Pub Odyssey 61

Thursday 8 March:  THE TAVERN, WELWYN VILLAGE (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, Rupert Stanley, Andrew Swift, John Westwood)

COMMENT:  The Tavern must win the prize for the most succinctly descriptive pub title- no heraldic fripperies, no recognition of local bigwigs, only a one-word statement of the building's function.  One of these days I may go into a pub called "The Pub" or "The Boozer", until then the Tavern is the winner in the "no frills pub name" stakes.

Inside there were also no frills except for an evil-looking macaw in a cage.  I must be fair, this is quite a frill, even the best appointed pubs seem not normally to go in for macaws as fashion accessories.   Be that as it may, the beer and food were fine (though no fish and chips for Elvis) and not expensive.  It was made even cheaper by the silver tongued persuasiveness of some Odyssians who got Andrew to see that, having just become a grandfather, he should buy them lunch (or at least a drink). We then had to restrain him from buying the whole meal!  Elvis comes up next (grandchild expected shortly).  Big attendance needed that day!

To my surprise the Tavern turned out to be another railway pub (the third in a row on the Odyssey, after the Steamer and the Station).  It was the Railway Tavern in 1847 when the premises were bought by a Hitchin brewer.  It seems in the nineteenth century the kneejerk reaction to any social, political or military event was to open a pub.  In midweek I was walking the Thames Path with Anne and we got to Wallingford, Oxfordshire.  In the nineteenth century this was a small place of 2,000 people  That isn't much bigger than Tewin plus Tewin Wood today.  At that time Wallingford had 50 pubs!