Taunton Pub Explorations

A Somerset trip where we get to sit in front of the Ian Botham picture, meaning I could tell Mrs PropUptheBar how he challenged us to eat three Shredded Wheat in the '80's.  Which is better than trying to explain anything about cricket - a subject I'm a bit hazy on.

We found more than cricket in the Somerset county town...we found a dalek, a ghost Spoons, some annoying table service, and the best pint of the day in a sports club a hefty trek from the centre.
But let's keep up the regular habit and start the day in Wetherspoon's...

Perkin Warbeck (22-23 East Street, Taunton, TA1 3LP)
This is an enormous branch of the chain, stretching waaaaay back from its entrance on the shopping street.  You know the score: booths and high benches along the side, regimented tables-for-four down the middle, those precarious tall perching spots for the hardened drinkers in front of the bar.
And the whole place was almost full - we traipsed the length looking for a suitable seat, marveling at the Perkin Warbeck's ability to attract the fair folk of Taunton on a Saturday lunchtime.

When we eventually found a free table next to an eccentric lady with her cider and chips, we ordered beer and food on the app.  I opted, perhaps unwisely, for the Exeter Brewery 'MC6' - a wicked 6% dark old ale which was a meal in itself - a cracking beer.  You'd be bold to go back for a second at lunchtime, though.

Fed and watered, we headed back into the sunshine to wander the streets of the town a little more.
Our route took us to Taunton Minster, with its striking 40 meter high tower, built at the beginning of the 16th century when the town was prospering from the wool trade.

A few quiet back streets took us from the minster to the beer-guide listed Ring Of Bells.
Which absolutely looked the business from outside as I took the picture - church tower, cricketing floodlights, hanging baskets, and mobility scooter.

The Ring Of Bells (16-17 St James Street, Taunton, TA1 1JS)
The problem was the 'please wait to be seated' podium greeting us at the front door.  To be fair, the young man welcomed us heartily, told us we could sit where we liked, and held the floor, chatting to us and a handful of regulars.
But I was perplexed as to why they figured table service for drinks was best.

You can look at the current pump clips on the wall, but some high tables are strategically placed to stop you getting anywhere near the pumps themselves.

No complaints about my Otter Brewery 'Twelfth Man', a special for the pub  
I just never got over the odd fact that it had to be brought to my table by a legion of staff that was threatening to outnumber the customers.

I'd hate to suggest that Taunton isn't a great pub town, but we were feeling a bit short of options at 3pm in the afternoon.
We contemplated catching a bus up to Bishops Lydeard and the Quantock Brewery Tap, although we'd been there a couple of days previously and probably didn't a return visit so soon.
So instead, we ambled into the Musuem of Somerset.

I'd recommend this highly - lots of interesting exhibits in the old castle buildings, keeping us occupied for much longer than I expected it would.   Roman mosaics, fossils, coins from the Frome hoard, plus a Doctor Who exhibition.

  

The dress-up section was definitely not just for kids and I looked great as a Tom Baker era Doctor.  Mrs PropUptheBar is under strict instructions not to release the picture.

Right, time for more beer.
We back-tracked almost all the way to the railway station to the Plough...

The Plough Inn (75 Station Road, Taunton, TA1 1PB)
This was a pub I really liked.
Entrance is via the alley to the side, with a door to the right taking you into the bar, or straight on to the back room.
It's a proper cider place as you can see from my picture of the shelved boxes behind the bar.  There was just the one cask ale - a St Austell 'Tribute' racked to one side.  The cask was tapped especially for me, making for a quality fresh pint, served straight from the barrel.

 

We settled down in the more basic back room: wooden benches as opposed to battered sofas in the front.  A top notch pint of beer, friendly staff, and bench seating picture of the month...

Heading back toward the centre, we passed what used to Taunton's second Spoons.
After several years standing empty, it reopened this July as an independent venue, so we figured we'd investigate.

The Coal Orchard (30-32 Bridge Street, Taunton, TA1 1UD)
The odd name comes from the fact that an orchard once stood across the road from this site. It was later cleared to make way for a landing stage on the River Tone for boats shipping in Welsh coal.

It didn't have the crowds that we'd encountered in the Perkin Warbeck, but hopefully that'll pick up.  Real ale choices were Tim Taylors Landlord or Boltmaker, Wadworth 6X, or - my pick - the Severn Brewing 'Double Hopped Pale Ale'.  A well kept beer at a bargain weekday happy hour price.

 

It doesn't look like much has changed since the Spoons days in terms of decor, signage, and big upstairs WCs.  There was a distinct lack of furniture creating much more open space to admire the carpet design.  And the new owners didn't have the kitchen up and running, which I guess made a difference to how busy it was.

We just had one last place to go to.
I didn't want to come to Taunton and not visit all the Beer Guide entries (3), so we'd had to wait for a 6pm opening time for the Wyvern Club.

We reached the Club just before six, satisfied we'd clocked up a good step-count for the day, and seen more of Taunton housing estates than the average visitor.

Wyvern Social Club (Mountfields Road, Taunton, TA1 3BJ)
This is a club without any panic of trying to find your CAMRA membership card, or checking if your copy of the Beer Guide is enough to grant you entry.
The door is wide open and a sign noted that this operates as a regular pub.

The beer range offered a couple of South West regulars and a local Doonicans brew - 'Bollotics', the Houses of Parliament featuring on the pump clip.

That Doonican's beer was delicious - packed full of flavour with a bitter, hoppy finish - beer of the day.

Arriving at opening time, and unable to hang around for too long if we didn't want to miss our train, we didn't get to the see the Wyvern in full swing.
It was somewhere I was comfy, sat on the cushioned banqueting bench seating which ran under the big windows looking out on the sports fields.

