Ale Trail – Four Pubs by River and Roman Road

Plough & Fleece – Sun Inn – Red Lion – Jolly Brewer

Cambridge CAMRA Ale Trails 2013

Prompted by the Ale Trails to visit some pubs I haven’t been to or don’t visit often enough, this is another route that follows cycle paths and avoids roads where possible. A fairly easy route, about 15 miles. No punctures on this occasion.

From the Green Dragon, joining the riverside path just past the former Penny Ferry Inn, the path leads to Waterbeach and beyond, but at Baits Bite Lock there’s a bridge over the river Cam and a footpath to Horningsea.

Baits Bite Lock

Before crossing the river, a short detour northwest along Fen Road leads to the Jolly Brewers in Milton.

Jolly Brewers

A recently refurbished, late seventeenth century Inn, it seems there was a brewery here from at least the 1830s, William Essex the brewer and publican, his son Thomas taking over in the 1870s and continuing into the last century. Now a freehouse, I had a drop of Milton Pegasus (when in Milton…), also on – Lord Conrads and two from Greene King.

Crossing the river at Baits Bite Lock, it’s not far to the Plough and Fleece.

Plough and Fleece

Recently awarded Community Pub of the Year (Rural) by Cambridge CAMRA, this pub has been bought from Greene King by the villagers so it can be protected and turned into a freehold (apparently the money has now been raised and the deal agreed, although it’s currently tied to Greene King on a short term lease). It is listed as an 18th century inn, but the building may date back to the 16th century.

Low timber beams, tiled floors and a large fireplace in one room, the rear bar leads to a beer garden with views across the meadows, woodpeckers drumming as I supped a Timothy Taylor Best. I’d be happy if this was my village local.

Bridge Inn, Clayhithe

A short piece of road leads to the Bridge Inn, not part of this year’s Ale Trails, but a landmark along the way. There’s been a pub here since at least the 18th century when the Jack and Eel is recorded, perhaps later rebuilt as the House of Lords, becoming the Clayhithe Bridge Inn in the 1880s. A nice enough pub with a riverside beer garden, a previous pub sign showed a horse and cart crossing an old stone bridge, with a narrowboat on the river – the more recent pub sign has chosen the Cambridge Bridge of Sighs instead. I saw the first swallows of the year here before heading to Waterbeach.

Sun Inn, Waterbeach

The Sun is nearly 250 years old at least, licensed by 1765. It overlooks the village green, opposite the White Horse. A two room pub, the cosy lounge featuring a large fireplace, albeit filled with a collection of empty beer bottles. I had a nice drop of Woodfordes Bure Gold (named after the River Bure which passes within half a mile of the brewery in Norfolk) on the outside seating overlooking the green before heading west to Landbeach, crossing over the A10.

Mere Way between Landbeach and Impington

Past Landbeach, turning south along Mere Way, the Roman Akeman Street, south passing Chivers fruit farm, to Milton Road and a cycle path to Impington and Histon.

Red Lion, Histon

Here since c.1840, the Red Lion is an impressive pub outside and in and serves good beer. There other several other pubs in Histon, all worth a visit, but the Red Lion is hard to beat.

From here it’s an easy ride back to Cambridge, joining the guided busway cycle path at Impington, to Chesterton and the city centre.

Haymakers, Chesterton, Cambridge

The Haymakers in Chesterton reopened on Friday. Closed for the past couple of years, it seemed like it would be lost to housing or become a restaurant, but is now under the ownership of Milton Brewery. The refurbishment has added interest to what was previously a large open space with a stage at the end during its time as a music venue. A new snug now separates the space into two rooms, with wooden bench seats and tables fixed to the walls. The work has also uncovered an impressive beamed ceiling. Eight real ales were on when visited, the Milton Nike particularly good.

History in the Haymaking

The Haymakers may date back to at least 1851 when Thomas Keath is listed as a beer retailer, although the pub is not named. By 1869 the Haymakers is named with Thomas Keath the publican and ‘hay dealer’, so it’s possible he gave the pub its name. In the 1850s the Haymakers would have stood opposite two other pubs – the Wheatsheaf on the east corner of Union Lane and the High Street, and the Bleeding Heart/Hart on the east corner of Chapel Street and the High Street. There have been many pubs on the High Street, but only the Haymakers has survived.

