. Just to make it even more of a farce if you were an Irish peer you couldn't sit in the House of Lords at Westminster, but you could sit in the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston, the billiard table maestro mentioned in Pub Odyssey 29 (Brocket Arms), was an Irish peer who never sat in the House of Lords but was a member of the House of Commons for more than half a century..
So the Grandison was an eighteenth century pub, probably only a beerhouse, run in John Carrington's time by the "Widow Deards" who in 1803 was robbed of £13 (a lot of money then, probably worth at least £700 now) by a woman who lodged with her- she got £10 back. Rural crime was quite a factor in Napoleonic England, with pubs often involved in some way. The Grandison Arms was also just the place to hold an inquest, as happened in 1806 after a two year old boy drowned in the local pond. I understand that in the current hard times pubs need to diversify so maybe the time is coming to bring back pub-based rural entertainments like bear-baiting, cock fighting, bare-knuckle contests, and of course inquests. It would certainly change the somewhat genteel atmosphere in the modern Grandison quite a bit.
COMMENT: I was very pleased when the Grandison Arms reopened after a seven-year closure (even if for some reason they dropped the "Arms") because this pleasant country pub was, amongst its other advantages, a nice mile-long walk across the fields from my house, just the thing to work up a thirst. And I have had numerous good (though not cheap) meals there, with invariably excellent and often unusual beers. However, on the day of our visit they were not on top of their game as was illustrated by the fact that the pot of tea that Andrew and I asked for only appeared after fifteen minutes and three requests. The food, mine anyway, was pretty good but not in my view sufficiently superior to justify the considerable price differential as against some other hostelries we have been to. On the plus side I thought the beer, enticingly named "Dragons Blood", was indeed excellent and the tea, when it came, was in a pot. This immediately put the Grandison on the side of the angels so far as I am concerned.
When you ask for a pot of tea in most coffee bars and in many upmarket pubs you get a cup with a teabag hanging over the side. Less pretentious pubs (McMullens is excellent in this regard) give you a teapot so you can string your consumption out and feel generally more comfortable. But the Grandison soared to even greater heights. I got a big piece of fudge with my pot of tea. I was so staggered that I threw aside all restraint and had another pot of tea, and more fudge, not a pretty sight from the point of view of my dietician.
The Grandison's name neatly embodies the craziness of the British class system. It is named after the Earls of Grandison who held the manor of Bramfield from 1732 till the death of the second and last Earl Grandison in 1800. However, John Villiers, First Earl Grandison, was Earl Grandison of Limerick. Before Elvis asks me what a Paddy was doing as a Hertfordshire landowner, there was nothing Irish about Lord Grandison, his family were perfectly English and got to the top of the tree because one of his ancestors, Barbara Villiers, had been one of the many who screwed King Charles II (1660-1685). An Irish peerage was perhaps the least you could expect for services to the monarchy such as this. Just to make it even more of a farce if you were an Irish peer you couldn't sit in the House of Lords at Westminster, but you could sit in the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston, the billiard table maestro mentioned in Pub Odyssey 29 (Brocket Arms), was an Irish peer who never sat in the House of Lords but was a member of the House of Commons for more than half a century..
So the Grandison was an eighteenth century pub, probably only a beerhouse, run in John Carrington's time by the "Widow Deards" who in 1803 was robbed of £13 (a lot of money then, probably worth at least £700 now) by a woman who lodged with her- she got £10 back. Rural crime was quite a factor in Napoleonic England, with pubs often involved in some way. The Grandison Arms was also just the place to hold an inquest, as happened in 1806 after a two year old boy drowned in the local pond. I understand that in the current hard times pubs need to diversify so maybe the time is coming to bring back pub-based rural entertainments like bear-baiting, cock fighting, bare-knuckle contests, and of course inquests. It would certainly change the somewhat genteel atmosphere in the modern Grandison quite a bit.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Pub Odyssey 30
Wednesday 3 August: THE JOHN BUNYAN, COLEMAN GREEN (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Elvis Pile, David Room, John Westwood)
The John Bunyan is a nice spick-and-span little pub a long way from anywhere, a McMullen's pub with decent food and beer, and one of the few pubs where nearly all the clientele seemed to be older than us! It was a sweat getting there on the bike,following a narrow road which was once the Roman road from St Albans to Welwyn. The John Bunyan is a hard pub to get much information about. In the first half of the twentieth century it was called the "Prince of Wales". At some point its name was changed to the "John Bunyan" to commemorate the great religious writer, John Bunyan (1628-1688), author of the "Pilgrims Progress", who apparently stayed and preached in a neighbouring cottage of which only the chimney now remains. Bunyan was based in Bedfordshire (and spent a lot of time in jails there as a member of a persecuted Nonconformist minority) but was often in Hertfordshire and preached in many of its villages, He is, however, a bizarre choice of figurehead for a pub because like most Puritans he had little time for popular entertainments. He thought he was descending towards hell because he could not break his liking for profanity, dancing and bell-ringing. He doesn't specifically discuss pub-crawling, so far as I know, but I fear it too would in his view be regarded as a step on the road to hellfire. So it isn't altogether logical to have a pub named after him. But who cares about logic? In the pub garden Elvis was telling us that the Great British Beer Festival would be bad for him, too much drink; he was going out with Richard Thelwell instead.
