Halloween Post - The Sun Inn, Chipping

The annual Halloween post found me under grey skies in Lancashire in 2023, searching out a haunted pub and a gravestone in the local church yard.

Twelve miles NE of Preston, in the Ribble Valley, the village of Chipping is home to just over a thousand folk.  It's a picturesque place, the smell of real fires drifting out of chimney pots into the damp October skies.

Right in the heart of the village, on a disappointingly un-windy Windy Street, is the Sun Inn.
Complete with checklist of reasons to visit...

They spell 'Friendly' and 'Bubbly' differently in this part of the country.
(Incidentally, Prop Up the Bar is NOT in a position to point of spelling errors!!!)

The Sun Inn (Windy Street, Chipping, PR3 2DG)
It is a thoroughly pleasant 17th century inn.
With its own tale of tragedy and ghostly goings-on, as required for the Halloween post.

Lizzie Dean was said to be a maid at the pub who made the mistake of falling in love with a local scoundrel who seduced her and led her to expect that they would be wed.  But, having whisked her into his bed, he then cast Lizzie aside and announcing he was marrying her best friend instead.

On the day of the wedding, Lizzie hung herself in the attic room of the inn with a clear view of the church where the nuptials were taking place.
A suicide note clasped in her hand included a request to be buried at the entrance to the church "so my lover and my best friend will always have to walk past my grave every time they go to church".
Because of the nature of her death, the grave was instead located in the SE corner of St Bartholomew's Church, which some suggest may be why she's stuck around to haunt her old place of work ever since.

In June of 1999, a chap from Edinburgh was enjoying a morning pint when the temperature dropped and a young girl with hair in ringlets, wearing a dress of many colours, appeared in the snug.  His greeting was ignored and she moved on to another room, only for the man to discover there was no such young lady anywhere in the pub at the time.

Landlords over the years have described catching glimpses or Lizzie wandering through the rooms in her colourful dress.

I'm afraid that I didn't spot any ghostly figures.
What a lovely pub, though.

Several rooms led off a smart entry hall with polished wooden floor and coat stand.  There are plenty of comfy places to settle down close to a warm fireplace, with dart board and ring-the-bull game in the room to rear.
Three real ales were on offer - Wainwright 'Amber', Timothy Taylor 'Boltmaker', and Bowland 'Buster IPA'.  I stuck to the locally brewed Bowland which was a lovely pint in good condition.

My research brought up a report by someone who claimed to have proof that Lizzie died from natural causes and there were no marriages at the church around the time of her death. 
Let's face it, you can shout 'nonsense' at the ghost story, but where's the fun in that.
And who are we to question what a Scotsman saw during his morning drinking session!

Ultimately, the story of Lizzie Dean caused me to divert to this charming village and enjoy a cracking pint of local beer in this fine pub.  So, no complaints from me.

Plymouth - the GBG '24 Mop-Up

2023 was the year that I tried (and didn't quite manage) to conquer the Devon chapter of the Good Beer guide.

At the end of September I'd reached a total of 104 ticks and the county map was looking like this...

The 2024 'churn' (© BRAPA) dropped me back down to 92.
My last trek around Plymouth had seen me standing waiting for a bus outside the Indian Inn, where, unbeknownst to me, they were probably peeling the back off the Beer Guide '24 'We're In It' window sticker. 
Three of the pubs I visited that day lost their Guide place: The Cherry Tree, Queen's Arms and Admiral MacBride.

Under threatening grey autumnal skies I made a trip back to the city to put matters right.
One pub that has always elluded me is the Prince Maurice, being as it's a fair trek out into the suburbs.  With time to spare this time around, I found my way to Eggbuckland at lunchtime...

Eggbuckland chippy

The Prince Maurice (3 Church Hill, Eggbuckland, PL6 5RJ)
The Maurice the pub is named after is Maurice of the Palatinate, who did a good deal of trekking around Civil War battles in support of his uncle, Charles I, and ended up assuming command of the armed forces in Cornwall.
Pub ticking is great to enhance your Civil War knowledge.

