This is what I meant about em all looking the same like McDonalds

From this:-

To this:-

and this:-

to this:-

It's just wrong.

CORPORATE VANDALISM

I wish I had a different photo to put on here today, an angry, pissed off face instead of my handsome smiling one. 

I was sent a link today to a news story that bloody infuriated me. Here's the link, http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2013-06-07/suffolk-brewery-accused-of-cultural-vandalism-after-scrapping-more-than-200-traditional-pub-signs/ Please read this before you read the rest of this blog so that you know what I'm ranting about.

So, hopefully you've read the news report and you're annoyed about it too. Why do these people feel they have to change things? The pub sign is more than just a sign, it's part of a pubs' identity. They are works of art and also a history lesson.

The pub sign originated with the Roman invasion. In ancient Rome wine bars would hang vine branches outside their premises advertising their wares. When the Romans came to Britain there were very few vine branches to be had so they used the nearest thing to it, a bush. Hence The Bush, The Bull and Bush, the Ivy etc..

It was centuries later that the first proper pubs were seen and these were operated by religious houses (see our posts about The Boars Head, Middleton) to feed and water knights and pilgrims on their way to the crusades .

One famous such house is Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham which was established in 1189 and purports to be the oldest pub in England. The Turks Head, The Saracens and The Lamb and Flag are all associated with this period in history (The lamb representing Christ and the flag the crusaders).

In the 16th century, after the dissolution of the monasteries, you might expect all religious association to cease, but it continued with The Mitre, The Ship (representing the ark) and The Anchor (the Christian faith).

Heraldry also plays an important part. The Black, White, Red and Golden Lions have all featured on the royal coat of arms since the Norman Conquest. The Unicorn was in the Scottish coat of arms. The Red Dragon in the Welsh, The Rising Sun was in the coat of arms of Edward III etc., etc..

In 1760, the Marquis of Granby commanded British cavalry at the battle of Warburg during the 7 years war. After the campaign he bought pubs for all his non-commissioned officers which bankrupted him and he died in 1770 leaving debts of £37000. Heaven knows how much that would be today. There are still lots of his pubs still operating.

I could go on and on, The White Horse, The Black Horse, The White Hart, The Square and Compass, The Shoulder of Mutton. Look 'em up. They all have meanings.

But now, thanks to Greene King, a lot of these famous old hostelries will be no more distinguishable that your local McDonalds. They'll all look the same and something special will be lost.

My message to Greene King?


WHY?      IF IT AIN'T BROKE........... DON'T FIX IT!!!!

Yeah! What he said.....

I really hope none of the pubs on our list are Greene King, I don't know what me dad will do...

How many years do you get for GBH nowadays?

Ye Olde Boars Head, Middleton, Summary

Well, what a great place and what a great time we had! We were given a very warm welcome by everyone involved and couldn't believe it when we made the front page of the local paper!

 The Boars Head has changed almost beyond recognition from it's humble beginnings as three residential cottages, through it's time as the local sessions house, to the thriving pub it is today. It has moved with the times but lost none of it's Olde Worlde charm thanks to the present and past publicans and the brewery, J W Lees (and thanks to the locals because without their support the place couldn't carry on).

Ye Olde Boars Head as it used to be

I have to agree with dad, it's great to see a pub on our list retain that "olde worlde" aspect, and still be a thriving local watering hole, and not "generic corporate eatery No.1". I started to have some concerns after the first couple of inns on our list that we were gonna meet some soulless, faceless business pubs, but Ye Olde Boars Head has given us some good memories, happy hangovers, and high hopes for our quest. If you happen to be in or around Middleton, I can tell you a good place for a drink....

Yes, it's well worth a visit and, if you do call in, say hello to Leanne for us. And take a look around the area. If you stand up at St Leonards and look across the town, you can  see a few old mills that evoke memories of Lowrys' paintings and if you stare long enough you can almost see the smoke belching out the chimneys and the flat capped workers making their way home (bloody hell Clint! I went all poetic then, pass a Stella quick!!!)



