39.
The Cotswolds - Stow in the Wold and surroundings,
It nearing the end of pub crawling on bikes
in the country season, Dave and I thought it would be a good idea to take
advantage of some fine weather and headed to the Cotswolds
for a bit of a jolly. The station of choice was Kingham,
and lo and behold, less than a mile out of the station, we found our first pub,
the King's Head in Bledington, and it was a good
start. The pub is on the village green, and though the car park out front makes
it look like a car showroom, it still has a rural feel. Our beer choices were
Burton Bridge Bitter, Slater's Original, Hook Norton Best and Adnam's Bitter. Ale was quite
expensive though.
A quite long cycle followed via some rough
tracks (our map was bits of printout taken from multimap
and stuck on a piece of card but we managed quite well), to the New Inn at
Nether Westcote, a delightfully shabby pub, one might
say the Lamb and Flag of country pubs which retained a great deal of rustic
charm and had some cracking pub games. Beer on offer was varied too - Hook
Norton Best, Morrells, Archers King George V and
North Cotswold Summer Solstice - and was of excellent quality and reasonably
priced. There was also a young barmaid serving solids. Another reasonably long
cycle, pissing about via some very refined looking hotel, but not venturing in,
allowed us to rock up at Bourton-on-the-Water which
would have been a very nice village had it not been for the coachloads
of tourists clogging up the streets. Missing out a couple of the shite-ier pubs which had no proper beer and long queues, we
opted for the Duke of Wellington where we chose Black Sheep, in preference to
Hook Norton Best and Adnams. Not an excellent pub,
but the garden was quiet and the beer was good and quite reasonably priced.
Braving the milling humans again we went
to the other end of the village and popped into the Old New Inn which was a
hotel. This was also a reasonably good boozer with quite old fixtures and
fittings, a French bar maid, and fantastic keg? Boddingtons, though Bass and
Toby were also available. Back on the bikes and time to visit the Coach and
Horses, on the main road to the west of the village. Typical
main road pub really, alright for atmosphere and alright HNB. But probably not making an effort to visit. A quick ride
across a field allowed access to Lower Slaughter and specifically the Waterbourne Court Hotel which was quite nice. Not really a
place for beers, as there were no real ones on, but very good for a quick drink
in
Frustratingly the Golden Ball at the
amusingly named Lower Swell was closed (though I returned a few days later for
some quite good Donningtons ale), so we made our way
to Stow-on-the-Wold up a steep hill, and decided to reward ourselves by
chaining up the bikes and walking around to find as many pubs as we could.
First watering hole was the Bell which is where all the teens go to drink and
where there were a number of reasonably butch and tattooed bar maids. However
they did a good half of Landlord in addition to Boddies
and HNB. Their happy hour offer of cheap pints didn't seem to extend to us even
though we had between us purchased a complete pint of Landlord (divided into
two glasses). A visit to the chippy was next, but
normal service was resumed in the Queen's Head, a rather nice old-fashioned pub
with a courtyard out the back. Our choices were Donnington's
excellent SBA and BB which were available at competitive prices, and we enjoyed
our time here, expecially as one could urinate and
wave at people from the gents' which was amusing at the time.
Another Stow pub was the White Hart, a
splendid Arkells pub though they have managed to
waste as much room as possible. A nice barman gave us an Arkells
brochure to read. His beer was good quality, having Arkells
2B, 3B and Kingsdown. Typical quiet market town pub
really. Quite a large dining area which should be used for
drinkers instead. Across the square was the really quite trendy Talbot.
We had actually seen a young filly driving towards the pub and we speculated
whether she would be serving. Sure enough she was, with her mate. During our
stay a sign went up saying that diners only were being allowed in that evening,
but we were early enough that this presented no problems. And
just as well too as we supped our Wadworths 6X and
Henry's IPA. Still a bit trendy though. Back across
the square and another trendy foody pub, although
this one was marketing itself on being 'ye olde worlde' for those young professionals. Pricey Greene
King 1799 and IPA was rather well kept. However we
always felt that we were in the way amongst the diners.
Our final Stow haunt was the Eagle and
Child, part of a hotel. We contented ourselves watching some girls doing the
serving and helping in the adjacent hotel bit, whilst drinking some excellent,
if expensive, Tim Taylor Landlord (HNB also available). A
pleasant way indeed to spend 15 minutes. Other than this it's a bit poky
in there but still worth a visit. Just as an aside here, if you want to visit a
proper small market town, then come here rather than Bourton,
which is far too commercialised especially with all
the sack o' shite shops than now unfortunately
accompany these sorts of things (aimed at the Yanks). Getting back on the bikes
and with the light fading, we motored to the Horse and Groom in Upper Oddington, where I have been before. It was livelier in
there this time, a seemingly family run business with the teen daughters doing
some waitressing. On this occasion the choice was Youngs Special or HNB, though Labbatt's
(
In the pitch dark we cycled through Oddington to its Lower part and the Fox, a similar pub to
the Horse and Groom. This one got higher marks though on account that one of
the barmaids was giving me the eye, and also because the beer (Abbot and HNB)
was very good and quite cheap. Oh and the toilets were superb with what I think
were beer adverts from a by-gone age saying something like 'When a man's had a
hard day toiling, he deserves a beer'. Superb! Our final stop, a considerable
way further on in Kingham itself, was the Plough,
quite a dead backwater of a pub, or so we thought until we went to the back
room where we found a collection of youths, all boys apart from one saucy teen
girl who was conversing with us for a while. The pub itself was very mediocre,
with Toby, Bass and Worthingtons 1744, so much as
we'd have liked to have - and perhaps got glassed for our troubles by jealous
local lads - we thought we'd better get on the train, which we did and, for a
change, with no further mishap. Though Dave had an awful hangover the next day
attributed to a dodgy sausage in the chippy, since
I'd had cod roe and chips....
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 26th September 2003.