A Thames-Travel-Bus South Oxford Crawl

On a bright, sunny, September weekend we decided to head south of Oxford on a trip to the historic North Star at Steventon, which I'd been meaning to get to for some time.  

We grabbed a Thames Travel Day Ticket and set out on the X40 from St Aldates .
The plan was to explore and tick off a couple more pubs as we made our way to the North Star.   
We hopped off the bus at Dorchester on Thames (well, a lay-by on the A4074, a short walk from there).  My plan here was to visit the George Hotel but this was scuppered by a gathering wedding party, among'st whom I would have stood out as quite a scruffy bugger. 

Plan B, then. A walk across the fields to Long Wittenham.  Plan B wasn't researched to the extent of checking distances properly and it turned out to be a much longer trek than intended.  At the end of our (oops) 3 mile walk we were rewarded with arrival at the Plough (24 High Street, OX14 4QH), a pleasant 17th century inn.

We only had a brief glimpse of the interior - one small bar with wooden beams to duck under - with the large garden being a big draw today.  There were three beers on cask and I opted for the guest from Milestone Brewery (I have a flawed superstition that drinking a Nottinghamshire beer on a match-day will lead to a Nottingham Forest win - flawed because it doesn't work).  

The beer garden at the Plough is huge.  It's a riverside pub where you can't see the river from the pub - the garden stretches on past a kids bouncy castle, down a couple of hills to eventually get to the Thames, a couple of hundred meters from the bar - one hell of a trek if you wanted to carry a tray of drinks to sit by the river bank.  

A ploughman's lunch just about provided the energy to make the trek back, and eventually we were back on the X40 on our way to Wallingford.

The Dolphin (2 St Mary's Street, Wallingford, OX10 0EL).  

Tucked in a pedestrian side street off the main square, this is a comfortable and welcoming boozer, affectionately nick-named the 'Dolly in Wally'.  

Despite being a Greene King house, they offer up a couple of interesting guest ales - this time both from the West Midlands.  We arrive as all interest is focused on the Saturday afternoon football results, showing on the main bar's TV.  

I happily noted that Forest had won: job-done with the Milestone Hoptimism earlier! 🍻

Wallingford is somewhere I need to explore a bit better and I'd definitely make a return trip to the Dolphin.  On this occasion though it was a flying visit, with a quick dash to catch the bus to our next destination.  

The X2 took us just over 5 minutes out of town before we rang the bell and alighting at the historic village of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell.  

The place we were headed to here was the Good Beer Guide listed Red Lion (Brightwell St, OX10 0RD).  It's a 16th century thatched village pub with a cosy rustic interior and a peaceful sun-trap beer garden to the rear.  It's a lovely spot, although quiet at 6pm in the evening and I was a little disappointed that they didn't appear to have any real ciders, despite winning a cider-pub award not so long ago.  

Back on the bus, it was a 30 minute ride westwards to Steventon.

A walk down the Causeway took us to the wonderful North Star Inn (Stocks Lane, Steventon, OX13 6SG).  

The North Star Inn, Steventon. 

The garden was a hive of activity with a band setting up to entertain the Saturday evening crowd, but for me it's the interior that I wanted to experience.  There would once have been many rural pubs like this, but now it's a rarity.  There's no bar - service is from a stable door along the passageway or a hatch looking out to the garden if you're outside. 
The small main room has a settle facing a fireplace, with iron fittings attached to it which would have once had curtains to draw to make the handful of seats next to a fire even more cosy.  A cheerful local insisted on taking us on a tour of the other two, less remarkable, rooms and then chatted away to us about the pub and village in general.  
The beer was straight from the barrel on stillage.  I enjoyed a pint of White Horse 'Village Idiot'.  
My theory that pubs with outside toilets are always great is maintained here, but the solitary gents WC could become frustrating and involve some queuing if staying for longer.

Main room of the North Star Inn, where my photographic skills
let me down a little to really represent this amazing pub interior

As we have a gap until the next bus, we call in to The Cherry Tree (33 High St, Steventon, OX13 6RZ) up on the main road opposite the bus stop for a final beer of the day. This is a sprawling Wadworth pub, with multiple rooms, wooden beams and a warm, welcoming atmosphere. It has a huge car park which harks back to past times when this would have been the main road prior to the dual-carriageway A34 being built.

I think we made great value of the day pass on the buses and had a pleasant day out exploring some new places not so far from home, even though I did incorporate a 6 mile ramble by mistake.