The Prince Maurice is every bit the locals pub, tucked away in quiet streets with an elevated position overlooking the chip shop and Frogmore green.
The bar counter straddles two rooms, each with it's own entrance.

It's one of those pubs where the hand pumps are different in each room, so I ended up with a choice of the much-seen trio of Dartmoor 'Jail Ale', St Austell 'Tribute', or 'Doom Bar'.
It was only after I'd ordered the Jail Ale (not again!) that I spotted the blackboard listing 'Proper Job', Salcombe 'Gold' and South Hams 'Sherman' as also being available.

Despite my picture of an empty room there were a few locals in on an early week lunchtime, greeting each other by name and getting into a conversation about reality TV.
The young lady behind the bar had never heard of Big Brother - there's hope for the next generation yet.
And the locals had mixed views on Strictly Come Dancing - "I fast forward all the talking and just get to the bits with Angela Rippon".

Right...back into the centre of Plymouth and a walk down Union Street.
I've always meant to get a picture of the ornate and derelict Palace Theatre and Hotel...

The new entry for the 2024 Beer Guide is a short way up Octagon Street and is a little less architecturally impressive than the Palace.  The Duchy of Cornwall looks like it's had a recent paint job (possibly in a colour on a special offer clearance sale) and the front door replaced by something thoroughly modern, plastic and and un-pub-like.

Duchy of Cornwall (Anstis St, Stonehouse, Plymouth PL1 5JT)
As tends to happen a bit too much in my pub explorations, this was completely empty when I stepped through the door to a frenzied bout of barking from the pub dog.  I must have won him over, as he sat at my feet for the rest of my visit giving me determined nudges every time I tried to stop stroking him.

What Pub tells us they have "One rotating beer usually from Plymouth-based breweries". 
So having gotten in the Beer Guide with their one local ale, they'd replaced this on my visit with something from Greene King.

To be fair it was one of their Future Brewers range, which tend to be quite good - a very enjoyable 'Dark Star Porter'.

It's a simple one-room backstreet boozer with pool table, darts board and sleeping cat on one of the chairs.  Brightly lit, with a thoroughly modernised decor, and cricket on the big TV screen. (I know little about cricket but I know that England weren't doing very well).
The landlord, resplendent in one of those t-shirts with an all-over colourful print featuring beer n darts, told the next chap who arrived that he might have to make it a quick pint.  Apparently he was waiting for a phone call to pick someone up, at which point he was shutting the pub.
So I guess I was lucky not to arrive half-an-hour later and been frustrated by this one.

You realise just how spread out Plymouth is when wandering on foot from one side to the other.  I passed through the shopping streets, diverted to the Barbican and strolled around the harbour, before heading just east of the centre.

Vessel Beer Shop (184 Exeter St, Plymouth PL4 0NQ)
And I arrived at the beer shop just as a sudden vicious downpour ensued.  Good timing.
This little single room shop has around 5 tables, a bar at the back, and several fridges stacked full of all manner of tempting crafty cans.

On tap were 6 beers, 3 from Left Handed Giant, and 1 each from Donzoko, Ideal Day and Pomona Island.  £3 brought me a half of the lemon saison from Saltash-based Ideal Day, a brewery I've not come across before.

It's a decent little craft beer place, although a bit of an unusual pick for the Beer Guide.  The owner mentioned that he occasionally put a cask on, but didn't sound like he had that much enthusiasm for doing so.
Still - good beer, with a decent alt rock/indie soundtrack, so I'm not complaining.

Next up I needed to get to Stoke Village which was far enough in the wet weather to require a couple of bus rides.  Even going round on the scenic route I got there far too early for the 6pm opening.

£3 selected pint in the Stoke Bar Fun Pub?  Hmmm, maybe not.

Better bloggers than me would have filled a post with the wonders of Stoke's 'interesting' and plentiful collection of boozers.  

The Masonic Hall was looking impressive - it's namesake pub sounding quite appealing when I looked it up later on WhatPub.

 

Top marks for the chip shop name...

 

By the time the clock ticked 6pm I was back at the Indian Inn, no competition to be first customer of the evening.