SO! moving on.... Got to apologize.  It's been a while since we updated this blog, but we have been discussing the quest at length, firstly, the next pub, which I'll leave for dads big reveal at the end, secondly, when?

We got a few things on... and they are all reliant on when payday falls!, also, I was visited by the modern day Dick Turpin that is the M.o.T, (a paltry £328) My son has got his 5th birthday coming up, so provided there's no financial disasters, we plan on taking him to Legoland, Windsor, which ain't that far from Slough....

We had planned on going to a pub in Lincolnshire but we are having to shelve that one for a while, partly due to finances as my son said but also I'm having some work done at home (I'm taking up and relaying my patio and my kitchen's being replaced starting Thursday) and this leads us into July.

This is also going to be a busy (and expensive) month. On the 2nd my wife and I are going to see Mrs Browns' Boys, on the 4th we are all going to Legoland and stopping for a couple of days and then on the 9th me and Clint are going to see Kings Of Leon. And in the midst of all this, on Friday the 5th of July we are going to the fourth pub on our list, namely....................YE OLDE OSTRICH, COLNBROOK (near Slough). I hope we're not being premature with this announcement as I haven't contacted the landlord of the pub yet. He or she might tell us to piss off!

Finally, thanks again to Leanne, Geoff and Chris for making our visit to Middleton so memorable. It's raised the bar and means that  future ventures and venues have a lot to live up to!!

Cheers!
    

Clint Leanne and Steve in the Old Sessions Room

Ye Olde Boars Head, Middleton part 3

So, we had quite a chat with Leanne. She told us a little about Samuel Bamford, a local poet and reformer, and his connection with the pub.  In 1817 he was imprisoned in the New Bailey Prison in Salford on suspicion of high treason (this was on account of his political activities). From there he was taken to London and examined before the Privy Council presided over by Lord Sidmouth. After promising to be of future good behaviour he was released and was then able to return to live in his cottage at Middleton with his wife Jemima.

In August 1819, Bamford led a group from Middleton to St Peter's Fields, to attend a meeting pressing for parliamentary reform and the repeal of the Corn Laws, where they witnessed the Peterloo Massacre. Bamford was arrested and charged with treason. Although the evidence showed that neither he nor any of his group had been involved in the violence, he was nevertheless found guilty of inciting a riot and sentenced to a year in Lincoln gaol. 

Bamford was the author of poetry, and his Passages in the Life of a Radical (1840 – 1844) is an authoritative history of the condition of the working classes in the years after the Battle of Waterloo.

Samuel Bamford pictured inside Ye Olde Boars Head

Sadly, Leanne had to go and get ready for her night out with her family and left us to our own devices. (Incidentally, I tried to read a couple of Mr Bamfords poems and found them unintelligible. Maybe it's my lack of education. Maybe they're crap. I don't know which.)

So we decided to go and pester a few of the locals in the bar. This is where Clint met Rod.

Leanne just walked me straight up to a bloke who was enjoying his drink with a friend, and barged in and exclaimed, "This is Clint, he's after a bit of local history, see ya later!"

Needless to say, I felt on the spot, but clearly Leanne knew what she was doing, as she'd introduced me to quite possibly the ultimate font of local (and international) knowledge. Rod is a lovely elderly chap, but at first he didn't seem to have anything to say, but with a little coercing and few more sips of his ale, he had a few tales to tell. One of those tales I am gonna share with you now.

      As Rod was an older gent, he was now retired, but in his working years, he was some sort of travel agent, and he used to do his fair share of globe-trotting. He was on a visit to Australia, and one night he was out at the local watering hole, and he proceeded to  get extremely drunk with two locals. After what he said was "A cracking night out", he thanked the the lads who he was drinking with, handed them his business card and then left. He had a few more days in Oz, then flew home. 