The Bleeding Heart may have dated back to at least 1786, possibly becoming the Maltsters Arms (a large malthouse and kiln stood behind the pub, in the area now named Maltsters Way) by the late 1800s, before being converted into a Co-operative store by the 1920s, demolished in the 1970s. The Wheatsheaf has also been demolished and replaced by modern housing.

Prior to the First World War:

“Parish meetings, dances (like the St Patrick’s Night dance) and childrens Christmas parties were held… on occasions, in… the Haymakers public house in the High Street… mass had been celebrated in a room attached to the Co-operative Stores in High Street, Chesterton. This room formerly belonged to an inn known as the bleeding Hart” (Catholics in Cambridge, Nicholas Rogers 2003)

In the late 1800s, the Haymakers publican Robert Green is listed as a “farmer and brewer”, followed in the early 1900s by Charles Green, also a “farmer and brewer”, so it seems possible they supplied their own beer for the pub, although by the 1930s the Haymakers was owned and supplied by the Star Brewery.

Haymakers during WWII

An 83 year old former resident of Chesterton, Peter told me

“The Haymakers was the centre of entertainment in Chesterton. There was music and dancing. Jack Mays would be thumping it out on his accordian, there’d be shouting and balling. It was a rough and rowdy pub. If women were seen going in there, people would turn their noses up at them! It was more gentlemanly in the Wheatsheaf opposite. There was a little island outside the Haymakers at the entrance to Chapel Street, which used to have a Police Box on it.

During the war, it was the hangout of the American Servicemen from G23 Camp (where the Science Park now stands). There’d often be fights between black and white Americans – they had separate nights for a time. The Military Police would go in and sort them out when there was trouble and they’d ban them. After D-Day, the Americans vanished overnight. When I was in the Army Cadet Forces, we’d come out of the drill hall on East Road on Wednesday evenings and walk home past the Haymakers. Sometimes one of us would open the door and throw in a thunderflash. Then there’d be a commotion!”

“It was a rough pub in the sixties too!” another former resident of Chesterton told us. “We hardly came in here, we used to go to the Prince Albert just along the road” (the Prince Albert stood on the same side of the High Street, the next pub west of the Haymakers, it was demolished in the 1970s).

The refurbished Haymakers is certainly not that ‘rough pub’ anymore, but it was ‘the centre of entertainment in Chesterton’ when it reopened this weekend. Long may it reap the rewards.

Ale Trail – A Bumble Through Beer Gardens

Ticking off a few of the most southerly pubs on the Cambridge CAMRA Ale Trails, all with beer gardens, a twenty mile round trip following good cycle paths pretty much all of the way to Whittlesford and then roads through Duxford to Ickleton. Despite losing the cycle path as it goes through Stapleford, it was a pleasant route that even goes through the churchyard of St Mary and St Andrew’s at Whittlesford.

Bees In The Wall

Built in 1851 as the Exhibition, the pub’s name was changed in 1950 when bees were discovered living in different sections of the walls as the pub was being redecorated. Initially the hives were actually cleared away and the walls sealed up, with 25lbs of honey extracted and used to make mead. However, a couple of years later in 1952, the bees returned and were allowed to remain. The bees still live here and can be seen going in and out of a hole high up on the outside of the building. Apparently upstairs in the private lounge, the landlord can view the nest through glass. They usually swarm once a year around May – on occasions they have left in autumn before returning in spring.

I have to say this pub has been one of the highlights of the Ale Trails for me. I enjoyed an excellent drop of Timothy Taylor Landlord and a friendly chat with Marie, who was happy to explain the history of the pub and the bees. The landlord Lawrie has been here for thirty years making him the second longest serving landlord in Cambridgeshire. A cosy two room pub with a large beer garden bordering the pub’s own wood! I look forward to visiting again soon, perhaps taking the short train journey from Cambridge to Whittlesford, followed by a 30 minute walk to the pub. Marie said they’d had more people passing through on the Ale Trail than in previous years. It was quiet when I visited during a weekday lunchtime, some companies that used to provide lunchtime trade have recently moved out of the area, so I hope more people discover this gem of a pub.