Indian Inn (82 Devonport Road, Stoke, PL3 4DF)
The inner door of the Indian Inn has a bit of mag lock on it and a keypad to one side, not fully instilling confidence in the surrounding area.  You don't need a code to get in, but you do need to give the door a good shove - something I didn't do, leading me to loiter like a fool for 5-minutes before deciding the lights were definitely on and I should try it again.

The current licensees have presided over the pub for an impressive 32 years and I assume that it was the landlady who I disturbed from her comfy spot in the armchair by the fire watching the news (all doom and gloom). She did give me a wonderful friendly welcome though.

It's a spectacular front parlour of a pub, a symphony in brown, full of ornaments and trinkets and pictures.

Just the one hand pump on the bar - on this visit serving Summerskills 'Whistle Belly Vengeance'.
An ESB with a bit of an odd flavour to be honest and not my favourite of the day.

So...a satisfying day in that I could finally mark Plymouth beer guide pubs as done & dusted for 2024.  Just how far I'll get with completing the rest of the county is anyone's guess.

ROAM Brewery Tap and Plymouth Pub Explorations

Two blog posts now with reports from a couple of visits to Plymouth which demonstrate the folly of trying to tick off all the beer guide pubs so close to the publication of the next edition. 

Let me start back in September, when we rocked up at the railway station on a day of glorious blue-skies and sunshine.
Instead of following most folk to the ticket barriers, we stayed on the platforms and caught the Bere Ferrers branch line, one-stop to Devonport.

Navigating through the residential streets we found the way to our first destination, Lounge. Not the most traditional of pub names and it doesn't look especially pub-like either.
But it's a bit of a cracker!

Lounge (7 Stopford Place, Devonport, PL1 4QT)
Stepping through the doors, there are glorious wood panels covering two thirds of the wall, shades of burgundy paint, satisfying traditional lighting, and a proper pub carpet.

This is one of Plymouth's Bass outlets, the pump clip with the red triangle joined by Dark Star 'Hophead' and a Robinsons seasonal brew.
"Pint and a half of Bass please".
The lady behind the bar searched the shelves for the right glass, then asked the landlord "do we have any half pint Bass glasses?"
"Dunno.  I've never had a half pint of it", came the response.

Mrs PropUptheBar didn't get her branded glass, but was happy with the Bass.
Probably sitting around a NBSS 3, but perhaps we suffered a little by arriving early before much (if any) of it had been poured beforehand.

Lounge had a great old-skool laminated lunch menu of toasted sarnies and jacket potatoes at sensible prices.  So we sat in the table by the window, filling ourselves full of toasties and a giant portion of fries.
The pub began to fill up nicely with rugby the dominant topic of conversation at the tables nearest to us - this being handily close to Plymouth Albion's Brickfields ground.

I could be wrong, but I reckon every pub with a big curtain around the door is a bit of a winner.

We had a couple of miles to travel across town to get to our next destination in Pennycross.
We headed up to Milehouse Road to catch a bus, found the stop closed due to roadworks, so had to keep on walking to Stoke Village.
Which meant we stood a few meters away from the Indian Inn, slyly looking like it'd never trouble the Good Beer Guide.

Talking of unlikely Beer Guide entries...

Cherry Tree (291 Ham Drive, Pennycross, PL2 3NH)
The Cherry Tree is a large estate pub set back from a busy road with picnic benches out front.
This didn't seem to be a very encouraging sign on the way in...

Were we about to be surprised by a bank of handpumps serving up unusual ales from West Country micro breweries?
Nope.  Proper Job or Doom Bar.

The St Austell 'Proper Job' (£4.15 for a pint AND a half) defied the expired Beer Marque signage and was actually really enjoyable.

And I've no complaints about the Cherry Tree, even if it is more in Life After Football territory than CAMRA real ale crawl venue.
Darts, pool, sport on TV, and a good number of cheery local custom.

We sat to the side of the room where I could see no less than 5 TV screens from my vantage point, with a soundtrack of Dua Lipa and Tones & I.  Whoever they may be.

