Friday 6 January 2012: THE PRINCE OF WALES, HERTINGFORDBURY (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Elvis Pile, David Room, Roger Toms, John Westwood)
COMMENT: I'm writing this one so long after the event that I'm having trouble remembering much about it except the sight of John Westwood, complete with cap and rucksack, jauntily striding up the hill to the Prince of Wales faster than I could cycle up it on my bike. The Prince of Wales, first pub of 2012, has a different name but obviously relates to the same personage as the last pub of 2011 (the Plume of Feathers, Pub Odyssey 51, is an emblem of the Prince of Wales). The Hertingfordbury Prince of Wales isn't a particularly old pub, coming into existence sometime between 1852 and 1890. In this it contrasts both with the Plume (probably from 1596) and the other Hertingfordbury inn, the White Horse which under various names and on various sites goes back to 1643.
I mentioned in the entry on the White Horse (Pub Odyssey 49) a distinguished inhabitant of the Hertingfordbury graveyard, the last woman sentenced to death for witchcraft in England. Another graveyard inhabitant might be more fun, the great eighteenth-century brewer Ben Truman (1700-1780) whose image was used on beer labels and advertising till the 1970s, presenting him as a jolly fat man with a peg leg. There's no such thing as bad publicity. The 33rd President of the United States, Harry Truman (1884-1972) between 1945 and 1953 maybe the most powerful man in the world, was proud to claim he was a descendant of the great English beer baron (though maybe he wasn't really)..
Monday, 23 January 2012
Monday, 2 January 2012
Pub Odyssey 51
Wednesday 28 December: THE PLUME OF FEATHERS, TEWIN (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Elvis Pile, Bob Polydorou, David Room, Steve Stott, John Westwood)
COMMENT: Last pub of the year, in our local, and only one week missed all year on the Odyssey which is pretty good in my opinion. In the summer months we may have been down to three attenders, or even only two on one occasion, but our grit and resolution saw us through. Apart from being the last meeting of 2011, Pub Odyssey 51 had another distinction, for the first time a female person turned up- Anne picking up Mike to take him to Bury St Edmunds, actually to another pub. Its a hard life when you're retired.
The Plume of Feathers is an ancient pub which celebrated its 400th anniversary in 1996. It isn't quite certain that this was accurate; the Plume probably, but not certainly, was the one alehouse "allowed" to Tewin by the county justices in 1596. The building appears to have seventeenth century elements. In 1712 it was the Crown and Feathers, with two cottages attached, but by 40 years later it had adopted its present sign. After some troubled times and changes of ownership it has settled down in the last few years to be as pleasant and apparently as successful as any of the 51 pubs we have visited this year. Stability of management has in my opinion a lot to do with this- Nigel and Gary have been there a long time now.
The Plume of Feathers is yet another royal emblem (like the Rose and Crown, the White Hart, the Red Lion, the Blue Lion, the Golden Lion, the White Boar, etc etc.). The Plume of Feathers is a reference to the Prince of Wales, originally to the plume of three ostrich feathers worn by Edward, the Black Prince (1330-1376) an exceptional military leader who had many victories over the French in the Hundred Years War but who became the first Prince of Wales not to succeed to the throne when he died a year before his father, King Edward III.
COMMENT: Last pub of the year, in our local, and only one week missed all year on the Odyssey which is pretty good in my opinion. In the summer months we may have been down to three attenders, or even only two on one occasion, but our grit and resolution saw us through. Apart from being the last meeting of 2011, Pub Odyssey 51 had another distinction, for the first time a female person turned up- Anne picking up Mike to take him to Bury St Edmunds, actually to another pub. Its a hard life when you're retired.
The Plume of Feathers is an ancient pub which celebrated its 400th anniversary in 1996. It isn't quite certain that this was accurate; the Plume probably, but not certainly, was the one alehouse "allowed" to Tewin by the county justices in 1596. The building appears to have seventeenth century elements. In 1712 it was the Crown and Feathers, with two cottages attached, but by 40 years later it had adopted its present sign. After some troubled times and changes of ownership it has settled down in the last few years to be as pleasant and apparently as successful as any of the 51 pubs we have visited this year. Stability of management has in my opinion a lot to do with this- Nigel and Gary have been there a long time now.
