13.
Things go tits-up in Tackley (again),
Mr. David Wacey
and I had hatched some sort of plan to slot in some pubs in the Deddington area (including the fabled Falkland Arms at
Great Tew) on a circular cycle-pub crawl based around
Heyford station. The first five minutes of the day
had kicked off quite well as I had arrived at
Dave soon pitched up and was observant
enough to note that the 12.50 train wasn't running. We hastily made alternative
arrangements and decided instead to go to Banbury on
an imminently leaving fast train and perform an amended crawl which would still
take in a number of our originally intended pubs. Things took a further turn
for the worst when it was noted that the returning train which we intended to
catch at Heyford at 22.30 was in fact a bus, probably
with brown seats and driven by some fat git who was
unlikely to let a couple of pissed fools on with bikes. Undaunted, we set off
up some sodding great hill in the boiling heat out of
Banbury and about 4 miles later arrived at Adderbury, where we had a couple of halves of Hook Norton
Best served to us by a French looking bar man at the Red Lion. There was also
Green King IPA and Abbot on, and we noted that it was a rather foody pub.
Nipping across the road we had a quick
bite to eat at the Coach and Horses that did reasonably priced Wadworths products and was populated by a more authenic crowd. Leaving here we resolved to cycle a further
3 or so miles along some arduous roads to Deddington where
there are a plethora of watering holes for a village. The Deddington
Arms was our first stop, which was a bit of a bland and expensive hotel place
which did IPA, Youngs Special, Tetley and Pedigree.
Deciding to try a different haunt, we had a swift half of London Pride each at
the Red Lion, at which the barman who looked like something out of Motorhead assured us that we could have had some Nook
Norton Best, but he did not want to draw the new barrel through the pipes yet
as the evening punters did not want warm ale. Our last Deddington
pub was the Unicorn Inn which again was a bit soulless, though a young lady
collecting glasses provided welcome distractions. More run of the mill beers
– 6X, Hook Norton Best and Bass – were available.
Leaving Deddington,
we headed for Great Tew which was our chief
objective, pausing at the White Horse Inn at Duns Tew
where Dave opted for more IPA whilst I sampled the delights of Greene King XX
Mild on piss flow which was actually quite nice. It was a rather good country
pub with an Aussie bar lady who was for some reason wearing a jumper on such a
hot day. The seventh pub of the day was the Falkland Arms at Great Tew which has quite legendary status. As we had had another
quite long cycle we decided to have a pair of pints each here from the
extensive selection – Rebellion Skinfull,
Henry's IPA, 6X, Pedigree, Wadworths
Somersault, Old Hooky, Hydes Summer Challenger and
some stupid cider with bits in it. Also available were proper pork scratchings, snuff and an array of pipe tobacco and clay
pipes. Quite rightly this is a superb pub and well worth a visit with good
views available from the beer garden, which is good because it isn't
particularly kid-friendly. The only slight problem I find is that in Summer it
is a bit too popular and you find quite a few people drinking there who don't
normally drink in pubs, and I'm not sure if there's much room in there during
the winter.
Retracing our steps we arrived at the Fox
at Westcote Barton where we decided against Hook
Norton Best and Pedigree in favour of some Adnams Broadside. The pub an unfeasibly small and quirky
toilet and a particularly good bay window seat but not too much else, though it
was quite pleasant for a stay. The Carpenter's Arms at Middle Barton was the
next stop about half a mile away, where we had draught Boddingtons which was
surprisingly excellent, rather than try the IPA or Pedigree. A bit foody, but very lively at 6pm and we thought that it would
be alright for further pints had we not had to push on to the Holt Hotel, at Hopcroft's Holt. Now this is actually a plush hotel bar, so
though it doesn't score well, we actually quite liked it and if you were a
guest there, it would be quite adequate. Unfortunately, bar snacks are poor and
the beer is restricted [a mysterious Claude Duval's bitter was off at the time]
to keg Boddingtons.
We razzed off a mere mile through a track
burnt across a cornfield to the Red Lion at Steeple Aston which does a couple
of Hook Norton ales. This seemed like a particularly locals pub with a friendly
atmosphere and a giant bottle of champagne in the gents'. The lively punters
were clearly populating this pub as the other, the White Lion, was dire and
only had a couple of bud drinking teens with earrings playing pool. The beer
selection was not recorded but I reckon it was a Morrells
one.
Urgency was setting in a bit so we headed
off down a hill to
At this point we decided that the best
thing to do was to try for Tackley so that if the bus
which wasn't a train showed up and refused us travel, we'd be a bit nearer
home. On the way we stopped at the Horse and Groom in Caulcott
which is a truly excellent pub, quite similar in certain ways to the
To console ourselves, we popped into our
16th and last pub, the Gardiner Arms at Tackley at
22.59 for some IPA (Abbot also available as is London Pride), which we had
already rated, though is actually quite a nice pub in the light. We had covered
about 33 miles already, and I ascertained that it was possible to do the
remaining 12 with not too much difficulty. It was going OK if a little slow
until we reached Jordan Hill on the outskirts of Oxford, at which point Mr Wacey was suddenly struck down
by heat exhaustion/sun stroke/hunger (none of these are surprising really given
that we had been drinking beer all day in the hot sun without eating), and had
to be collected by Miss Jenny Brett in her car. I pressed on the last 4 miles
home before collapsing in a heap at 01.00 and feeling like shit the next day.
Plans are afoot to do a Thame/Lewknor crawl by Oxford
Tube (should be no stranding incidents there), or getting the train to Bicester and planning to cycle back.
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
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