 

Then Mrs PropUptheBar demanded the craft beer in a brewery tap that she'd been promised.

Departing from the Cherry Tree, walking seemed the best way to get to Peverell - helped by the fact that it was downhill most of the way.
Some great views down the cobbled lanes between back yards, looking towards Home Park in the distance. 

We stopped briefly to ponder how you're supposed to get the car into this garage...

Before we were guided to the ROAM Brewery Tap by the smell of pizza and the murmur of cheery conversation.

Roam Brewery Taproom (New Victoria House, Plymouth, PL3 4NU - web)
Roam opened their taproom in the summer of 2019, returning brewing to this site which once housed the New Victoria Brewery Company until that closed almost 70 years ago.
There's a bit of a garage forecourt appearance to the outdoor seating under the flat-roof canopy, whilst brewing takes place somewhere underneath the taproom.
Here's the beer list...

I figured I should try the cask ale from the sole hand pump on the bar - in this case a 'Tavy' IPA, your most economical option at £4.50 a pint.
I also plumped for a third of the tasty 6.9% 'Wonder' stout.

We sat inside the industrial unit - brightly lit by sunshine through the high windows - the furniture German beer-fest style benches - the customers a mix of respectable Plymouth citizens with a high quota of babies in buggies.   

Leaving Roam, we caught a bus back into the centre of town and walked the short distance down to the tourist hub which is the Barbican.
Alongside the classic Dolphin, there were two 2023 Beer Guide entries to visit here.
Starting with the Queens Arms...

The Queen's Arms (55 Southside Street, Plymouth, PL1 2LA)
The current building dates back to the 60's after an older pub on the site was a casualty of the blitz.  It's an unfussy proper boozer, with banquette seating around the sides of the single room and a good crowd of Saturday afternoon drinkers.
"Tends to attract older customers" says WhatPub and they were pretty much right (except for Mrs PropUptheBar of course).

 

And there's a choice of good old fashioned ales for the older customers - none of this new fangled crafty stuff or beers with weird names brewed in people's garages.
Tribute, Jail Ale, or Doom Bar.
I decided to plump for the Doom, which was okay, I suppose.

A little further along the road took us to the Admiral MacBride.

The Admiral MacBride (1 The Barbican, Plymouth, PL1 2LR - web)
It calls itself a 'traditional English pub', but I fear the vast majority of tradition has been sucked out and replaced by various shades of grey paint and dubious decorations.

And as far as traditonal cask ale was concerned, they offered a Dartmoor 'Jail Ale' or St Austell 'Tribute', with the third pump clip (Salcombe, I believe) turned around.
As illustrated in the picture below, the crowd at the time of our visit weren't really your typical real ale day-trip posse...

Outside, a sudden heavy shower of rain came out of nowhere and the crowds of drinkers on the quayside tables across the road made a beeline to the shelter of the pub, filling it up uncomfortably.

A combination of the distance we'd traveled around the city and those last two pints in pubs full of tourists must really have worn me out - I checked the train times and Bass in the Dolphin didn't even cross my mind.

Proudly Brewed in Clevedon

A pier, a micropub, and a brewery tap?
Sounds like just the kind of day out I like, so off I set with the promise of those three things in the Somerset coastal town of Clevedon.

An early arrival gave me the chance to stroll along the seafront, admiring the views to Wales across the Severn estuary, before visiting the pier.

It cost me £3.70 to walk down the pier - and there's not even any slot machines.
But it is one for the pier enthusiast, Grade 1 listed, opened in 1869 as somewhere for pleasure trippers on steamers to be able to disembark and experience the delights of Clevedon.

Despite the blue skies there was a nippy cold wind blowing and I decided it was time to warm up in the first of Clevedon's two Beer Guide establishments.
Located up an alleyway from the seafront, the Royal Oak is set on a very smart looking quiet backstreet.