Tickell Arms, Whittlesford

Nearby, the Tickell Arms, formerly the Waggon and Horses from c.1810, is a pub and restaurant that was refurbished and reopend last year. There are usually four real ales on and on May 26th they’ll hold the pub’s first mini beer festival. I enjoyed a Milton Pegasus in the beer garden before cycling further south.

Ickleton Lion

Furthest south of the pubs on the Ale Trails, Ickleton Lion, formerly the Red Lion, is a building thought to date back to the 1700s, with beamed walls and an inglenook fireplace. A pleasant Greene King pub busy with lunchtime diners, I had a rather insipid Old Golden Hen in the beer garden before retracing the route to Duxford.

Plough, Duxford

The Plough, a timber framed pub with a thatched roof and porch, also dates back to the 1700s. I liked this pub and had a decent Adnams bitter – also on were Holdens Golden Glow, Bombardier and two from Everards. By this time I was seeking shelter from the sun so only sat in the beer garden briefly.

Three Horseshoes, Stapleford

Here since the early 1800s, the Three Horseshoes reopened in February, and has been steadily getting busier as word has spread. An unfussy pub, recently refurbished, serving a good range of real ales and bottled beers from around the world.

Route map:

View Larger Map

Map of all the Ale Trail pubs (from @YvanSeth)

Sources:
Cambridge CAMRA
Mike Petty – Down Your Way
Roger Protz – Best Pubs in East Anglia
Ted Bruning – Cambridgeshire’s Best Pubs

Pints and Punctures

On the Cambridge Ale Trail

This year’s Cambridge CAMRA Ale Trail has forty-four pubs to visit over three ‘trails’. There are no routes to follow, just lists of some pubs in the district. Still, it seems like a good excuse to visit some pubs out of town that I haven’t yet got around to, along with some pubs in town I only occasionally visit. After ticking (stamping) off a few pubs in town, I thought I’d better visit some further afield. Intent on avoiding roads where possible, sticking to cyclepaths and footpaths, I cycled out with a photocopy of a piece of OS map. Other than that, I hadn’t really prepared.

The Dykes End pub in the village of Reach is about 13 miles north of Cambridge, that is if your route follows the river Cam downstream and then diverts across tracks alongside old Roman canals and fenland fields.

It was going well until I was within a mile of the pub and decided to detour to see the Devil’s Dyke earthwork from which the pub gets its name. This involved walking my bicycle through a tunnel of blackthorn, hawthorn and wild rose bushes. By the time I reached the pub, both tyres were punctured.

I ordered a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord and sat in the beer garden considering my plight. Thirteen miles from home with two flat tyres and nothing to fix them. A local cycled up, and as luck would have it he was carrying a repair kit, tyre levers and a pump. “I’ll be back in an hour” he said, “leave them behind the bar and I’ll pick them up later”

When it came to fixing the punctures, having carelessly pulled out and thrown away the thorns, I struggled to find the holes they’d left. I then discovered that the pump adaptor was the wrong size for the valves so I couldn’t get any air in the tyres. Even with a bowl of water from the pub, it took an age to find and fix both punctures. Eventually I left the tools at the bar and paid for another pint so the gent who’d lent them to me had a rewarding drink when he returned. As I asked for directions to the nearest garage so I could get air, facing a two mile walk there, someone at the bar offered to get a foot pump from his garage.

“If you’re going to get a puncture, best place to get one is at a pub” said Simon. “You never know who you’re standing next to in a pub. Could be a dentist, could be someone who can remove a dent from your car…”

…Or someone who can help fix a puncture. Tyres repaired and full of air, I headed home, and feeling luck was on my side after all, detoured to some more beer gardens, at the Red Lion, Swaffham Prior and the White Swan, Quy.

It wasn’t a particularly warm day, yet I arrived home with a sunburn of the intensity I’d forgotten was possible in this country. In April.

But the tyres stayed up.

Cambridge and District CAMRA award winners 2013

Last night the Hopbine was host to the annual Cambridge and District CAMRA awards. Beers on during the evening included Blackbar Triple Hopped Blonde and Moonshine’s new Pale Ale.

Pub of the Year – Flying Pig

The Pub of the Year was awarded to the Flying Pig, a pub that dates back to the 1830s but is now under threat of demolition and ‘redevelopment’. Licensees Matt and Justine Hatfield hope the award will strengthen the case against demolition but admit the fate of the pub is out of their hands.