The Plume of Feathers is yet another royal emblem (like the Rose and Crown, the White Hart, the Red Lion, the Blue Lion, the Golden Lion, the White Boar, etc etc.). The Plume of Feathers is a reference to the Prince of Wales, originally to the plume of three ostrich feathers worn by Edward, the Black Prince (1330-1376) an exceptional military leader who had many victories over the French in the Hundred Years War but who became the first Prince of Wales not to succeed to the throne when he died a year before his father, King Edward III.
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Pub Odyssey 50
Tuesday 20 December: THE SARACENS HEAD, HERTFORD (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Gerry Murphy, Elvis Pile, David Room, Steve Stott, Andrew Swift, John Westwood)
COMMENT: Christmas week and a big turnout braving the near-zero parking around the Saracens Head. We all made it. This was a nice small pub with a roaring fire (on the TV screen), decent pub food but a cliff edge attitude to real beer. When we arrived two of the three real ales were off. The Adnams which was still on was good, but I was on tenterhooks in case, for the first time in 50 pubs, the pub ran out of real ale while the Odyssians were in need. Well, I thought, at least it would teach the (many) latecomers to be on time. Sure enough, the Adnams did run out, but they immediately brought on Greene King IPA, so we all breathed again.
The Saracens Head is rather obviously a pub name that relates to the famous Crusades mounted by European Knights to reconquer the Holy land from the Muslims; nine crusades in all, between 1095 and 1271. (The Europeans characteristically called Arabs or Muslims "Saracens"). The name got into pubs in an oddly roundabout way. Most European noble families had members who went on crusade, including English noble families. On return from crusade, the family often incorporated a saracen's head into their coats of arms. Pub names and signs are, as we have seen before on the Odyssey, closely related to noble families and their coats of arms (think of the Red Lion and the White Hart for instance). In time the saracen's head migrated to pub names and signs in the same way as other elements from coats of arms.
All this may seem long ago and far away, but it isn't really. There are many reasons for the high degree of tension in our times, often erupting into actual violence, between many Muslims and the Western World. However, the memory of the Crusades in the Islamic world is not the least important of these reasons. The Muslims regard the Crusades, with considerable justification, as an aggressive and barbaric attack on them, their territory and their culture marked by appalling massacres and most brutal behaviour. Of course, as always happens, the Muslims in response behaved with similar brutality towards the Crusaders. Relations between the Christian West and the Islamic world, by no means always bad before the Crusades, plummeted to new depths during and after these religious wars. There is a good case for regarding the events of September 11 2001 as being just the latest round in a grim process in which the crusades provided one of the worst periods.
However, fascinating as all this is (to me at least) it has very little bearing on the Saracen's Head in Hertford. It's not an ancient pub at all, it only goes back to about 1845 when it was the tap for the long-vanished Crown Brewery, which stood behind it. In 1852 it was kept by Richard Skegg, plumber and glazier. (Glazing has a local history, Hertford Glass was close by.) Presumably someone just called the pub the Saracens Head because they liked the name! So much for history!
COMMENT: Christmas week and a big turnout braving the near-zero parking around the Saracens Head. We all made it. This was a nice small pub with a roaring fire (on the TV screen), decent pub food but a cliff edge attitude to real beer. When we arrived two of the three real ales were off. The Adnams which was still on was good, but I was on tenterhooks in case, for the first time in 50 pubs, the pub ran out of real ale while the Odyssians were in need. Well, I thought, at least it would teach the (many) latecomers to be on time. Sure enough, the Adnams did run out, but they immediately brought on Greene King IPA, so we all breathed again.
The Saracens Head is rather obviously a pub name that relates to the famous Crusades mounted by European Knights to reconquer the Holy land from the Muslims; nine crusades in all, between 1095 and 1271. (The Europeans characteristically called Arabs or Muslims "Saracens"). The name got into pubs in an oddly roundabout way. Most European noble families had members who went on crusade, including English noble families. On return from crusade, the family often incorporated a saracen's head into their coats of arms. Pub names and signs are, as we have seen before on the Odyssey, closely related to noble families and their coats of arms (think of the Red Lion and the White Hart for instance). In time the saracen's head migrated to pub names and signs in the same way as other elements from coats of arms.