Royal Oak (35 Copse Road, Clevedon, BS21 7QN)
The bar was to the left of the front door, offering a real ale choice of Butcombe 'Original', 'Doom Bar' and Tim Taylor 'Landlord' on the hand pumps.  Those were the regulars, but I plumped for the guest ale: People's Captain 'Local Hero', a brand set up by an ex-rugby pro, raising money for good causes, brewing at Fourpure in London.

A quick check of the nautical decor necessary in any pub called the Ship...

Then an exploration of the rooms beyond the bar, the sun streaming through the windows in the rear lounge, a quirky Captain's Cabin snug beyond this.
Big TV screens showed futsol - which at least made a change from rugby.

Moving on, I wandered inland up Alexandra Road, then around the corner to where you'll find Somerset's first micro pub.  And a model Swiss cow on the hillside if you look closely enough...

Fallen Tree Micropub (43 Hill Road, Clevedon, BS21 7PD)
To be honest, my attention was caught by Woods Estate Agents whose signage is a bit more prominent than that of their micro pub neighbours.
The Fallen Tree opened in 2018 in what was once a launderette.

The landlord was a very friendly fella with a clear passion for his beers.  On discovering I'd made the trip from Oxford he searched out the Oxbrew pump clips among the collection on the beams. 

Beers on offer on my visit were Blindmans 'Mine Beer', Bristol Beer Factory 'White Desert', and Pinkers 'Northern Soul Western Funk'.  I opted for the Pinkers, brewed nearby in Western-super-mare, this particular ale paying homage to 50 years of the Wigan Casino Northern Soul venue.

The micro filled up nicely with some local custom.
I was given a recommendation to walk to the Old Inn who, I was told, would have something interesting on the bar, as opposed to Greene King in most of the other town pubs.

The Old Inn (9 Walton Street, Clevedon, BS21 6AE)
It was a good 15 minute trek up to the commercial hub of Clevedon, then along a main road to the Old Inn.  Old in this case meaning it dates back to 1754, although its olde worlde features amount to little more than a couple of low beams to bang your head on.

Six hand pumps on the bar: two Stans ciders and a Twisted Oak duo should the Doom Bar and Butcombe not tickle your fancy.
A bit of a musical theme to the Twisted Oak brews - 'Reasons to be Cheerful' and 'Fools Gold'.  Which meant I ignored the descriptions and picked the wrong one based on Ian Dury.
'Mosaic and berries', hmmm...I wasn't convinced. 

The Old Inn has a long L-shaped room, with the rear leg being more aimed at dining, but of the proper pub grub and Sunday carvery variety.  There were a fair few locals in on a Saturday afternoon and a good town pub feel to the place.

Mild smut in the gents - "Hello sailor" sub genre.

I moved on with the aim of finishing the day with a brewery tap.

Having trekked up past Asda and through the industrial estate my first thought was that I'd had a wasted journey.
On the wrong side of spiky railings, with dark windows and stacked up patio furniture, the Cleveland Brewery Tap looked very shut.  I would have given up if I hadn't caught site of head of silver hair moving in the window.

Clevedon Brewery Taproom (Unit 1, Tweed Road Industrial Estate, Clevedon, BS21 6RR)
I walked up the road, back-tracked down a footpath and tried the door.

And of course, the half dozen folks within had all been watching me prancing around taking pictures, wondering if I was going to find my way in or not.

The bar was a tiny square room, seating options reduced even more by one bench being repurposed to house a TV which had been brought in to show the rugby world cup semi-final.

The locals were a friendly, chatty bunch.
"You on a CAMRA trip?" they asked.
Well, sort of.  A one-man one.

As new regulars arrived they were introduced to the odd bloke in the corner who'd come all the way from Oxford to try the Clevedon beer.
"In your version of this place in Oxford, are the customers as crazy as us?" I was asked.  Hmmm, I don't think we have a version of the Clevedon Brewery Tap in Oxford, sadly.

I will never know what happened with the drama of the sweep-stake list for the rugby world cup having been mislaid.  
"Well, I know I had New Zealand", said one chap.
"So have about half a dozen of you", responded the gaffer.

I drained the last of my porter and bade my goodbyes to the folk of Clevedon Tap.
"So, when are you going to move here?" asked the lady by the door.