         About 6 months later, he was sat at home when his phone rang. It was his mate Paddy (is there a Paddy in every local pub?) Paddy told Rod that two big blokes were in the pub looking for him, and that they sounded "funny". Rod thought he'd better go and check this out, so he made his way down to the pub, and there was the two gents he'd been drinking with in Oz! They were in Blighty buying a boat on the south coast and, while in England, they made their way up to Middleton and asked for him at the travel agents he worked at. The staff there had, of course, refused to divulge any personal info, so they asked a local copper, who told them "Yeah! 'course I know Rod, he drinks in the Boars head!" So off to the pub they went, met up with Rod and they carried on their piss up! 

           Rod was a real nice bloke, and he was an infectious character, as the guys from Oz would tell you, I could have stood and talked to him all night, unfortunately he couldn't stop as his wife had had a tumble and broke her hip, and he was on his way to visit her. Fingers crossed that Mrs Rod was Ok...

Shortly after this I went outside for a fag and met another social leper (someone's gotta pay extra taxes, we're all in this together you know). We got talking and somehow the conversation got around to Rod and his exploits. This guy (sorry, but I've forgotten his name {cardinal sin for a blogger}) told me another story about the traveller. Once he was in New York at some big shindig and, after a few sherbets, was dared by one of his party to de-bag one of the other guests. So Rod crept up behind a guy, grabbed hold of his trousers and swiftly yanked 'em down, which all of Rods friends thought hilarious. It was only when the trouser-less man turned round that Rod realised it was Freddie Laker, the king of budget air fares!!! Not a particularly shrewd move for someone who works in the travel industry!

Sadly, by the time I'd finished my ciggy, Rod had left and I wasn't able to verify this tale with him, but I like to believe it's true.

There was a couple of guys with Rod who we had a chat with and they told us that Brian Kidd and Paul Scholes, both ex Manchester United, used to drink in the Boars Head. "Paul Scholes only ever drank orange juice, you know" one said. "Did he?" I asked. "Did he fuck!" he replied.

These gentlemen were obviously the early doors crowd and soon, they all left leaving me and my son alone to consider everything we'd heard. We thought we'd had a great start to our visit and even if we spoke to no-one else it had been worth the trip. We were chatting and I noticed a lady looking around the pub and thought she might be looking for us but after a couple of minutes came to the conclusion she was looking for friends who perhaps hadn't turned up yet. 

We were just discussing whether to go into the bar to try and engage some locals in conversation when a guy appeared at the doorway of the little room we were in. 

"Steve?" he enquired.

 "Yes" I replied.

"I'm Geoff Wellens." he said. "I'll just get a drink and I'll be with you.

We thought things were looking up. We weren't even sure whether he was going to turn up. After a couple of minutes he came back AND he had the lady who had been looking around the pub and her husband in tow. They'd turned up just to meet us after reading the piece in the paper! Things were just getting better and better!!!

Geoff, if you recall, was dads contact for the Middleton archaeological Society, and due to his kind words and contacts, he was the reason we made the front page. So we were both pleased he made it along. He told us he had returned early from a break in the national forest to come and see us, which was nice, but then he said that the day before he came back, the Friday, he was with his grandson, who was playing football against Moira united, Mine and Dads local football team. So 24 hours earlier, we were less than half a mile of each other... Talk about a small world...
               The Lady accompanying him was a regular local of Ye Olde Boars Head, Maggie, and she had dragged along her unwilling fella, Mike. He was not unwilling to meet us, you understand, but he was not happy about drinking in the Boars as he thought it was too expensive, and would much rather head down Wetherspoons for the cheap beer. I'd like to add, that beer must be proper cheap in and around Manchester, as I thought that the prices were quite good. Anyway, Mike reminded me of Gorgeous George, built like a brick shit-house, but dead likeable. But as every married/co-habiting bloke knows, no matter what you want/don't want, what she says, goes! He couldn't have been that bothered, cos the first thing he did was buy us a drink...
   Before long, Joanne, Maggie's niece, (I think..) joined us, along with her bloke, Aussie Dave! guess where he's from...
    So we all settled in for the night, and, unfortunately  this is where my information ends, as I remember drinking with them all night, but not much else...