All this may seem long ago and far away, but it isn't really. There are many reasons for the high degree of tension in our times, often erupting into actual violence, between many Muslims and the Western World. However, the memory of the Crusades in the Islamic world is not the least important of these reasons. The Muslims regard the Crusades, with considerable justification, as an aggressive and barbaric attack on them, their territory and their culture marked by appalling massacres and most brutal behaviour. Of course, as always happens, the Muslims in response behaved with similar brutality towards the Crusaders. Relations between the Christian West and the Islamic world, by no means always bad before the Crusades, plummeted to new depths during and after these religious wars. There is a good case for regarding the events of September 11 2001 as being just the latest round in a grim process in which the crusades provided one of the worst periods.
However, fascinating as all this is (to me at least) it has very little bearing on the Saracen's Head in Hertford. It's not an ancient pub at all, it only goes back to about 1845 when it was the tap for the long-vanished Crown Brewery, which stood behind it. In 1852 it was kept by Richard Skegg, plumber and glazier. (Glazing has a local history, Hertford Glass was close by.) Presumably someone just called the pub the Saracens Head because they liked the name! So much for history!
Monday, 12 December 2011
Pub Odyssey 49
Monday 12 December: THE WHITE HORSE HERTINGFORDBURY (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, David Room, Andrew Swift, Roger Toms)
COMMENT: The White Horse is definitely a hotel, not a pub, which was made clear to us when we had our meal and beers (fine, as usual) in a vast restaurant in which we were the only customers. If we had swept away the other empty tables we could have had a ballroom in which Andrew could have entertained us with a display of Salsa dancing. At least, he could have done if he had been on time instead of 40 minutes late as usual. Andrew being late and Roger Clarke never replying to his emails are two of the fixed points of Tewin village life and both got fully discussed along with the state of the world economy, Jeremy Clarkson's status as iconic oaf, Mike's bionic legs, and Chris Haden's future as Santa Claus.
Unsurprisingly, the White Horse was a coaching inn, a staging post on the road from Reading to Cambridge. It has a Georgian facade but bits of the building are more than 400 years old. Hertingfordbury, like Datchworth with its V1 last week, makes a contribution to the strangeness of English history, in this case a grim story. In the churchyard is the unmarked grave of Jane Wenham, often stated to be the last person sentenced to death for witchcraft in England- at a court in Hertford in 1712. Jane, fortunately, was not hanged or burned. She was reprieved and later Queen Anne gave her a pardon. It is estimated that about 35,000 people were executed for witchcraft in Europe between 1450 and 1750, over a thousand of them in Britain. Between 75-80% of the victims were women. A woman, Janet Home, was executed in Scotland as late as 1727. So Jane Wenham was lucky to escape.
COMMENT: The White Horse is definitely a hotel, not a pub, which was made clear to us when we had our meal and beers (fine, as usual) in a vast restaurant in which we were the only customers. If we had swept away the other empty tables we could have had a ballroom in which Andrew could have entertained us with a display of Salsa dancing. At least, he could have done if he had been on time instead of 40 minutes late as usual. Andrew being late and Roger Clarke never replying to his emails are two of the fixed points of Tewin village life and both got fully discussed along with the state of the world economy, Jeremy Clarkson's status as iconic oaf, Mike's bionic legs, and Chris Haden's future as Santa Claus.
Unsurprisingly, the White Horse was a coaching inn, a staging post on the road from Reading to Cambridge. It has a Georgian facade but bits of the building are more than 400 years old. Hertingfordbury, like Datchworth with its V1 last week, makes a contribution to the strangeness of English history, in this case a grim story. In the churchyard is the unmarked grave of Jane Wenham, often stated to be the last person sentenced to death for witchcraft in England- at a court in Hertford in 1712. Jane, fortunately, was not hanged or burned. She was reprieved and later Queen Anne gave her a pardon. It is estimated that about 35,000 people were executed for witchcraft in Europe between 1450 and 1750, over a thousand of them in Britain. Between 75-80% of the victims were women. A woman, Janet Home, was executed in Scotland as late as 1727. So Jane Wenham was lucky to escape.
Pub Odyssey 48
Monday 5 December: THE TILBURY, DATCHWORTH (Malcolm Allen, Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Chris Parkinson, Elvis Pile, Andrew Swift, Rupert Stanley, Jeff Tipper, Roger Toms)
COMMENT: Back at the posh end of the market at the Tilbury, but a good occasion with excellent beer and food quickly provided for a big group; but not cheap. We were honoured by a guest appearance from the deviser of the "Pub Odyssey list" of 87 pubs, Chris Parkinson, who after the labour of drawing up the list wasn't able, because of work, to come to any of the first 47 meetings! Talk about labouring for the benefit of your fellow man and not yourself!
