Tuesday 15 November; THE BULL, WATTON AT STONE (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, Bob Polydorou, David Room, Rupert Stanley, Andrew Swift, Jeff Tipper, John Westwood)
COMMENT: A big turnout for a recently renovated pub; in fact a much bigger turnout than I had expected and booked for but the pub coped well and the food and beer were good (Woodforde Wherry available, first time I had seen it on the Odyssey I think).
"The Bull" sounds the most English and agricultural of pub names but it isn't necessarily so. In fact it very likely relates to that very un-English institution, the papacy. The first "Bull" pubs, in the Middle Ages, were apparently referring to a papal bull, the lead seal attached to papal edicts (Latin bulla). Nor was this the only pub name which referred to the Pope. Any pub called the "Cross Keys" is showing a papal symbol. St Peter, the first Pope, is often shown holding the keys to the Kingdom of God. For some reason "Bulls" and "Cross Keys" survived the Protestant Reformation in England whereas a lot of pubs called "The Pope's Head" or "The Cardinal's Head" hastily changed their names to "The Kings Head" or "The Bishop's Head" to avoid unpleasant questions from the authorities.
I don't know if the "Bull" at Watton refers to religion or agriculture but my bet would be religion. The pub is another Grade II listed building which goes back to the mid-16th century and has a "priests hole" hidden behind the large fireplace (a priest's hole was a hiding place for Catholic priests in the period in the sixteenth and seventeenth century when they had to move and preach in secret in England because persecuted and indeed often tortured and executed by the Protestant government.)
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Pub Odyssey 44
Tuesday 8 November: THE SIX TEMPLARS, HERTFORD (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, David Room, Andrew Swift, Jeff Tipper)
COMMENT: I travel fairly frequently into London so J D Wetherspoon pubs are familiar to me. I remember a few years ago, before the financial meltdown, sitting in a JDW near Liverpool Street station watching as young versions of Attila the Stockbroker (they looked about 17) came in and slapped huge wads of banknotes on the bar; the one with the smallest wad had to buy the drinks. Probably all the teenage Attilas are struggling to hang on to their jobs now. Going back to that JDW would tell me more about the progress of the recession than any number of speeches by Mr Osborne.
The Attilas may not have been very lovable (they made Lord Sugar's apprentices look like a set of Albert Schweitzers) but they certainly gave central London JDWs an atmosphere. Atmosphere was a bit lacking the the Six Templars. The food was OK, the selection of beers first class, the service good and prompt- no complaints at all really; but it was a bit like having a pub lunch in a bank. We made our own atmosphere, there being seven of us, and had a good time, but I wouldn't have called it cosy or intimate. A Wetherspoons looks its best crammed to the gunnels with people, loud, cheerful, even raucous, but in Hertford it probably doesn't get like that very often.
These are not criticisms, I think J D Wetherspoon is a Good Thing. They are great supporters of real beer and have done a lot to bring the product into the modern world. Also, for someone like me who loves the oddities and eccentricities of British life J D Wetherspoon has made a big contribution. What could be more eccentric than a pub chain founded by Tim Martin, a 6 foot 6inch Irishman-New Zealander (went to 11 schools in Ulster and New Zealand) who sports a mullet haircut and called his pub chain J D Wetherspoon after one of his teachers who couldn't control his class and told Mr Martin he would never be a success in business? You couldn't make it up. But Wetherspoons is on the side of the angels, promoting cask beer, low prices, long opening hours and no music. In 2011 they hit the £1 billion sales mark; long may it continue.
COMMENT: I travel fairly frequently into London so J D Wetherspoon pubs are familiar to me. I remember a few years ago, before the financial meltdown, sitting in a JDW near Liverpool Street station watching as young versions of Attila the Stockbroker (they looked about 17) came in and slapped huge wads of banknotes on the bar; the one with the smallest wad had to buy the drinks. Probably all the teenage Attilas are struggling to hang on to their jobs now. Going back to that JDW would tell me more about the progress of the recession than any number of speeches by Mr Osborne.