Flying Pig “reaching new heights”

A Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Lawrence Dixon who has spent the last twelve years at the Champion of the Thames, recently took on the Clarendon Arms and is considering taking on a third pub. His speech was the most entertaining of the night, recounting how in his former career as a bookmaker, arriving back from the races late at night, they often didn’t have anywhere to drink – “so I bought the pub”! The Champion of the Thames is now a pub at the heart of the community, he said, a place anyone was welcome to visit for “good beer and a good chat”.

Thanks to Cambridge CAMRA and to the Hopbine for hosting the awards. Here’s a full list of the winners:

Cambridge and District CAMRA award winners 2013:

Pub of the Year 2013	Flying Pig
Locale Pub of the Year (Rural)	Crown Inn, Linton
Locale Pub of the Year (City)	Cambridge Blue
Community Pub of the Year (Rural)	Plough and Fleece, Horningsea
Community Pub of the Year (City)	Elm Tree
Dark Ale/ Mild Pub of the Year	Maypole
Most Improved Pub of the Year (City)	Mill
Most Improved Pub of the Year (Rural)	Chestnut Tree, West Wratting
Cider Pub of the Year	St Radegund
Real Ale Champion	Richard Naisby, Milton Brewery
CAMRA Lifetime Achievement Award	Lawrence Dixon, Champion of the Thames & Clarendon Arms

Cambridge Brew House

The Cambridge Brew House, King Street

The Cambridge Brew house opened on Wednesday 6th February.

Brewing will soon return to Cambridge as the Brew House opens this coming week with a brewery launch to follow next month. Head brewer James Godman was formerly senior brewer at the Hop Back Brewery in Wiltshire, where he brewed Hop Back Entire Stout, Champion Winter Beer of Britain 2011. Last year he launched the Henley Brewing Company and this year returns to Cambridge, his former home, to launch the Cambridge Brewing Company.

The brewing vessels arrived just a few weeks ago and aren’t yet fully installed so the new beers are currently being brewed at Henley. The new beers for Cambridge are:
King’s Parade 3.8% ABV ‘best bitter’
Night Porter 4.8% ABV ‘stout porter’
Misty River 4.7% ABV ‘hoppy ale’

They’ll also serve guest ales, mainly from local breweries, and hope to soon have beers from Bexar County Brewery, a new Peterborough brewery that has already released some cracking beers, ‘robust porters’ and ‘aggressive American styled’ IPAs amongst them.

The pub has been completely refurbished with the lower bars opened out into one large room with two main areas – a pub lounge side with views through to the brewery and a side aimed more at dining, joined by a long wooden bar. Lucas the opening manager kindly showed me the upstairs function room that also has views of the brewery, and the ‘Locker Room’, a bar with a smaller beer selection and a screen to show sports. This room has perhaps seen the biggest change with the former low ceiling removed to reveal a much higher ceiling, creating a light and airy space in what was once a fairly dimly lit room. It leads to an outdoor terrace at the rear of the building. There are lots of different styles of furniture and lighting throughout but it all works well together and there are some really nice touches.

We were lucky enough to go along pre-launch for a vegetarian Sunday Roast and really enjoyed the food, including a sample of their own smoked cheddar and an Eton Mess for dessert. We washed it down with a pint of King’s Parade, a biscuity best bitter using East Kent Goldings & Styrian Goldings hops, and a Freedom Organic Lager. Adnams Broadside was also on.

The 1970s building doesn’t look like a place that would have much of a history – a 1974 pub guide says “It is all too easy to be deterred by the stark modernity of the brick exterior, but the inside is in fact quite pleasant” – yet there has been a pub here since at least 1839 and brewing in this area of Cambridge goes back centuries…

History

Brewing

The Cambridge Brew House is the only brewery in the city, the first since Moonshine moved from Radegund Road to Fulbourn in 2008, the City of Cambridge Brewery ceased brewing at Cheddars Lane in 2001, and the first brewpub in Cambridge since the Ancient Druids (now China City restaurant) and the Fresher Firkin (now the Tivoli) ceased brewing in the late 1990s.