The Tilbury website is keen to tell you how good they are (and they are good) but doesn't tell you anything about the history of the pub. The pub's site at a crossroads would normally be a sign of great antiquity as would the fact that Datchworth is on a really old road, a Roman road in fact, from St Albans to Puckeridge. However, its not so simple. There was in the eighteenth century a pub called the "Tilbury Fort" near Datchworth church- named after Queen Elizabeth I's great speech to her troops at Tilbury on the Thames in 1588 as they waited to repel the Spanish Armada. In the early nineteenth century the licence was transferred to the current site and the pub then there, called the Three Horse Shoes, was renamed the Tilbury (God knows why). In 1975, again God knows why, the name was changed to the "The Inn on the Green". Now it's gone back to being the Tilbury. All a bit of a tangle and its hard to see who gained anything from it. But be it ever so remote, the connection is with Good Queen Bess and stuffing the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Datchworth has some other entertaining historical oddities. The last enemy-action incident of any kind on British soil in the Second World War occurred in Datchworth at 9am on 29 March 1945 when a V1 flying bomb struck a nearby field.
COMMENT: Back at the posh end of the market at the Tilbury, but a good occasion with excellent beer and food quickly provided for a big group; but not cheap. We were honoured by a guest appearance from the deviser of the "Pub Odyssey list" of 87 pubs, Chris Parkinson, who after the labour of drawing up the list wasn't able, because of work, to come to any of the first 47 meetings! Talk about labouring for the benefit of your fellow man and not yourself!
The Tilbury website is keen to tell you how good they are (and they are good) but doesn't tell you anything about the history of the pub. The pub's site at a crossroads would normally be a sign of great antiquity as would the fact that Datchworth is on a really old road, a Roman road in fact, from St Albans to Puckeridge. However, its not so simple. There was in the eighteenth century a pub called the "Tilbury Fort" near Datchworth church- named after Queen Elizabeth I's great speech to her troops at Tilbury on the Thames in 1588 as they waited to repel the Spanish Armada. In the early nineteenth century the licence was transferred to the current site and the pub then there, called the Three Horse Shoes, was renamed the Tilbury (God knows why). In 1975, again God knows why, the name was changed to the "The Inn on the Green". Now it's gone back to being the Tilbury. All a bit of a tangle and its hard to see who gained anything from it. But be it ever so remote, the connection is with Good Queen Bess and stuffing the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Datchworth has some other entertaining historical oddities. The last enemy-action incident of any kind on British soil in the Second World War occurred in Datchworth at 9am on 29 March 1945 when a V1 flying bomb struck a nearby field.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Pub Odyssey 47
Tuesday 29 November: THE WHITE HART, HERTFORD (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, Andrew Swift, John Westwood)
COMMENT: I really like the White Hart. Its an obviously ancient pub, in an attractive central square in Hertford, Salisbury Square. The earliest reference to it I know is on 6 March 1802 when John Carrington, the Hertfordshire diarist, went there to pay for "3 Lds peas" and bought four more- another indication of the role pubs and inns played as a venue for commercial transactions in past times. But the pub is clearly much older than this. A bit puzzlingly, its described in earlier times as being in "Market Square"- whether this means it changed venue or whether Market Square was merely renamed Salisbury Square, I don't know.
However, although ancient, the White Hart has been well modernised by McMullens as a sports pub with three large screens to which I quite often cycle down to watch the football on Sky. This is a very nice experience. The pub is frequented by large numbers of Arsenal and Spurs supporters. I remember a lovely Saturday lunchtime with a game between these two north London giants, the fans, noisy and partisan, but friendly, sitting down in family groups to have lunch and watch the game. Their kids dressed in Van Persie and Gareth Bale football outfits were running around the pub in severe danger of kneecapping the the bar staff as they brought out the food. (Incidentally, not only Arsenal and Spurs. Last Sunday, Liverpool v Manchester City, there were a couple of little Luis Suarezes running about.) The staff are good fun too, friendly and helpful in my experience, on the Odyssians' visit bringing out the drinks as well as the food to our table thus saving us lazy geriatrics from even having to walk to the bar to get our beer.