The Attilas may not have been very lovable (they made Lord Sugar's apprentices look like a set of Albert Schweitzers) but they certainly gave central London JDWs an atmosphere. Atmosphere was a bit lacking the the Six Templars. The food was OK, the selection of beers first class, the service good and prompt- no complaints at all really; but it was a bit like having a pub lunch in a bank. We made our own atmosphere, there being seven of us, and had a good time, but I wouldn't have called it cosy or intimate. A Wetherspoons looks its best crammed to the gunnels with people, loud, cheerful, even raucous, but in Hertford it probably doesn't get like that very often.
These are not criticisms, I think J D Wetherspoon is a Good Thing. They are great supporters of real beer and have done a lot to bring the product into the modern world. Also, for someone like me who loves the oddities and eccentricities of British life J D Wetherspoon has made a big contribution. What could be more eccentric than a pub chain founded by Tim Martin, a 6 foot 6inch Irishman-New Zealander (went to 11 schools in Ulster and New Zealand) who sports a mullet haircut and called his pub chain J D Wetherspoon after one of his teachers who couldn't control his class and told Mr Martin he would never be a success in business? You couldn't make it up. But Wetherspoons is on the side of the angels, promoting cask beer, low prices, long opening hours and no music. In 2011 they hit the £1 billion sales mark; long may it continue.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Pub Odyssey 43
Tuesday, 1 November: OLD CROSS, HERTFORD (Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, Steve Stott, Andrew Swift, JohnWestwood)
COMMENT: This super pub provided a really nice, and really cheap, occasion. £9 each for a total of two pints each plus as many sandwiches as anyone could want to eat! Normally the Old Cross doesn't provide food, at Tuesday lunchtime anyway, but through the good offices of John Westwood the landlord provided the sandwiches.
I thought the Old Cross was terrific. It represents one branch of the great real beer movement, beginning in the 1970s when the British public rose in revolt against crap like Double Diamond and Watneys Red Barrel and demanded proper beer, made in the correct way and properly presented. The success of this movement, fronted of course by CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale), has been amazing. Nowadays "real beer" is defined pretty much as CAMRA wants (the ultimate marketing triumph, all other not-approved products are by definition non-real or inferior); The total number of breweries is four times what it was when CAMRA was founded in 1971 and more since any time since the 1940s. Although pubs face tremendous challenges in the recession and are faced by predatory government taxation, real beer sales have held up much better than other forms of alcoholic purchases. The strength of the real beer movement is demonstrated in many ways; craft-type pubs like the Old Cross; big commercial operations like J D Wetherspoons (our next week visit); huge festivals, attended by tens of thousands, like the Great British Beer Festival or the Cambridge Beer Festival; but above all by the fact that nearly all pubs seem to have real ale on offer. There is a lot about CAMRA I don't go for, although I have been a member for decades, my reservations being succinctly summed up by the beer writer Pete Brown when he said that stereotypical CAMRA activists were "bearded, beer-bellied, wear chunky sweaters or tight,stained T-shirts, are pedantic, Luddite and have difficulties relating to girls". Having said all that, we owe them a lot.
And the Old Cross was great. As I stood watching them brewing their own beer in a back room before stepping back into the bare but pleasant parlour to drink it at £2.20 a pint I knew I was in the right place.
COMMENT: This super pub provided a really nice, and really cheap, occasion. £9 each for a total of two pints each plus as many sandwiches as anyone could want to eat! Normally the Old Cross doesn't provide food, at Tuesday lunchtime anyway, but through the good offices of John Westwood the landlord provided the sandwiches.
