Tuesday 13 September: THE ROEBUCK, STEVENAGE followed by TOBY CARVERY, STEVENAGE (Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Elvis Pile, Steve Stott, Andrew Swift, John Westwood)
COMMENT: A double header! This was due to inefficiency by the leader, initials MH, who omitted to check that lunch was actually served at the Roebuck. It wasn't- only evening meals there. For the first time on the Odyssey I had a definite impression, I hope mistaken, of a pub on its last legs. A lot of the surrounding buildings have been turned into a nursing home and what we saw of a historic inn was a hotel reception which we walked through to get to the bar and a smallish semi-connected pub area. The receptionist saw us come in and dashed across to get us a drink. It's all rather sad for an inn founded in 1691, with sixteenth century buildings, patronised in its day by celebrity highwaymen like Dick Turpin, and described in 1874 as "an old fashioned roadside public house, containing bar, tap, parlour, kitchen, six chambers and attic, with stabling buildings, cow house, skittle alley and wood barn". Not much of all that left now.
We needed lunch so asked the receptionist/barmaid what to do and she recommended the Toby Carvery which is 50 yards away across the road. We all arrived soaking as a cloud helpfully burst at just the wrong moment but once we got into the Toby Carvery things looked up. Although I suspect CAMRA regard such places as instruments of the devil, it was in fact excellent fun. We solemnly queued up for our carvery, which was excellent and cheap, and the beer was good too (mine was London Pride). The place was quite full and everyone was having a good time, kids included. The clientele included a lady who knew me from other activities and who told me when I saw her a few days later that she had seen me in the Carvery with a collection of noisy geriatric delinquents (well, we were talking and laughing quite loudly). I said I only went out with them to rehabilitate them.
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