Mike (Gorgeous George), Maggie, Joanne, Aussie Dave and Geoff Wellens

Sadly, a lot of my recollections are a bit blurry from this point, too. It seemed that everyone was in a race to buy the next round of drinks. The conversation became the normal thing in pubs, you know, putting the world to rights, talking bollocks, that sort of thing. At around 10 o'clock Geoff left and the rest of the crew decided they were going further into town (for cheaper beer) and asked us to join them, but, as we had been drinking since 4.30 we had to decline. It was time for pizza, a taxi and the hotel.

Next time we'll give our conclusions but for now, Cheers!

Ye Olde Boars Head, Middleton, Part 2

Anyway, this is me outside Ye Olde Boars Head in Middleton.

On arriving we entered and........bought a pint, of course. We had a bit of a nose round, getting a few strange looks as we examined all the old pictures on the walls and then the walls themselves. Then I asked the girl behind the bar if Leanne was around and after a few minutes she appeared. We made our introductions and we sat in one of the back rooms and had a chat. She told us a little about the pub and that, after my first call to her, she had gone straight to our blog and read it. This was promising after our previous dealings with managers. She then took us on a tour of the pub.

Turns out, not only were we lucky to have some time with the landlady, Leanne, but she also knew loads! She told us about how she was trying to get a bit of the history of the pub into a leaflet, and was hoping to do some tours. Surprisingly, it seems as though Middleton gets its fair share of our friends from across the pond. 

Canadians?

Shurrup Dad...

Anyway, I had noticed walking through Middleton on the way to the pub was a strange experience, starting from our hotel, we passed some nice housing estates and it seemed like a nice place to live. Then as we got closer to the centre, we started to see some some strange juxtaposition. For example, as we were looking for the St Leonards Church sign, we passed a cracking little lively pub, next to the church on the hill, which was in huge grounds, surrounded by cobbled roads, and next to that, there was a park with a feature bandstand. All looked brilliant. But then turn around 180 degrees, and there were the ugliest, run down parts of the town, all boarded up industrial units, probably 100 years old. I got the feeling that with a little investment on these run down areas, Middleton would be a gem of the area, especially with all the nice people we had met. 

 Middleton library

Middleton Park and Bandstand

I did see these things but it didn't register quite so much with me. I was seeing everything through a red haze and was fighting for breath in the thin atmosphere. I was now suffering for my sedentary lifestyle at this altitude (Oh all right...all I'd done was walk a couple of miles but it was uphill  for the first mile). 

The pub was originally three dwelling houses which were built around 1587 according to one source, but the date 1632 is cut into a stone lintel in the cellar. At some point the cottages were bought by the clergy from St Leonards church and the building was used as a courtroom. As you pass from the front lounge area into what was once outside but is now inside there is a trapdoor in the floor which leads down to a very small box-like room under the lounge. This is where the prisoners were kept while waiting to be bought before the magistrate. In the event the accused was found guilty and sentenced to death for his crime he was kept in this cell until he was taken to be hanged.......... at the church!!! 

Later an extension was added on one end  to create a bigger court and this now serves as the pubs function room named the Sessions room in honour of it's history.

The Sessions Room

One of the many interesting features of this room is the pub sign hanging on what was once the outside wall. It was here that Clint asked Leanne how long she had been at the pub and that little story was interesting to us. 

Her mother had worked at the pub as a young girl and met her father when he joined the pub football team. Years later Leanne went to work in Scotland and came home at Christmas to see her family. Her cousin was now running Ye Olde Boars Head and, being Christmas, was very busy. Leanne offered to help out behind the bar and has been there ever since and as manageress for the last 4 years. In a further twist, she employed a young man to work in the kitchen but they became very friendly and she had to sack him so that they could have a relationship as it would be frowned on by the brewery. They get married next year. How cools that?

The visit was getting better and better. Excellent sights. Excellent people, Excellent tales, and we were only on the first pint. Next blog we'll write about the people and tales they tell. 