I thought the Old Cross was terrific. It represents one branch of the great real beer movement, beginning in the 1970s when the British public rose in revolt against crap like Double Diamond and Watneys Red Barrel and demanded proper beer, made in the correct way and properly presented. The success of this movement, fronted of course by CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale), has been amazing. Nowadays "real beer" is defined pretty much as CAMRA wants (the ultimate marketing triumph, all other not-approved products are by definition non-real or inferior); The total number of breweries is four times what it was when CAMRA was founded in 1971 and more since any time since the 1940s. Although pubs face tremendous challenges in the recession and are faced by predatory government taxation, real beer sales have held up much better than other forms of alcoholic purchases. The strength of the real beer movement is demonstrated in many ways; craft-type pubs like the Old Cross; big commercial operations like J D Wetherspoons (our next week visit); huge festivals, attended by tens of thousands, like the Great British Beer Festival or the Cambridge Beer Festival; but above all by the fact that nearly all pubs seem to have real ale on offer. There is a lot about CAMRA I don't go for, although I have been a member for decades, my reservations being succinctly summed up by the beer writer Pete Brown when he said that stereotypical CAMRA activists were "bearded, beer-bellied, wear chunky sweaters or tight,stained T-shirts, are pedantic, Luddite and have difficulties relating to girls". Having said all that, we owe them a lot.
And the Old Cross was great. As I stood watching them brewing their own beer in a back room before stepping back into the bare but pleasant parlour to drink it at £2.20 a pint I knew I was in the right place.
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.
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.
Pub Odyssey 41
Tuesday 18 October: THE CHEQUERS, BRAGBURY END (Elvis Pile, Andrew Swift, and a Ferrari)
COMMENT: The usual suspects were in the USA, Crete, Cyprus, etc, etc, and this meeting was the smallest yet- in fact it couldn't have been any smaller and still been a meeting. However, it was in a way a historic occasion because Andrew gave Elvis a lift there in his Ferrari, more than 25 years after Elvis won the right to a lift at a function at Tewin Cowper School. Does it seem in character for Andrew to forget and Elvis to remember over a quarter of a century?
Elvis said the ride was quite an experience and I know what he means, many years ago I had a ride in the Ferrari myself. I happen at the moment to be reading "Alice in Wonderland" and it struck me that reading the book was a bit like a ride in the Ferrari, an experience combining in about equal quantities surreal humour, wonder and terror. The original working title for "Alice in Wonderland" was "Alice's Adventures Underground" and you felt that the Ferrari, seeming one inch above the ground, and miles below the hedgerows, might have been an ideal travel vehicle for Alice. The only travel experience in Tewin that compares with Andrew's Ferrari is Rupert's balloon where instead of being propelled semi-underground at terrific speeds you are launched into the atmosphere in a luncheon basket. You never thought living in commuterland could be so stimulating
The Chequers at Bragbury End dates back to 1774 when it was a farmhouse on a 40 acre farm which included a slaughterhouse. The farm was taken over by a St Albans brewer in 1820 but the Chequers was only granted a full licence in 1919. It's another grade II listed building.
COMMENT: The usual suspects were in the USA, Crete, Cyprus, etc, etc, and this meeting was the smallest yet- in fact it couldn't have been any smaller and still been a meeting. However, it was in a way a historic occasion because Andrew gave Elvis a lift there in his Ferrari, more than 25 years after Elvis won the right to a lift at a function at Tewin Cowper School. Does it seem in character for Andrew to forget and Elvis to remember over a quarter of a century?
