Pub Odyssey 42

Tuesday 25 October:  THE MILLSTREAM, HERTFORD (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, Rupert Stanley, John Westwood)

COMMENT:  The Millstream was a real find, a nice little pub with an attractive conservatory and a well-kept garden behind it, friendly helpful staff and good food and drink.  It's a bit of a surprise because in an obscure blocked-off road in the Hertford suburbs you might think it might struggle for custom, but the landlandy said that in summer the attractions of the conservatory, garden, food and drink meant that it was safer to book if you were coming at lunchtime. That's good news, but it might not square with the fact that when we were there, admittedly in late October,  I saw only one other customer, a somewhat somnolent Dormouse-type character (I'm still reading Alice in Wonderland) at the other end of the bar.  We had a good time anyway.

The Millsteam, sometimes called the Old Millstream, is another pub about which it's difficult to get any historical information.  McMullens seem less good than many other operators in providing this. It's probably a nineteenth-century pub, which seems to have changed both its name and location in Port Vale in the 1880s and 1890s (for a while it may have been called the Old Windmill).  The names given to the pub are a clear indication of the rural nature of the area at that time.