Looking Back At - Cambridge Pubs

Pubs have been closed for 6 weeks now....  oh, how we're missing them....
So I've taken the opportunity to look back at past photos and draft posts never completed, and present below a ramshackle selection of pubs we visited last April on a trip to Cambridge. 
  

Starting with the Free Press (7 Prospect Row, CB1 1DU).  This was the first place we visited when we were released from the Oxford - Cambridge bus (3 hours 35 minutes - "comfortable and stylish", the Stagecoach website advertises - disputable, after the first couple of hours). 
Mrs PropUpTheBar dismissed the Greene King beers ("When are we going to Pint Shop?" she demanded), but I do declare the 'XX Mild' was lovely, and the pub an undisputed backstreet classic.

Heading eastwards, we found a Good Beer Guide entry The Geldart (1 Ainsworth Street, CB1 2PF).

This was an intriguing street corner pub, with several rooms encircling a central bar.  Features included a cool jukebox, a quirky glass piano and pump clips made out of various musical instruments...

And classic LPs on display in the Gents...

Dr Hook's 'Sexy Eyes', Denise LaSalle 'I'm so Hot'
and 18 more of your sensual disco favorites.

I was keen to make a re-visit to Live & Let Live (40 Mawson Road, CB1 2EA), one of the first pubs I ever went to in Cambridge, many years ago.

No glass piano's or Erotica LP sleeves on the walls here - this is a no-nonsense backstreet boozer.  Looking at the picture below makes me really miss a visit to the pub.  How I'd like to be settling down in the corner there, with a pint of Oakham ale in front of me...

Shades of brown.

On this weekend last April it was stonkingly hot - the good people of Cambridge were almost in danger of me getting out the shorts and revealing my dazzlingly white legs.

The crowds were out in force...

Looking much quieter today, I expect.

An especially popular good weather spot was The Mill (14 Mill Lane, CB2 1RX) - plenty of vacant tables inside, with the vast majority of customers spilling out with their plastic pint pots onto Laundress Green.

The Mill.

I had a lovely pint of locally brewed ale in the Mill, but all wasn't well for those looking for summery gin-based fruit cup liqueurs...

A year ago, this was the biggest crisis that we could envisage.

We were in full tourist mode, poking our heads into College quads, obstructing the pavement to take pictures and stepping out into the road in front of cyclists.

And an obligatory pub stop for the tourist is the Eagle (Bene't Street, CB1 3QN).

Tourist-pub-wise, this is to Cambridge what the Eagle and Child is to Oxford.  Except instead of Tolkien and Carroll, they have Watson and Crick, announcing the discovery of DNA in the pub in 1953.

The Eagle beats the Eagle and Child hands-down on beer choice, spaciousness and character.  It stretches back into several rooms, including the RAF bar at the rear, complete with a ceiling covered in graffiti by World War II pilots.  

Failed miserably to get a shot of the RAF room ceiling of graffiti, so all I can offer is this slightly blurry 'blokes at the bar' picture.

I should briefly mention the Cambridge Blue - seeing as I always end up in it whenever I visit the city...

But prior to 2019 I didn't know they had a sister pub - the Blue moon (2 Norfolk Street, CB1 2LF - web).  This appears to focus on live music, with some decent sounding rockers sound-checking whilst we were there.

And craft ale, with some especially tempting and foolishly strong double IPAs and stouts on the keg lines.  I stuck to the more sensible Abbeydale 'Salvation Breakfast Stout' on cask.  Spotting the notice board, I felt it a better option than asking for Carlsberg.

No nonsense signage.

There are so many great looking pubs scattered throughout the terraces north of Mill Street that it's difficult to pick which ones to fit into your itinerary. We followed the Beer Guide and called in to the The Kingston Arms (33 Kingston Street, CB1 2NU).

Did I pick the beer on the Budget Bustin' Pump?
Yes - I'm a skinflint - of course I did.

But would we have to close the pubs in the
event of Armageddon?

And a final mention goes to the Old Ticket Office (Unit 1, Cambridge Railway Station, CB1 2JH), a nice conversion of a redundant part of the train station.  A trip around the country visiting great pubs and bars at railway stations would be quite a good project, when we're allowed, wouldn't it?

Shades of green.

The nature of my forgetting to take pictures, or just plain forgetting where we've been, means that this post omits some fantastic places we visited in Cambridge last year.

We did make it to Pint Shop and also enjoyed sitting in the yard at Calverley's Brewery.
I like to seek out a Milton beer when we're over in this direction - on this occasion accompanied by a fine pizza in the Devonshire Arms.  We also ticked off the Maypole, the Castle and the Mitre.  And probably some more - Mrs PropUptheBar will remember.

Those were the days.....

Inside the Elm Tree, I think...