Pub Odyssey 55

Tuesday 24 January:  THE BEEHIVE, WELWYN GARDEN CITY (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, David Room, Andrew Swift)

COMMENT:  The Beehive was a surprise in various respects.  I had a feeling that as we moved towards the last third of the 87 pubs originally identified they would get grimmer and grimmer, since we had "used up" the nice ones earlier on.  Not so; the Beehive was very nice, extremely well refurbished, large (100 covers), good beer, good cheap food, a carvery, etc etc.  It was a great success so far as we were concerned.  As Andrew said, it would be a worthy competitor for the custom of the many nice village pubs which get so much trade from Welwyn Garden City.  The staff (specifically the landlady) were interactive and friendly as well.  I pass over the fact that Chris Haden found viagra on sale somewhere in the pub; you'd have to ask him where.

To the pub historian the Beehive was a surprise in other respects as well.  In my ignorance I'd assumed it was associated with the creation of suburban Welwyn Garden City, therefore built in the interwar years or the 1950s.  Again, not so; the landlady said it was an ancient pub which went back to the eighteenth century or earlier.  W. Branch Johnston, in his book "Hertfordshire Inns" is succinct and unflattering. "In 1842 a remote beerhouse on a country lane".  In the tradition of multi-tasking characteristic of rural pubs in pre-modern times, at least one early licensee was also a grocer.  The name, the "Beehive" is not common but there are other pubs round the country with this name.  It probably only means there were hives close by when the pub was founded but in some places it was used an a symbol of industrious behaviour associated with bees- a Cheltenham "Beehive" has on the sign "By Industry We Live".  Debatable in modern Britain.