COMMENT: I really like the White Hart. Its an obviously ancient pub, in an attractive central square in Hertford, Salisbury Square. The earliest reference to it I know is on 6 March 1802 when John Carrington, the Hertfordshire diarist, went there to pay for "3 Lds peas" and bought four more- another indication of the role pubs and inns played as a venue for commercial transactions in past times. But the pub is clearly much older than this. A bit puzzlingly, its described in earlier times as being in "Market Square"- whether this means it changed venue or whether Market Square was merely renamed Salisbury Square, I don't know.
However, although ancient, the White Hart has been well modernised by McMullens as a sports pub with three large screens to which I quite often cycle down to watch the football on Sky. This is a very nice experience. The pub is frequented by large numbers of Arsenal and Spurs supporters. I remember a lovely Saturday lunchtime with a game between these two north London giants, the fans, noisy and partisan, but friendly, sitting down in family groups to have lunch and watch the game. Their kids dressed in Van Persie and Gareth Bale football outfits were running around the pub in severe danger of kneecapping the the bar staff as they brought out the food. (Incidentally, not only Arsenal and Spurs. Last Sunday, Liverpool v Manchester City, there were a couple of little Luis Suarezes running about.) The staff are good fun too, friendly and helpful in my experience, on the Odyssians' visit bringing out the drinks as well as the food to our table thus saving us lazy geriatrics from even having to walk to the bar to get our beer.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Pub Odyssey 46
Tuesday 22 November: THE NORTH STAR, near Oaklands (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, Andrew Swift, Jeff Tipper, John Westwood)
COMMENT: There is something a bit mysterious about the name of this pub The "North Star" was a famous railway engine, the first and last "Broad Gauge" engine on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway. But the GWR operated many miles from Hertfordshire, why name a pub here after one of its engines? The pub itself is clearly a between-the-wars construction, built like so many then to resemble a very large commuterland house, in this case in "stockbroker Tudor" style. It would have been designed to catch either, or both, of road and rail traffic on the major arteries going north. As usual, McMullens provide very little information about the pub, but unusually for them they did provide an information gem on one of their beers, an excellent dark beer called "Pope's Porter".
This beer, according to a McMullens card beside the handpump, celebrated the only English pope, Adrian IV (ruled 1154-59). Adrian was born in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, with the name of Nicholas Breakspear, became a monk and eventually a successful cardinal and diplomat before being elected pope.
McMullen commented
"Adrian IV often had to deal with the troublesome Normans and reputedly sent for Hertfordshire ale to quell any uprisings. He died in 1159 choking on a fly in his wine. Should've stuck with the beer!"
It's a good story but the spoilsport Wikipedia suggests that Adrian probably died of quinsy (a complication of tonsillitis). I've also seen suggestions Adrian was poisoned, quite a likely explanation; medieval cardinals and popes were often as lethal in their political methods as medieval kings. Perhaps the tradition persists; conspiracy theories abound about the sudden death in 1977, after a reign of 33 days, of Pope John Paul I.
In all this historical guff I should have said the food and beer were good and as usual we had a good time!
COMMENT: There is something a bit mysterious about the name of this pub The "North Star" was a famous railway engine, the first and last "Broad Gauge" engine on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway. But the GWR operated many miles from Hertfordshire, why name a pub here after one of its engines? The pub itself is clearly a between-the-wars construction, built like so many then to resemble a very large commuterland house, in this case in "stockbroker Tudor" style. It would have been designed to catch either, or both, of road and rail traffic on the major arteries going north. As usual, McMullens provide very little information about the pub, but unusually for them they did provide an information gem on one of their beers, an excellent dark beer called "Pope's Porter".
This beer, according to a McMullens card beside the handpump, celebrated the only English pope, Adrian IV (ruled 1154-59). Adrian was born in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, with the name of Nicholas Breakspear, became a monk and eventually a successful cardinal and diplomat before being elected pope.
McMullen commented
"Adrian IV often had to deal with the troublesome Normans and reputedly sent for Hertfordshire ale to quell any uprisings. He died in 1159 choking on a fly in his wine. Should've stuck with the beer!"
It's a good story but the spoilsport Wikipedia suggests that Adrian probably died of quinsy (a complication of tonsillitis). I've also seen suggestions Adrian was poisoned, quite a likely explanation; medieval cardinals and popes were often as lethal in their political methods as medieval kings. Perhaps the tradition persists; conspiracy theories abound about the sudden death in 1977, after a reign of 33 days, of Pope John Paul I.
In all this historical guff I should have said the food and beer were good and as usual we had a good time!
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