This Blogger site gives us some excellent statistics, but the most interesting one is the audience. We have readers from all over the world, and truthfully, we would love to hear from you, So please, follow us on facebook, Search Ye Olde Innseekers, and come and chat to us online, tell us what you think, and hopefully, like our page.

Anyway... got 1 beer left, so I'll open that and toast to the next blog....

Cheers!

Ye Old Boars Head, Middleton, Part 1

More Press than Aldi....

Well, this is gonna be hard to beat. We have had quite a poor show in the past, but Middleton and its community have more than made up for it. These blogs we've been publishing are about the cards, and the pubs we visit, but this time round, the time leading up to the visit is, to us at least, just as appealing. 

Dad did the normal "pre-visit" check list. Contact the pub, search Google, look on facebook for any willing locals that would fancy meeting us for a beer, and maybe have a tale to tell us. Just so I don't miss any details  (and he's sat right next to me) I'll let Dad tell you about the people we spoke to before our visit...

  Firstly, I rang the pub and spoke to the manageress, Leanne. She turned out to be a diamond.  She said she would pass the word around and try and get the locals interested. Then I found Middleton Archaeological Society (MAS) so I posted a message on their facebook page asking if anyone could help. I got a message back from a Peter Alexander (Thanks Peter) who asked the members of MAS for their help and suggested a Mr Geoff Wellens would be a good chap to talk to. I searched facebook and found ONE Geoff Wellens and messaged him on the off chance that HE was the Geoff I was looking for. Over a week went by and I thought it was a dead end. but then I got a message from him and, after a little confusion (he thought I was trying to flog him something), he said he would see what he could do to drum up some interest.

Then I got an e-mail from a Chris Jones who works for the Middleton & North Manchester Guardian, a weekly newspaper in the area. Geoff had contacted him and told him all about us. He asked me to mail him back with a contact number, which I did. He rang me the next day and asked me loads of questions about me, my son, why we were doing this and how our wives felt about it. 

Then, a couple of days later I received a mail from Geoff saying that we were in the local paper and it was a good spread. Clint messaged me on facebook Wednesday posting me a link to this....

WE MADE THE FRONT PAGE!!!!! (bottom right)

and inside on page 8.....

and we got a bigger piece than Aldi's new store (page 11), and they're creating 15 new jobs! How mad's that??

As you can imagine, as soon as we saw this, we couldn't wait to get there. And this time, as I promised in the last blog, we were staying the night, so we could thoroughly enjoy the establishments board of fare. By the way, being on a budget, we booked a Travelodge just outside the town, and its a good job we aren't reviewing hotels, because this one was a right... (Careful Clint!) sorry Dad.... anyway, it weren't the best.

Us en route...

While we were prepping for the trip, maybe Thursday night, We decided that, being as though, A, we were on a budget, and B, we like to take in the sights, that we would walk the 2 miles from the hotel from hell to Ye Olde Boars Head (what a mistake! It looks flat on Google). So, as all great explorers do, we Google mapped our route. And we noticed something VERY interesting....

Not sure if we mentioned it in this blog, but our surname is Gardner.  And to be more specific, Dads full name is Stephen Leonard   Gardner (cheers Mum) (lol). On our virtual tour of Google Middleton, we spotted, just around the corner from Ye Olde Boars Head....

Which, was just around the corner from....

But to get to these, and Ye Olde Boars Head, we had to pass....

Although, truth be told, we may not have just walked by that last one...

Eventually we made it to Ye Olde Boars Head and met the lovely Leanne, landlady for the past five years, who was very helpful and gave us a tour of the pub and our FIRST Ye Olde Innseekers FREE PINT!!!! (and our first interesting tale, about herself and her family) despite trying to get the function room ready for a 50th birthday party and herself ready for a family evening out. 

Next time we'll go into more detail and bring you more tales of the inn-expected (get it??)