The Wyvern Club was our last port of call on a day out in Taunton.
Somewhere that doesn't have the strongest line-up of trad pubs, but had never-the-less provided us with a good day and a few decent pints.

Through the Nettles to the Black Horse

On a grey overcast August weekend, we decided to stay local and seek out a couple of Oxfordshire pubs that we'd not previously visited.
First things first, we navigated the never-ending works at Botley Road, caught bus 44 up to Cumnor, then set out on foot.
Here's the route...

A footpath took us south to Besselseigh - where we resisted any temptation to call into the Brunning and Price - then onto a nice, easy to follow path, emerging from the woods into Appleton churchyard. 
A short way along the road is the village pub...

The Plough Inn (Eaton Road, Appleton, OX13 5JR)
This is the last remaining pub serving the 950-or-so folk of Appleton.  The Thatched Tavern and Three Horseshoes are now private residences with nothing but their house names to remind us of their previous incarnations.

We arrived at The Plough at a quiet time - not a soul sitting inside and just a couple of visitors on the picnic benches in the garden.  I guess the locals were out in the metropolis for the day.

There were two hand pumps in action, one serving the ever-unreliable Morland 'Original', the other offering this stuff...

It was a bold move going for the beefy 6% black IPA at lunchtime, but this was a superb pint.
Served to us by a nice chatty fella in tartan trousers and a Lamb of God t-shirt.
Top marks go to The Plough for the food we ordered - not the cheapest, but almost certainly the best pub lunch I've had for some time.

Our onward journey took us across the A420 and onto pleasant paths through Hitch Woods.
Pudding available to be picked to the side of the path...

Then into the pig farm, where the residents didn't seem overly happy with our presence...

It was more by luck than judgement that I found the unmarked route through the pigs.  In the next field there was no clear path and it took a bit of investigation to locate a style hidden in a tangle of nettles and brambles.  I think we must have been the first souls to cross that path in the summer of '24.

I just hoped the pub on the other side of the road was going to be open.  The Black Horse at Gozzard's Ford is a former Greene King inn which closed the doors a few years back, described in the Oxford Mail as one of the forgotten pubs of the county.  They've recently reopened under new ownership, but the scantily updated social media mentioned a closure to fix some dodgy pipes and didn't indicate whether this had been resolved.

I was glad to see a light on, striding in the side door just slightly disheveled with scratches and nettle stings.

The Black Horse (Faringdon Road, Gozzard's Ford, OX13 6JH)
This is a big whitewashed roadside inn, dating back some 350 years.  Through the door, there is a long room on three levels, trip hazard steps between each one, the bar in the central section.  A half dozen punters were settled at the far end, where the ceiling is higher and a TV on the wall was showing footy.
Local Loose Cannon beers were on offer.

We were warned by the chap serving us that the 'Miller Queen' hefeweisen was nearing the end of the barrel and that he'd be happy to change it should it not be up to scratch.  I did wonder why he couldn't just check it himself, but we gave it the thumbs up (just about) and settled on a table at the side of the room.

The Black Horse also has a large restaurant in the back, plus a meeting room somewhere, and a garden to the side.  It just needs some customers.

We made a bit of a slip-up...'someone' turned the wrong way out of the Black Horse and started walking down the road in the wrong direction into the wilds of West Oxfordshire.  One about-turn later, and we were going the right way towards the village of Shippon and it's one pub...

Prince of Wales (60 Barrow Road, Shippon, OX13 6JQ)
This was an odd little village pub.
Not least because of the portable heating arrangements...

The pub itself is located in the front extension of a much older-looking rural cottage.  It's divided into two rooms with a bar counter straddling both of them.  We headed right towards the hubbub of conversation, into a rather ramshackle dimly lit room that was in need of a good tidying-up session.

The cask selection offered a relatively rare sighting of Butcombe beer in the county.

We took our drinks out to the patio, where there were a few more locals on the benches in front of the Covid-era marquee.
It turned out one of them had driven past us whilst we were walked in the opposite direction down the road, causing him a little intrigue.
He did recommend a pub that we'd have reached had we kept going that way.  Then told us we'd missed a short cut between Gozzard's Ford and Shippon across the airfield.
"The airfield with the chained gate and strictly no admittance sign?"
"Oh, don't worry about that", he said dismissively.
I know the airfield is infrequently used these days, but it would be just my luck to have to dodge a light aircraft landing and be chased by angry aviation folk.  Would have made the blog post more interesting though.

Shippon is only separated from Abingdon by the presence of the A34.  We moved on, strolling across the road bridge and through outskirts of the town, making our way to the Brewery Tap.
Looking good in the afternoon sunshine...

The Brewery Tap (40-42 Ock Street, Abingdon, OX14 5BZ)
This pub was opened in 1993 by Morland, who converted three town houses to create an outlet for their beer on the periphery of the brewery.
As it is, the pub has outlasted the brewery by a number of years.  Morland brought Ruddles in 1997 and shifted production to Oakham.  Then Greene King snapped up Morland three years later and the brewery closed for good, destined to be converted to flats.

The Brewery Tap has a big fireplace and a couple of nice rustic areas in its L-shaped layout, not that you'd know it from my unflattering picture.

The keg wall wasn't too exciting, featuring Red Stripe and Amstel.  But the Brewery Tap can be relied on for some well kept cask - six to pick from on this visit, everything except the Tim Taylor Landlord coming from surrounding counties.
I stuck very local with LoveBeer 'Not on your Nelly', brewed a couple of miles to the south of Abingdon in Milton.

Just the one pint on this occasion, as our table was reserved for the musical entertainment for the evening who'd be setting up soon.
I just glanced at the Brewery Tap's Facebook page and spotted that they've released their Christmas menu.  On the 9th September...oh dear.  Summer's really over, isn't it.