Elvis said the ride was quite an experience and I know what he means, many years ago I had a ride in the Ferrari myself. I happen at the moment to be reading "Alice in Wonderland" and it struck me that reading the book was a bit like a ride in the Ferrari, an experience combining in about equal quantities surreal humour, wonder and terror. The original working title for "Alice in Wonderland" was "Alice's Adventures Underground" and you felt that the Ferrari, seeming one inch above the ground, and miles below the hedgerows, might have been an ideal travel vehicle for Alice. The only travel experience in Tewin that compares with Andrew's Ferrari is Rupert's balloon where instead of being propelled semi-underground at terrific speeds you are launched into the atmosphere in a luncheon basket. You never thought living in commuterland could be so stimulating
The Chequers at Bragbury End dates back to 1774 when it was a farmhouse on a 40 acre farm which included a slaughterhouse. The farm was taken over by a St Albans brewer in 1820 but the Chequers was only granted a full licence in 1919. It's another grade II listed building.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Pub Odyssey 40
Tuesday 11 October: THE WOODHALL ARMS PAPILLON, STAPLEFORD (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman,Elvis Pile, David Room, Rupert Stanley, Andrew Swift)
COMMENT: This was a nice meal in a pub which managed more successfully than many to combine restaurant and pub, and did this by keeping them physically separate. The pub side really felt like a pub. The beer was good too. It is, however, a difficult place to say anything about historically because nothing much is recorded. Stapleford is little more than a hamlet and all I can find out about the Woodhall Arms is the fact, hardly surprising, that it had a recorded nineteenth century existence. However, by complete coincidence I had lunch the next day with a lady who was brought up in Stapleford before and during the Second World War. She said, again unsurprisingly, that Stapleford was even smaller then but she added what was to me a genuinely surprising fact. This was that in those days the Beane River which flows past Stapleford was a famous salmon river with access much sought after. Now, of course, the Beane is barely more than a ditch, the reason being the pumping of water to supply the needs of (she thought) Stevenage and Harlow. Its another story which emphasises how agricultural a county Hertfordshire was even up to the Second World War, and how much the new towns changed all that.
The Woodhall Arms is obviously named after the Woodhall estate,owned by the Abel Smith family for many generations, and still at the same size, 7,000 acres, it has been for many years. The Woodhall estate like everywhere else of substance in England reflects some facets of England's astonishing history. The big house, now Heath Mount School, was built by Indian nabobs (that is English merchants who made it big in the early years of British rule in India), the park landscaping is a classic 18th century effort, the walled garden was built by prisoners of war in the Napoleonic Wars, and the great Victorian architect and gardener, Sir Joseph Paxton, builder of the Crystal Palace, got his start working in the kitchen gardens of the Woodhall Estate.
COMMENT: This was a nice meal in a pub which managed more successfully than many to combine restaurant and pub, and did this by keeping them physically separate. The pub side really felt like a pub. The beer was good too. It is, however, a difficult place to say anything about historically because nothing much is recorded. Stapleford is little more than a hamlet and all I can find out about the Woodhall Arms is the fact, hardly surprising, that it had a recorded nineteenth century existence. However, by complete coincidence I had lunch the next day with a lady who was brought up in Stapleford before and during the Second World War. She said, again unsurprisingly, that Stapleford was even smaller then but she added what was to me a genuinely surprising fact. This was that in those days the Beane River which flows past Stapleford was a famous salmon river with access much sought after. Now, of course, the Beane is barely more than a ditch, the reason being the pumping of water to supply the needs of (she thought) Stevenage and Harlow. Its another story which emphasises how agricultural a county Hertfordshire was even up to the Second World War, and how much the new towns changed all that.
The Woodhall Arms is obviously named after the Woodhall estate,owned by the Abel Smith family for many generations, and still at the same size, 7,000 acres, it has been for many years. The Woodhall estate like everywhere else of substance in England reflects some facets of England's astonishing history. The big house, now Heath Mount School, was built by Indian nabobs (that is English merchants who made it big in the early years of British rule in India), the park landscaping is a classic 18th century effort, the walled garden was built by prisoners of war in the Napoleonic Wars, and the great Victorian architect and gardener, Sir Joseph Paxton, builder of the Crystal Palace, got his start working in the kitchen gardens of the Woodhall Estate.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Pub Odyssey 39
Thursday 6 October: THE WELLINGTON, WELWYN VILLAGE (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, David Room, Andrew Swift)
COMMENT: "The Wellington is not a pub" said Elvis, and as usual the Sage of Tewin was quite right. The food was fine, the beer was fine- though neither of them was cheap- so it met the requirement and obviously the Wellington's formula works; it was quite busy on a midweek lunchtime with a mixed clientele of all ages from pram-propelled to zimmer-propelled. Anything that does the business and provides proper beer decently presented is fine by me, so I have no complaints, but the Wellington does seem to me to have a very bad case of split personality.