Cheers for now

The Three Swans, Market Harborough, Summary

February 11th 2013

All in all, I really liked the Three Swans. The staff were friendly and helpful and the customers were welcoming. We had one or two laughs, like when two ladies came in who, I would guess were in their 40s (hope I'm right). (you're not, mid 20's) When they ordered their drinks one of them asked for a particular wine and the barman thought it appropriate to point out the price of that beverage as "some of our OLDER customers" were shocked at the price. My son quickly pointed out, in front of the two ladies, his lack of diplomacy and when the poor man tried to recover  he made a pigs ear of it, so we asked him if we could get him a bigger shovel. Luckily for him the two ladies saw the funny side and we all had a laugh at his expense. 

My son and I also had a giggle over one of the locals who I won't identify. We saw him drink at least 5 pints and he was already in the pub when we got there. It was a few days after the sad death of the nurse at the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for severe morning sickness and, later in the night, the topic came up in conversation. Comments were passed on how sad the death was, whether there were any other factors that would compel the poor woman to take her own life, how much blame should be attached to the two Australian radio presenters, what action should be taken against them, should they be prosecuted, should they be sacked, should the radio station lose it's licence, etc., etc. But this guy just said " what was a nurse doing answering the phone"?.... After every comment..... No matter who said it..... Or what they said..... It was always "Yeah, but what was a nurse doing answering the phone"? 

The first time he said it I thought "Well, I suppose it's a fair question, but who else is gonna answer the phone in a hospital at night"? But after 6 or 7 times I was thinking "Who cares who answered the bloody phone". After the 12th or so time it got funny and by 16 or 17 I was in hysterics, so much so, that when he forgot to say it I was really disappointed.

I had a good night, even on the coffee, I was interested in the setting of the pub, the huge building it occupies, with it's outdoor features, it would be a nice summer pub. And inside, a very well kept Olde Worlde place, which has lost none of its history or character, making it a very welcoming pub. What normally happens when I've had a drink in a strange pub, is that after a few beers, I get brave and start some conversation with whoever is in earshot. maybe this time it was the caffeine kicking in, cos as normal, we were into some random drunken pub chat. The bloke on about the fecking nurse answering a phone might've been funny after a few pints, but when your sober as a judge, teeth itching from everyone around me drinking, he was starting to grate a little. Thank the lord when he finally shut up! (TBH, I'm being a bit mean, he was a nice bloke, but he did go on about that phone) 
Still, I had enjoyed the night, and its places like the Three Swans that make me feel good about the mammoth undertaking that Ye Olde Innseekers have ahead of us. Hopefully the next pub will be just as inviting, just as interesting, and just as welcoming, cos next time, I'll love it more, cos I'll be Drunk!!

To be honest, there's not a lot more to say about The Three Swans and that's mostly our fault. We didn't get to talk to many people because nobody knew we were going (The one fault I can  mention is that although I rang before we went and left a message for the manager and e-mailed her, twice, she couldn't be arsed to respond. Maybe if she had, we might have had more interest from the locals, but as she didn't, the locals didn't know we were turning up! Great Western take note. Poor customer relations). The few people that were there were very nice, as were the staff, but it was Monday, in December, two weeks before Christmas..... what do you expect? 

Anyway, as I said, this is down to us because we started by announcing where we were going ONE week before we went. This obviously isn't long enough for anyone to make plans to come and see us, so today we will tell you where we are going next and it's three weeks away (it was going to be a months notice but my son and I have been struggling to get the time together to write this), so hopefully we might get a better response. I've already been in touch with the next pub and the landlady seemed quite interested so keep your fingers crossed for us. One other thing, just to ensure that neither of us ever has to face the ignominy of being sober on one of these trips again, we promise that, for all future trips, we will stay overnight and party hard!!

We are going to create an event on Facebook for the next pub, and hopefully, any blog followers or Facebook friends will be kind enough to join us, come and see us and share a tale or two over half o' mild, so, for the big reveal, over to you Dad....

On Saturday 2nd March we are going to Ye Olde Boars Head, Long Street, Middleton. Lancashire M24 6UE (it's north of Manchester and west of Oldham). One final word about The Three Swans. The toilets were very nice, clean and smelt fresh. The Gents also contained a piece of artwork that ended up being our favourite photo of the evening and here it is.

 Cheers!!!