14.
Nineteen pubs in and around Thame, Lewknor and Chinnor, Saturday 7th September 2002
After our nightmarish experience with Tackley, Dave Wacey and I decided
that it would be prudent to use the Oxford Tube to transfer our bikes to Lewknor on and have a leisurely 20 mile cycling round trip
taking in Thame. The advantage of this crawl, of course,
is that the Oxford Tube runs 24 hours a day - no chance of missing the last
one...
Our trek commenced at 1 o'clock, and 0.8 of a mile later, we were supping a half
of Brakespeare's Bitter (they also had Special) at Ye
Olde Leathern Bottel at Lewknor. This pub, though having a kid friendly garden,
also had a quite cosy olde worlde interior and a hearty menu. There is a nice seat
just outside the congested front door area which would be nice to sit on in the
early spring or during a storm in summer. Kola Kubes
and lollipops were available over the bar. Pressing on a mere 2.1 miles
further, through a small village that had a permanently closed pub, we
encountered the slightly awful England's Rose at Postcombe,
which was populated by bikers tucking into cheap farty
food. We could only get hold of John Smith's on keg and it was served by a
miserable bloke. We won't be going back in a hurry.
Our third pub was supposed to be the Crown
at Sydenham, but it shut at 2pm, so in fact it was The Inn at Emmington,
a well deserved stop after 5.9 miles of cycling. A young lass
served up with a couple of halves of Adnams. They
also do Brakespeare and their menu extends to
ostrich, bison, crocodile and kangaroo. I think this would be quite a nice pub
to dine at. A brisk cycle took us another 3 miles to the outskirts of Thame and to the Falcon which was really quite dire and had
an assortment of gents watching horseracing and drinking Greene King IPA or
Abbot served by a ratty little man and paying [yet again] £2.30 for the privilege.
The toilet had fist holes in the ceiling, so we drank up and left.
A mere 528 yards later, we encountered the
Cross Keys. Although restricted to pissflow beer,
this is quite a nice pub to sit in on comfy seats in the bar window and watch
the world go by. We had an animated conversation about Carry On films in this
pub, as well as the obscure condoms available in the toilets. Just a bit
further up the road, we tethered our bikes at the market place and spied half a
dozen pubs within crawling distance. After checking our whereabouts in the
tourist information office, we resolved to get a sneaky pre-football match half
at the Old Nag's Head, one of those Morrell’s pubs which only had Oxford Blue
on that day which was a shame. A chalk board proclaimed that various pickled
snacks were available which put its rating up somewhat, though we didn't
actually see the merchandise behind the bar.
Our seventh pub was the Two Brewers which
was showing the football. We elected to have the now ubiquitous IPA rather than
Abbot. At this point, Dave's housemate Sharon Morton, intercepted us, and after
I had failed to find the Star and Garter, we went to the awful Jimmy Figgs which was full of gents who appeared to be 'big fish
in a small pond'. Sharon was most taken by our barman, who served us all
with halves of keg John Smiths. I missed the first goal as I was in the gents.
We then popped up the road hoping for a third pub showing the football, but
couldn't see one so had a swift half of Fullers Summer Ale in the morgue-like
Six Bells. In the end, we went back to the Two Brewers which allowed Sharon to rate it [the ladies toilets contain awful baby
pictures etc] and us to see England chuck it away.
Sharon then had to go back home to work, but me and Dave
kept up the good work with our tenth pub, the black Horse, where Dave had realized
that he had left his bag in a previous pub. Fortunately, he found it whilst I acquainted
myself with the cask Tetley that we elected to have in preference to more IPA.
It's actually a very nice pub with a fine conservatory, though the clientele
detract from this markedly. Some fine-looking women were to be spotted in the
rather trendy Abingdon Arms. This was the first pub of the day to have a decent
range of beers - Bass, Hook Norton Best, 6X, Brakespeare. The Bass was apparently rather good too,
but the Hook was poor. The Birdcage is a pub just across the road which has
banned under 20s! An interesting range of Bombardier,
London Pride and more Brakespear was available,
though the quality was not up to much and the atmosphere was lacking. Nice
building though! Pausing for some fine fish and chips from the shop with the
yellow sign, we decided to leave Thame [would have
done the Saracen's Head but it is now and estate agents, grr],
though on the way out we had a swift half at the now discovered Star and Garter
which did Bombardier, IPA, Morlands and Greene King
XX mild. We sat in a cosy part of the pub, the
crescent bar, and swore at Ann Robinson as we failed to win the Weakest Link
game.
Returning to our bikes, Mr Wacey found that his lock
wouldn't open. Fortunately it was a piece of shit made in China, so blunt wire cutters put paid to its resistance.
Steaming along the road in the twilight, we approached the Three Horseshoes at Towersey via a gravel drive. Flowers IPA and 6X were vended
by a miserable Scottish woman. The pub is odd as there are two large quite vacuous
rooms, a bit like a South London Boozer, and there is also a small bridge in
the garden. Having had enough of that, we sped off along the rapidly darkening
lane along a farm track which eventually petered out to a footpath that
fortunately managed to spit us out at Henton, 3.4
miles further on. The Peacock hotel has a nice timeless feel about it, with cosy booths which would be a nice venue for geologists to
loudly swear in on a field trip. Nice orange toilets too. It was also empty, a few old men were drinking Courage or Old Speckled
Hen or Ruddles, which was our choice.
Time was running out and it was beginning
to rain, but nonetheless, we managed to find the Red Lion at Chinnor which was full of more old men. We had a couple of
halves of Hook Norton Best to wash down some excellent pork scratchings.
Can't remember what the other two beers were as we were engrossed in a
conversation about Everton's glory days in the mid-eighties. It was now 10.30
so we pressed on past two boarded up pubs to the Black Boy where a load of
locals were watching Classic VH1 and drinking IPA and Broadside. Ignoring a
couple of other pubs in Chinnor, we headed towards Lewknor. On the way we were lured into the Wheatsheaf which had a dozen old soaks getting arseholed on more IPA and Abbot. We necked
our halves and bade them farewell. Without even time to put our bike lights on,
we sped off along pitch black country lanes to Crowell. I formed an advanced
party. We had finally come across a decent array of beers - four in total -
Hook, Batham’s Best, Tim Taylor Landlord and West Berkshire's Good Old Boy. All were good, and the Batham’s was excellent. I wanted some more, and even though
it was 11.10, thought that I could get some as some other punter had just got a
round in. Sadly, the nice barmaid had been replaced by some miserable old jobsworth who refused to serve us because we weren't
dining. Honestly, what a pile of fucking shit these licensing laws are. If I
were running a pub in the middle of nowhere I would certainly ignore these
rules and tell any interfering police/customs and excise men to piss off, stick
it up their arses and find something worthwhile to
do. The sooner someone bins this crap the better. That put a minor damper on
the end of the day, but luckily our spirits were lifted as a coach immediately
came out of the gloom to freight us home. Hooray to the Oxford Tube! More crawls being planned for later on ...
watch this space.
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Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 8th September 2002.