The Wellington is keen to emphasise its long pub history. Outside, painted on the wall, is the following
INN
WELLINGTON
VILLAGE PUB DINING
AD 1352
and there is also a plaque informing you that such famous English types as Samuel Peyps (1633-1703, diarist and omni-shagger), Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, lexicographer and Tory) and David Garrick (1717-1779, actor) stayed there. The plaque also gives you the information that until 1816 it was called the White Swan; obviously the name was changed to celebrate the Duke of Wellington's defeat of the snail-chewing French rascal Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
So far so English, but the split personality arises when you go inside.You might get the impression the snail-chewers had actually won at Waterloo because the place much more closely resembles a French wine bar than an English pub; hence Elvis's point. Well, the beer and food were OK.
However, the fact that the pub/wine bar is named after Wellington (and his boot hangs outside as well) gives me a chance to pay tribute to this very great man who not only put the frogs in their place but also played a big role in the promotion of English beer. This happened as follows. Not everyone knows that the hero of Waterloo later served as a generally unpopular Prime Minister (1828-30) but one whose administration nonetheless had important achievements including the creation of the Metropolitan Police, Catholic Emancipation, and the Beer Act. The Beer Act was the product of the ruthless logic which had made the Iron Duke such a formidable opponent on the battlefield. England was suffering from an epidemic of gin-drinking, very destructive of health prosperity and even life. ("Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence"). The Iron Duke reasoned that banning gin wouldn't work; you had to provide people with a healthier alcoholic alternative. So the Beer Act allowed anybody to brew and sell beer on their premises if they got a licence which only cost £2. Ten years after the act had passed, 50,000 new beer houses had opened! And it did do something to reduce the gin problem. So raise your next pint to that unusual phenomenon, a politician who made drinking easier and cheaper. Messrs Cameron and Osborne are, of course, quite the reverse.
COMMENT: "The Wellington is not a pub" said Elvis, and as usual the Sage of Tewin was quite right. The food was fine, the beer was fine- though neither of them was cheap- so it met the requirement and obviously the Wellington's formula works; it was quite busy on a midweek lunchtime with a mixed clientele of all ages from pram-propelled to zimmer-propelled. Anything that does the business and provides proper beer decently presented is fine by me, so I have no complaints, but the Wellington does seem to me to have a very bad case of split personality.
The Wellington is keen to emphasise its long pub history. Outside, painted on the wall, is the following
INN
WELLINGTON
VILLAGE PUB DINING
AD 1352
and there is also a plaque informing you that such famous English types as Samuel Peyps (1633-1703, diarist and omni-shagger), Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, lexicographer and Tory) and David Garrick (1717-1779, actor) stayed there. The plaque also gives you the information that until 1816 it was called the White Swan; obviously the name was changed to celebrate the Duke of Wellington's defeat of the snail-chewing French rascal Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
So far so English, but the split personality arises when you go inside.You might get the impression the snail-chewers had actually won at Waterloo because the place much more closely resembles a French wine bar than an English pub; hence Elvis's point. Well, the beer and food were OK.
However, the fact that the pub/wine bar is named after Wellington (and his boot hangs outside as well) gives me a chance to pay tribute to this very great man who not only put the frogs in their place but also played a big role in the promotion of English beer. This happened as follows. Not everyone knows that the hero of Waterloo later served as a generally unpopular Prime Minister (1828-30) but one whose administration nonetheless had important achievements including the creation of the Metropolitan Police, Catholic Emancipation, and the Beer Act. The Beer Act was the product of the ruthless logic which had made the Iron Duke such a formidable opponent on the battlefield. England was suffering from an epidemic of gin-drinking, very destructive of health prosperity and even life. ("Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence"). The Iron Duke reasoned that banning gin wouldn't work; you had to provide people with a healthier alcoholic alternative. So the Beer Act allowed anybody to brew and sell beer on their premises if they got a licence which only cost £2. Ten years after the act had passed, 50,000 new beer houses had opened! And it did do something to reduce the gin problem. So raise your next pint to that unusual phenomenon, a politician who made drinking easier and cheaper. Messrs Cameron and Osborne are, of course, quite the reverse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)