Peterborough Pub Crawl

A Sunday excursion to Peterborough, which would take us to micro pubs, a barge, evening meal in Spoons, craft beer, and a heritage pub.
Look at the lovely midday sunshine and blue sky.  Just our luck that it'd be raining by 3 o'clock.

After a short trek around the city centre, we set off south across the River Nene and into suburban Fletton where our first micro pub of the day awaited... 

The Wonky Donkey (102C High Street, Fletton, Peterborough, PE2 8DR) 
On our arrival there was just one couple sat at a table tucking into a cheeseboard - "I'm setting aside this knife as it's contaminated with brie" was the announcement that greeted us.  I'm assuming it was communal micro pub cheese, although they seemed like they were undertaking a challenge to demolish the lot.

A chap trudged back and forth from the rear room/garden, loading his car with his northern soul and 2-tone DJ booth and catering paraphernalia.  Apparently we were one day too late for the Pirate Party.  A fair few locals trotted in, filling all the front room tables, all complaining of sore heads from the previous night's frivolities, although that wasn't putting them off ordering bottles of German lager.
I picked the Leatherbritches ale, guided to it by the Queen connection and 7" style pump clip, rather than the Jester, Chinook, and Citra hop mix.

Good value at £4.40 a pint, with plenty of other ale and cider to pick from if you're fussier than me.
A decent start in a very local micro pub.

Moving on, we headed back to the riverside and to Charters Bar, spectacularly situated on a Dutch barge which dates back to 1907. 

Charters (Town Bridge, Peterborough, PE1 1FP)
This used to be always be a port of call for me on football visits, being just a couple of minutes from London Road.  The difference now is that the outdoor area has dramatically multiplied in size.
We climbed the gang-plank, a Thai restaurant in the top section, the bar in the depths of the boat.  It's a bar that I love - full of character and serving up a choice of beers that could keep you here all afternoon.

One bank of hand pumps serves four local Oakham ales at very reasonable prices; another bit of the bar features the guest beers, as well as  there being some decent keg and cider on offer.
As it was, I opted for the strong (6%) Xtreme 'Xporter', a marvelous dark brew, accompanying a platter of Thai food.

Departing from Charters, we back-tracked on ourselves, venturing into a quiet side street to seek out the Coalheavers Arms.

Coalheavers Arms (5 Park Street, Peterborough, PE2 9BH)
This is a characterful little pub, open-plan, with dividing walls creating three distinct areas.  Most of the punters were settled in the middle part, on bar stools and tables in front of two TV screens showing Sunday afternoon footy.

An interesting fact about the Coalheavers is that it's the only pub in the city to have been hit by a WW2 bomb - this penetrated through to the cellar but didn't explode - the pub opening as usual later the same night.
Cask ales on offer included a couple of Greene King seasonal brews and a Goffs 'Jester 31'
The Goffs for me - top tropical murk...

We took the beer and settled on benches in the rear corner, surrounded by a selection of motorbike racing pictures and memorabilia.  The staff flicked the TV nearby us onto the football and I found myself hooked on the north London derby.
Half time - a quick trip to use the facilities...

Then we were off, making the 5-minute walk to Oundle Road in a handy gap in the rain showers that had come out of nowhere.

Yard of Ale (72 Oundle Road, Peterborough, PE2 9PA)
I was cheerful to see screens in every direction on which I could follow the second half of the footy in the Yard of Ale.  Tough luck if you don't like football, although a couple of chaps defiantly sat reading their books in front of the TV.  There was a nice split of people supporting both sides, plus a man in a Forest shirt in the back room (we won a game, donchaknow!).  I got chatting to him on the way back from the loos leading Mrs PropUptheBar to think I'd absconded through a back door.
 
There was a great selection of cask at the Yard of Ale, from which I opted for the Black Lodge Brewery 'Anytime Cowboy', a viciously strong and fruity 'proper' IPA.

One omission from this Peterborough pub crawl was the Palmerston Arms, just a couple of doors down from the Yard of Ale.  But the rain seemed to have stopped again, and we wanted to try and get back to the centre and check into our hotel without getting drenched.
That done, we ventured back out to our second micro pub. 

The Bumble Inn (46 Westgate, Peterborough, PE1 1RE)
Opened in 2016, this micro is located in a former chemists shop.  It has been a hit with the local CAMRA folk who've named it the branch Pub Of The Year in 2024.

It's a micro of the authentic variety - one room, one WC, no distractions - talk to each other etc etc.
Cask ale on the bar came from Rudgate, Daleside, Hobsons, Thirsty Moose, and Black Hole Brewery.  A sensible 3.4% Thirsty Moose 'Belta Blonde' session ale for me.  

Without football on a telly, we just had the woodland scene on the opposite wall to stare at, with it's hidden ewok and bambi.

Right, enough of these Beer Guide places. 
What we needed next was some sour beer whilst listening to Audioslave.

Blind Tiger (11-13 Cowgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LZ)
This modern central craft bar is well worth a visit.  Seating ranges from the comfy cushioned bench I was on, to high stools, or those rather tragic swing seats suspended from the ceiling.
We arrived to a Sour Beer Showcase, so decided to go with the flow.
Now, here's some proper beer.... (!)

 

All very colourful stuff.  All pretty good as well, although we reached our sour beer capacity for the day with four 1/3 pints between us.
The bar was quiet, just half a dozen other customers, the barman looking thoroughly bored as he counted down the clock to the 8pm closing time.  At least he had a decent grungy alt rock soundtrack to listen to.
There is also some (short-lived, in my case) entertainment to be had from the arcade machines and a table-top Ms Pacman console.  Seriously, is it even possible to get past level 2?!

Leaving the Blind Tiger, we called into the Drapers Arms Wetherspoon branch for a bite to eat and a ginger beer.  A bit of sustenance and fizzy pop gave us the energy to make a 20-minute walk north into the suburbs of Peterborough, a heritage pub our target.
Dusk had fallen by the time we arrived, the un-illuminated frontage plus parking cars making for a tricky pub picture.

The Hand & Heart (12 Highbury Street, Peterborough, PE1 3BE)
It looked so dark on approach that we feared it may not be open, but there was light spilling from the doorway.
This leads into a corridor, with an off-sales counter and doors to the Bar, Smoke Room, and back yard where you'll find the outdoor gents.  The back room was locked, so I didn't get to see that.  Which left us joining the handful of Sunday evening customers in the front bar.

It's an outstanding pub room.  No nonsense seating around two walls, fireplace with darts above it, bookshelf full of beer guides, and a TV showing Allo Allo.
At the end of 2023 we found ourselves in the St John's Hotel in Hull watching Steptoe and Son.  The Hand & Heart provided my second classic British comedy in a pub experience, all the punters keeping at least half an ear on the show and chuckling at the latest mess René had gotten himself into surrounding the stolen Madonna with the big boobies.

There were three cask ales available, with a couple more pump clips turned around.  Mine was a reasonable pint of Brewsters 'Outsanding in their Field'.  A handwritten 'cash only' sign took away the "cash-card-which do you prefer-either" exchange and ensured the staff member got back to his game of cribbage quickly.

A great pub.
Leaving us with just enough time - and barely enough room - for one last beer in The Ostrich.  Another dubious night-time picture.

The Ostrich is somewhere I'll have to visit earlier in the day next time I'm in Peterborough.  I suspect it would be one of my favourite pubs had I started there, or visited when they had live music on.  But this time, I was ready to drink up and make for my bed.

Peterborough had been a winning destination on this occasion - a good variety of places visited and a whole lot missed which should necessitate a return visit.

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...

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!