King Street has been home to a brewery before; in 1866 George Scales founded the Cambridge Brewery behind what is now d’Arry’s restaurant, opposite the Cambridge Brew house. Much of the former Cambridge Brewery buildings and memorabilia remained until the late 1990s when Greene King stripped the heritage out and threw it away when they turned it into the failed ‘Rattle and Hum’ theme pub. The remaining brewery buildings can best be seen from above street level:

Cambridge Brewery © David Purchase, under Creative Commons Licence

Brewing on King Street goes back much further. The Charters of the Radegund Priory, which existed from the 12th century to the end of the 15th century, record in 1446 the lease of a building on Walls Lane, now King Street, to

John Chapman, brewer, and Margaret his wife, a vacant plot in Walls Lane, in the parish of Holy Trinity, lying between the wall of the Friars Minor to the west and a tenement of the nuns in the tenure of Thomas Thorne to the east, the Lane to the south, and a garden of the nuns occupied by John Heyward to the north.

The lease was for 26 years at 2 shillings, with a covenant to “build and maintain a house on the said site”. Beer was also brewed at the nearby Benedictine Priory, now Jesus College on Jesus Lane which runs paralel to King Street, and the Franciscan Friary established in 1266 on land bordered by Walls Lane, now the site of Sidney Sussex College. One of the only buildings mentioned in the Nunnery accounts was the Priory’s ‘Hospicium’ where brewing was carried out (Gray, 1898) and the Franciscan Friary buildings included a brew house (Porter, 1958).

Former pubs on this site

King’s Arms. Several pubs have stood on this site previously. The King’s Arms is recorded from as early as 1839 with the publican James Creek. As Queen Victoria reigned from 1837, the King’s Arms could well have existed before then. As early as 1688 (Loggan’s map) buildings are shown on the site. King Street itself was formerly Wales lane, later Walls Lane until as late as 1804 (Cole’s) becoming King Street by 1830 (Baker’s). This would suggest it was named King Street sometime during the reign of George III (likely, since the Royal Arms of George III appear in the Cambridge Arms), George IV or even the year King William IV ascended to the throne.

Glazier’s Arms is recorded here or adjacent to it from at least the 1850s to 1887. William Austin was recorded as a beer retailer on King Street in 1839. A glazier by profession, he is later recorded as the publican of the Glazier’s Arms, so it seems possible he gave the pub its name.

Royal Arms is then recorded here from at least 1895 to 1970, after which the building was demolished and the area redeveloped.

King’s Arms (again). In the early 1970s redevelopment, the present building was erected with the pub name reverting to the King’s Arms. It comprised of three large bars and a restaurant, the bars being named after significant items of the King’s Coat of Arms – the Lion Bar, equivalent to a public bar, the Unicorn Bar and the Rose Bar upstairs next to the restaurant – items which seem to support the ‘King’s Arms’ being a Hanoverian Coat of Arms.

Bun Shop. In the early 1990s the pub was refurbished and took the name of the Bun Shop (a pub of that name originally stood on Downing Street). A CAMRA guide from 1994 called it a “hugely enterprising revamp of the once hapless King’s Arms” which served amongst other beers, a Tolly Cobbold ‘Bun Shop Brew’ house beer. That would have been about the time I first visited the Bun Shop. It comprised of a traditional bar with a snug in the right hand room, a wine bar to the left and a tapas bar and restaurant upstairs that was also used as a function room. By 2002 the ‘Traditional Bar’ advertised “a range of beers from some of Britain’s finest regional breweries, including Youngs, Tetleys, Marstons, Greene King, Shepherds Neame and Adnams.”

(© Kake Pugh / Flickr)

Jolly Scholar
The Bun Shop closed in 2008 and for the past few years the pub had opened only for short periods before closing again, first under the management of D’Arry’s (opposite the pub) who scattered plenty of sawdust all over the floor, and then in 2011 under the management of the Jolly Sailor in Suffolk. It became the Jolly Scholar, with another refurbishment opening up the previous two room layout into one large room. It closed again just a year later and stayed shut until reopening as the present Cambridge Brew House.

King Street pubs

In 1874 twelve pubs are recorded on King Street, today only four remain – Cambridge Brew House, Champion of the Thames, King Street Run (formerly Horse & Groom) and the Saint Radegund. The buildings of several former pubs still stand – the Earl Grey is now Raja Indian Restaurant, the Cambridge Arms and brewery is d’Arry’s restaurant and the Yorkshire Grey is a private dwelling.

