Old Ferry Boat Inn, Holywell

The question of which is the oldest pub in the country has piqued my interest this year.
And this is what led me to be balancing precariously on a tree branch across St Ives Stream on a sunny Easter weekend morning.
 
The Old Ferryboat Inn (Holywell, St Ives, PE27 4TG - web)
Of all the claimants to the title 'Britain's Oldest Pub' The Old Ferryboat is one of the most ambitious of them all.  Reputedly, alcohol was served at this location as early as 560 AD.
A historical inn, with a walk along the river to reach it, in the sunshine;  I was looking forward to this visit.

The Old Ferryboat Inn from the garden, before the crowds descended.

The Church of St John the Baptist, containing a holy well
from which the village takes its name. 

The village of Holywell where the pub is located is around 1½ miles by footpath from St Ives in Cambridgeshire.

With a sense of adventure (that means I didn't check the map properly) we took a longer route, following a path along the Great Ouse River from the town centre.  This is how we came to be crossing the stream on a fallen tree branch.
No pictures of Mrs PropUptheBar shuffling across ignobly on her derriere, due to her GDPR preferences.

We then got caught on brambles on a little-walked path, before finally reaching wide-open fields leading to the village church.
At the end of the street, next to the river, the white-painted pub is standing out magnificently in the sunshine.

White pub, Blue sky - The Old Ferry Boat Inn

Most folks are engrossed in conversation, but that dog has spotted me with my camera and knows I'm up to no good...

Outdoor Cutlery Hut -
an original 560 AD feature.

I'd timed my arrival to be as early as possible to avoid inevitable holiday weekend crowds descending upon the pub.  And descend they did.  We settled on a table in the pleasant garden to the side of the building, which quickly filled up.

The Ferryboat is owned by Greene King and branded as an 'Old English Inn'.  But alongside the usual GK ales there was also an Oakham 'Bishop's Farewell', a nice pint, served in good condition.

The 'oldest pub' claim seems to be a little low key.  Perhaps because they got fed-up of people asking to see those 'records' of drinks being sold here as early as 560 AD.
There's a suggestion that the buildings foundations date back even earlier than this, but archaeologists seem unable to put a definitive date on the building.

The Ghost Story Bit...
What you will find with every web search for the pub - and recounted on a chalk-board within the bar - is a ghost tale associated with the Old Ferry Boat.
It tells how a young girl called Juliet fell in love with woodcutter Tom Zoul.  When Tom didn't return her love, she took her own life.
Juliet was buried in unconsecrated ground next to the pub, the stigma of suicide not allowing for a church burial.  As the pub has expanded over the years it now incorporates this plain stone slate grave, set among'st the dining tables.

Each year on the 17th March it is said that her ghostly figure rises from the river to make her way to the gravestone.

Well, it wouldn't  be a proper old pub without a ghost tale attached to it.

Our's was a pleasant visit, aided by the fact the we beat the crowds and saw the pub in wonderful good weather.  We walked back to St Ives on the more straightforward route, picking up the dull, straight road past the quarry and concrete works.

I May As Well Be In Ely Or St Ives

Two market towns that made for pleasant short trips from our Cambridge base over the Easter weekend.  We weren't going crazy in either of them, generally sticking to the current Good Beer Guide entries - and here's what we found...

Ely
Ely lies just over 16 miles to the north-east of Cambridge and was a simple 20-minute train ride.  The walk from the rail station towards the center took us through Cherry Tree Park, serving up splendid views of the Cathedral, basked in sunshine today.

It's a sign of the times that Oliver Cromwell's house has had a section dedicated as an Escape Room.  Escaping from a room - a 21st century fad that I really don't understand.

Cromwell's House

Our first stop of the day after a draining 45 minutes of 'tourism' was in a micro pub a few minutes downhill from the Market Place.

Drayman's Son (29a Forehill, Ely, CB7 4AA - whatpub)
We were the first customers this afternoon and hence afforded a warm welcome. The pub is now run by the folks behind Three Blind Mice brewery, with 4 of the 8 ales available on this visit being their own.  Their single-hopped 'Eldorado' was a light, hoppy easy-going pale ale and a superb first beer of the day.

The Drayman's Son, Ely

Set in one single room, converted from a shop, the pub has a raggle-taggle selection of tables and chairs, old cine-projectors in the windows and a collection of historical tin signs adorning the walls.
As well as a fine choice of beers the cider list was mighty impressive and I couldn't resist switching to try a half of one of these from Spinny Abbey.

Several more folk arrived whilst we were there, ordering wines, coffee, beers and some kind of cheesy platter.  The Drayman's Son was somewhere I really liked and could have loitered much longer.  

Inside the Drayman's Son.

Through the compact city center, it was a short walk to the first of the two pubs listed in the 2019 Good Beer Guide...

Townhouse (60-64 Market Street, Ely, CB7 4LS - whatpub)
I stood across the road with my camera, trying to look menacing, waiting for a loitering old lady right in the way of my picture, to move.  Sunshiny pub-pic done, and we were in.