The John Bunyan is a nice spick-and-span little pub a long way from anywhere, a McMullen's pub with decent food and beer, and one of the few pubs where nearly all the clientele seemed to be older than us! It was a sweat getting there on the bike,following a narrow road which was once the Roman road from St Albans to Welwyn. The John Bunyan is a hard pub to get much information about. In the first half of the twentieth century it was called the "Prince of Wales". At some point its name was changed to the "John Bunyan" to commemorate the great religious writer, John Bunyan (1628-1688), author of the "Pilgrims Progress", who apparently stayed and preached in a neighbouring cottage of which only the chimney now remains. Bunyan was based in Bedfordshire (and spent a lot of time in jails there as a member of a persecuted Nonconformist minority) but was often in Hertfordshire and preached in many of its villages, He is, however, a bizarre choice of figurehead for a pub because like most Puritans he had little time for popular entertainments. He thought he was descending towards hell because he could not break his liking for profanity, dancing and bell-ringing. He doesn't specifically discuss pub-crawling, so far as I know, but I fear it too would in his view be regarded as a step on the road to hellfire. So it isn't altogether logical to have a pub named after him. But who cares about logic? In the pub garden Elvis was telling us that the Great British Beer Festival would be bad for him, too much drink; he was going out with Richard Thelwell instead.
Pub Odyssey 29
Tuesday 26 July: THE BROCKET ARMS, AYOT ST LAWRENCE (Chris Haden, Elvis Pile, Steve Stott, Roger Toms, John Westwood)
COMMENT: I missed this one, being with two other Odyssians, Malcolm Allen and Andrew Swift,crossing the Alps by bike from Austria into Italy; but that's another story. Chris Haden, masterminding Odyssey affairs this week, reported a good lunch and a nice occasion at the Brocket Arms.
The Brocket Arms is a 14th century foundation, making it one of the oldest yet. This means the pub is older than its name because Sir John Brocket, a wealthy spice importer, was a sixteenth century Johnny-come-lately who was Captain of Queen Elizabeth I's personal guard. Brocket built Brocket Hall (his house subsequently demolished and replaced by the present Brocket Hall) and, as often happened, the pub was named or re-named after the local bigwig.
I mentioned in Pub Odyssey 24 (Cowper Arms Letty Green) that the biggest of all local bigwigs, Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister 1855-8 and 1859-65 actually died at Brocket Hall after an exciting career involving forcing opium on the Chinese and allegedly raping one of Queen Victoria's maids of honour. Anne took me to task for failing to mention that Lord P, or "Lord Cupid" as he was widely known, did not merely die at Brocket Hall but did so in style, having it away with a chambermaid on the billiard table. He was not quite 81. Is this what they mean by a long screw at billiards?
COMMENT: I missed this one, being with two other Odyssians, Malcolm Allen and Andrew Swift,crossing the Alps by bike from Austria into Italy; but that's another story. Chris Haden, masterminding Odyssey affairs this week, reported a good lunch and a nice occasion at the Brocket Arms.
The Brocket Arms is a 14th century foundation, making it one of the oldest yet. This means the pub is older than its name because Sir John Brocket, a wealthy spice importer, was a sixteenth century Johnny-come-lately who was Captain of Queen Elizabeth I's personal guard. Brocket built Brocket Hall (his house subsequently demolished and replaced by the present Brocket Hall) and, as often happened, the pub was named or re-named after the local bigwig.
I mentioned in Pub Odyssey 24 (Cowper Arms Letty Green) that the biggest of all local bigwigs, Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister 1855-8 and 1859-65 actually died at Brocket Hall after an exciting career involving forcing opium on the Chinese and allegedly raping one of Queen Victoria's maids of honour. Anne took me to task for failing to mention that Lord P, or "Lord Cupid" as he was widely known, did not merely die at Brocket Hall but did so in style, having it away with a chambermaid on the billiard table. He was not quite 81. Is this what they mean by a long screw at billiards?
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