In 1881, at least ten pubs were named on King Street:
Boot
Carpenter’s Arms
Champion of the Thames
Earl Grey
Garrick
Glaziers Arms
Horse & Groom
Sebastopol
Town Arms
Yorkshire Grey

An 1888 town plan shows names for eight pubs, with the Garrick demolished and replaced by the Saint Radegund, the Town Arms renamed the Cambridge Ale Stores, and a Millers Arms standing opposite what is now the Cambridge Brew House.

Here’s hoping the future of the Cambridge Brew House is a long and prosperous one.

- – -
Other sources:
Arthur Gray, The Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1898)
H.C. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (1958)
The Cambridge Brew House

Black Horse, Rampton

“Some village pubs I’ve been to, everyone stops and looks you up and down as you walk in” said one of the locals. “Not this pub.” Before long another local was trying to persuade us to move to the village, with several houses recommended.

A pub since at least 1851, with two rooms, the left side laid out for dining with several people having Sunday lunch, the right side more the place to drink beer, and good beer it was.

The landlord comes from Tring and beer from Tring Brewery is regularly on. We had a nice drop of Dark Star Partridge Best Bitter before returning to the bar. “I’m just about to put on a new one from Tring, you should wait” he said. After a while the beer was pulled through and several glasses were held up to the light before the clip went on and it was served. It was worth waiting for. He said they visted the brewery the other week, clearly they care about the beer they serve.

Meanwhile, the locals regaled us with stories stretching back over twenty years, of a previous landlady who on her birthday was given the bumps and was swung up into a beam and soon after was taken away in an ambulance, and a ‘lady’ someone brought to the pub who did something that resulted in them “all being barred from the pub”. We couldn’t glean what it was the lady had done, but they were keen to emphasise it occured a long time ago.

I hope we’ll visit this friendly place again soon, drink more good beer and hear more tales, but I’m happy to keep imagining what happened that evening “a long time ago”.

Further back in time, during the Second World War, ‘local Rampton man Arthur Bowness’ recalls that for the village Home Guard, “all the parades and whatnots that used to take place used to mostly start at the Black Horse and finish at the Black Horse.” Nearby is the Giant’s Hill earthwork, an unfinished 12th Century castle that was utilised as a gun emplacement by the Home guard.

Along the High Street, on the opposite side of the road, stands the closed Chequers pub, open c.1765-1917, now a private dwelling.

Rampton is about 7 miles north of Cambridge by road. From the guided busway stop at Longstanton, it’s a four mile round trip along footpaths, or from the Oakington stop it’s a five mile round trip.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC BY-SA

Other pubs along the Cambridgeshire guided busway

Alexandra Arms, Cambridge

The 30th November saw the reopening of the Alexandra Arms on Gwydir Street.

The Alexandra Arms dates from c.1870 and was one of the earlier buildings on Gwydir Street, the houses at the north end being the earliest. It’s a Greene King pub but was formerly owned by Hudson’s Cambridge and Pampisford Breweries Ltd from at least 1882-1930. It was later owned by Wells & Winch brewery until that was amalgamated with Greene King in 1961.

“By 1874, there were about 120 houses in Gwydir Street, only about one third of which were numbered. There were five pubs – the Brewer’s Arms, the Dewdrop, the Gwydir Arms, the Alexandra Arms, and the Prince of Wales on the corner of Norfolk Street”

Only the Alexandra Arms and the Dewdrop (now the Cambridge Blue) remain. Pitson and Newman’s Gwydir Brewery existed at the other end of Gwydir Street at that time, later the site of Dales Brewery. From at least 1888 the Beaconsfield Club stood on the corner of Milford Street opposite the Alexandra Arms, serving alcohol until it lost its licence and was replaced by flats in 1984. Also in 1874, at the other end of Milford street, just round the corner on Sturton Street stood William Worboys Sturton Brewery and off-licence.

The pub is named after Alexandra of Denmark, wife of Edward VII. Alexandra would have been Princess of Wales at the time the pub was built. Further up Gwydir Street, on the corner of Norfolk Street stood the slightly earlier pub (c. late 1860s) the Prince of Wales – Edward was an undergraduate at Trinity College in 1861. The princess outlived Edward, and the Alexandra Arms has outlived the Prince of Wales which had closed by 1963.