Gloriously sunny - the Townhouse, Ely.

Bar Billiards.

This is a Grade II listed Georgian townhouse.
The bar is in the back room, with the first room you enter containing a handful of seats, bookcase wallpaper and a bar billiards table in the corner.
Extra points for having their own Townhouse Pub beer mats.
Through the back is the bar, which in turn opens to a conservatory extension and a sunny, enclosed back yard beyond.
The drinks range here was a little pedestrian having been in spoilt for choice in the Drayman's. 
Between us we tried the tasty Maulden's 'Blackberry Porter' and Elgoods 'Cambridge Bitter'.  
A big thumbs-up to the filling, good-value Sunday lunch which we enjoyed here in the sunshine. 

Ely's second 2019 Good Beer Guide pub was a little further away on the quiet suburban streets to the northwest of the cathedral.

The Prince Albert (62 Silver Street, Ely, CB7 4JF)
I can't say I was overly excited to see that it was a Greene King establishment, but there was salvation at the bar with several guest ales, including 'Sparta' from Milton Brewery.

The Prince Albert, Ely

But the real winner for the Prince Albert was the lovely garden stretching out behind the pub.  A pleasant spot, we sat in the shade of an umbrella, enjoying the Milton ale.
Drinking too much in the first real bit of warm weather of the year would probably do me no good, so that was all the Ely pubs that we visited, relaxing down by the riverside instead, prior to catching a train back to Cambridge.

St Ives
Another day and another short trip, this time taking the Bus Way from Cambridge.

I appreciate that folks from Cambridgeshire may not share my unbridled enthusiasm for the guided buses.  It has after all faced several problems and ended up costing more than it's budget.  But when you're used to an Oxford bus slowly navigating the chaos of Cowley Road, the concept of whizzing along dedicated bus tracks is pretty appealing.  We maybe looked a little too excited about the journey, sat on the front seat upstairs with camera's out...

Guided bus (through fly-splattered windscreen)

Arriving in St Ives we wandered along the main street, then found our way to the picturesque riverside area.  The bridge incorporates a chapel midway across - one of only four examples of this in the country (thanks Wikipedia!)

The view from the bridge at St Ives.

We walked past the Town Quay, along a narrow lane and onward across the fields and a riverside footpath.  Our destination nearby was the Old Ferryboat Inn, but as that claims to be the oldest pub in the country, it deserves it's own post.
After that visit, we retraced our steps to call into a pub we'd passed earlier...

Oliver Crowell (13 Wellington Street, St Ives, PE27 5AZ - web).
This has one of those magnificent, ornate pub signs stretching out half way into the road, a little like the Olde Reinedeer in Banbury.

The Oliver Crowell, St Ives, Cambridgeshire

The pub was originally a cottage, prior to being converted to it's current use in the 1840's.
Inside it's L-shaped with a comfortable front bar and an area which seemed more inclined to dining to the side.
Six ales were available on the bar, plus Lilley's rhubarb or mango cider and a stronger 6% Cromwell cider - looking somewhat lethal in it's white plastic container.
I picked 'Venture', a 3.7% pale brewed by Nethergate, which was a nice enough pint.

There seemed to be a good mix of regular customers and visitors and this had the feel of a really nice pub.

From the Oliver Cromwell, we headed back along the main street. As an important market town St Ives once housed as many as 64 pubs in 1838. There's rather less now, but still a fair few to chose from. As we planned to get back to Cambridge by late afternoon, we aimed for just one more, this being the Good Beer Guide listed Royal Oak.

Royal Oak (13 Crown Street, St Ives, PE27 5EB)
There were just a couple of locals hanging out at the front bar, getting in the way of my being able to see the pump clips.  I guess everyone else was down the road in Wetherspoon's.

Royal Oak, St Ives

Back bar at the Royal Oak

They may possibly have been in the process of doing a bit of work on the pub - there were bags of cement and decorating kit in the back room fireplace and one of the toilet doors sat propped against the wall on a corridor.  It felt a little in need of some TLC.
Craving a bit of the sunshine rather than a dark interior in front of Final Score on TV, we sat in the un-cared for back yard in the sunshine.

On the plus side- lovely pint of 'Banquo' a bitter, hoppy 3.8% ABV pale ale from Newby Wyke Brewery.
Possibly somewhere that I didn't pick the best time to visit.

Armed with a list as long as my arm of pubs to try in Cambridge, we hopped back on the Busway for the return journey and plenty more pubs ahead.

The title of this post comes from the concluding lyric of Half Man Half Biscuit song 'For What is Chateris'.

Wouldn't it be great, I thought, to visit the song's titular town, the "envy of the fens"?
But that's quite a hard sell to your dearly beloved travelling companion...
...an 80-minute round-trip bus journey? To a town that's mentioned in a song by an indie band from the Wirral? That I've never heard of?!
To be fair, I wasn't convincing myself it was worth it.  So in the end we missed the possible delights, or otherwise, of Chateris and the post title has lost most of it's relevance.  Bah!