A new pub sign shows an image of Alexandra on a stamp issued in Newfoundland in 1911 as part of the King George V coronation issue, a set of eleven stamps portraying members of the British Royal Family. The previous pub sign showed the coat of arms of Alexandra of Denmark “the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom impaled with the coat of arms of her father, Christian IX of Denmark” complete with a wild man holding a club. Arms and the man, and various beasts has photos of the old sign.

The Sturton Town development was an area of railway workers from the nearby railway and skilled artisans. Amongst the bakers, bricklayers, carpenters, engine drivers, firemen, millwrights, railway servants, stonemasons and tailors living nearby, street directories from 1878 and 1881 record a cellarman and a brewer (William Douglas Brown from the Paradise Brewery on Paradise Street) living next to the Alexandra Arms.

A 1975 pub guide mentions ‘congestion round the entrance owing to the narrowness of the room’ but that ‘at the other end there is more space, and it is there that the dartboard is situated’. About 10 years ago the pub had a major refurbishment that turned that space into a seated dining area and the pub into more of a gastropub. It then became ‘The Alex’, but the modernised interior of pale wood, soft furnishings, pastel colours and spotlights didn’t really provide the welcoming atmosphere of what had once been a traditional two-room backstreet pub. The latest refurb has replaced the spotlights with more traditional lighting, returned the dark painted wood and given the whole place a more welcoming feel – it’s the Alexandra Arms again, no longer ‘the Alex’. There are some great additions including two small snugs each side of the stairs near the bar, a log burning stove and various old pictures and maps of the local area including a wall covered with a late nineteenth century OS map.

A 1993 CAMRA guide reviews the Alexandra in three words – ‘No real ale’. It was one of the last keg-only pubs in Cambridge until handpumps were installed in 1999 (Cambridge CAMRA). Now there are eight handpumps with four Greene King beers including XX Mild and four free of tie guests. On the opening night these included the excellent Buntingford Oatmeal Stout, St Austell Proper Job, Green Jack Trawlerboys and Grain Oak – all in great nick and served in lined oversized pint glasses.

Craig and Jenna, who also run the Free Press pub nearby, are now the tennants giving a new lease of life to the pub. Although there have been several licencees in the past 10 years, prior to that it had some long-serving landlords including William Russell for over 30 years from the mid 1930s, and Graham and Mary O’Hare who in 1996 were celebrating 23 years as tennants – in 1973 the pub bitter cost 11p a pint, in 1996 a pint of best was £1.64. It was around this time in the mid 90s that I first visited the pub, entering the lounge bar via the door on Milford Street that’s now in private use. It was still a traditional two room pub back then. The lounge bar once had a snooker table according to a local and a bar served both rooms if I remember correctly. You could enter the main bar through a doorway, bricked up during a previous refurb, at the north end of the room by the existing bar.

This part of Cambridge is not short of good pubs selling good beer, but the reopened Alexandra Arms is well worth a visit.

Sources:
Cambridge Breweries – R.J. Flood (1987)
Down Your Street – Sara Payne (1984)
Cambridge CAMRA
Greene King History
Gwydir Street History
Armavirumque

Cambridge Octoberfest 2012

The 6th Cambridge Camra Octoberfest was held over Friday 12th and Saturday 13th October. Within an hour of opening on Friday evening it was packed with thirsty drinkers – the Saturday lunchtime session offered a more relaxed atmosphere.

German Beers

Eighteen German breweries were represented, including the ‘Big Six’ Munich breweries. Highlights included:

Andechs Doppelbock Dunkel 7.1% – Despite attending both days, I somehow missed this as it sold out very shortly after it was put on, but it’s a particularly fine beer from a Benedictine monastery that has brewed beer for centuries – I’ll console myself with the bottle of it I have in the cupboard.

Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen 5.1% – A beer so full of smoked sausage flavours I have to remind myself that it’s “brewed according to the Bavarian Beer Purity Law of 1516″ and is vegan friendly. Nevertheless, it is a strangely appealing beer that would be well paired with hot dogs on Bonfire Night.

Fässla Zwergla 6% – A dark lager that wasn’t here last year, it was the best of the German beers I tried this year. Smooth, medium-bodied with a good malty bite of chocolate digestive biscuits, went down really easy for it’s strength.

The Trunk Dunkel 5.2% was a bit over carbonated for me with only faint bitter chocolate and metallic flavours emerging – okay.

British Beers

Amongst the British beers are several with German influences, including:

Blackbar Märzen – Brewed back in March especially for this Octoberfest, some of it made an appearance at the Cambridge Beer Festival in May. Since then the beer has developed even richer sweet, malty flavours. An interesting and enjoyable beer – I hope that come March another batch is brewed ready for next year’s Octoberfest.

Milton Schwarzwälderkirschesdunkelbier 5.5% – A Black Forest cherry dark beer? Tasted more like a fruity stout with some creeping sour cherry and bitter almond flavours in the finish. Very drinkable and the first beer to sell out.

Milestone Taeberry Bock 4.6% – Supposedly a German style bock beer although that wasn’t really evident in the taste. Plenty of fresh raspberry flavours from the tayberries though, nice enough.

Brewshed Cloudy Summer 4.3% – A really great wheat beer, some initial orange zest and pineapple flavours developing into strong banana flavours reminiscent of those banana mallows from a pick & mix.

There were around thirty other British beers available, including:

Hopshackle – Three beers from this consistently superb brewery. The strongest, 7% Double Momentum, was rich in sweet, resinous and fruity hops with hints of oak and all the flavours of a Battenburg cake, but pound for pound the Hoptane somehow packed the most punch, plenty of hop bitterness for a 3.8% golden ale.

Moonshine – Again, three from this local brewery. The 6.7% Chocolate Orange Stout was in great nick, not particularly strong orange flavours, but with a big bittersweet chocolate finish.

Red Brewery All Saints Ale 4% – a brewery that only started producing beer this year, about 23 miles from the beer fest, this was my first taste of their beer and it was impressive. Roasted and hoppy, good condition, a really quaffable beer and my beer of the festival this year.

Next up, the Cambridge Winter Ale Festival from Thursday 19th — Saturday 21st January 2012.

The Flying Pig

The Flying Pig stands next to the former Osborne Arms on Hills Road. Both pubs date from the 1830s but the Osborne Arms closed earlier this year and will soon be demolished to make way for more development.

This fate also threatens the Flying Pig – Punch Taverns sold both pubs to Pace Investments who want to ‘build flats above and a basement below, so one idea is to dismantle the pub brick by brick and then reinstate the exterior and interior, surrounded by new development’ (Cambridge News).

Whether it is demolished or dismantled and rebuilt, it’s hard to see how it won’t feel altered and overshadowed by the 150+ flats and several shops that are set to join the large new office block recently built next door. With this in mind, we decided to pay another visit to enjoy the ambience before it changes.

And the ambience inside is what makes this pub. The wooden floors, poster covered walls and ceiling, yellowed from the years as a smoky bar, and rows of bottles are dimly lit by red lights, and in the evening, candles. The music is just at the volume where it improves the conversation, and few conversations aren’t improved with a background of Al Green, Muddy Waters and Canned Heat. Certainly the ambience is better than that described in a guide from 1975 when ‘the public bar suffered from the same piped music as the lounge’.

The back room is just about large enough for a few people around the pool table. It feels like the kind of place where smoking should still be allowed.

The Flying Pig seems to have at one time been called the Engineer, more often named as the Crown Inn from c.1870s, keeping that name for over a hundred years.

In the nineteenth century patrons of the two pubs probably included workers on the nearby railway and station, opened in 1845, and later those from the cattle market, opened in 1885 – a row of cattle pens are shown behind the Osborne Arms on a map from the 1880s. In 1975 a pub guide says custom of the Osborne Arms was then mainly drawn from an adjacent bus depot, no longer there.

When we visited we enjoyed a fine couple of pints of Moonshine Once In A Blue Moon. Also on were Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, Elgoods Beach Collieball and Black Sheep Best Bitter.

Maybe the Osborne Arms didn’t deserve to stay open. The place had seemed unloved for years, the ‘arm’ having fallen off a while ago, and prior to closing it served only uninspiring lagers. The same can’t be said of the Flying Pig. It deserves to stay open – needs to stay open – a laid back, characterful retreat from the encroaching modern development.

Other relevant links:
Cambridge CAMRA article
Osborne Arms signboard
Flying Pig pub games