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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What's in a pub name?
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Ooh, I knew the story of the Widow's Son just hadn't connected it to that pub there. Apparently the tradition of the hot cross bun was still happening in 2011. I'll have to see if I can get in there. It's looking very woebegone now - a little island of old London amongst new buildings and building sites. A bit like Bow Church, which is isolated on an island in the middle of the A11 with no crossings to it, so you take your life into your hands trying to visit it.
I can't find a reason for the Little Driver, but the pub sign has a train. That pub is more or less opposite the Bow Bells, but that's pretty obvious - the nearest pub to Bow Church.
The Blind Beggar looks as if it's doing OK, unlike so many pubs that I've seen knocked down and rebuilt. The one opposite Custom House DLR has been completely demolished in the last few weeks, as has the one opposite Bonner Bridge into Victoria Park. (I could probably find out what they were called as I probably have photographs)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
Some people were upset when the Dun Cow, at Stretton on Dunsmore in the Midlands, had its name changed to Crazy Daisy's - but it was in fact highly appropriate. It related to the legend of the Dun Cow, which lived on the Dunsmore and was driven mad when a witch milked it into a sieve. Being a magic cow, it would produce milk until the bucket was full, but with no bucket, it had to keep on giving ad infinitum. Sir Guy of Warwick was the hero who was sent to slay the enraged cow.
Sadly, the building burned down a couple of years ago.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
We used to play pub cricket when I was a child - equally bored in cars. The Fox and Hounds was a particularly good one to get
Our version has you getting one run for each leg, losing a wicket if its a Head or Arms, and scoring nothing if there are no legs, head, or arms.
The Million Hare in Woolwich was the highest scoring pub in Britain (4,000,000 runs) before it became Clancy's Pub (2 runs). The highest scoring pub that currently exists AFAIK is The Twenty Churchwardens in Cockley Cley, Norfolk (40 runs). My daughter was delighted that she was "in" the one and only time we have driven through Cockley Cley.
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
I always smiled when driving past "The Dog House" at Frilford Heath.
If you're going to be in the dog house you might as well......
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
YMMV on Wetherspoons' pubs, but I do like their naming policy of using local connections. Local 'spoons include The Six Chimneys, Titus Salt, The Timepiece. I've just been in The Golden Bee in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Surprised no one has mentioned the 'Help the Poor Struggler', named for landlord and former hangman Albert Pierrepoint.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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TonyK
Host Emeritus
# 35
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Posted
I would like to offer Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem.
It claims to be the oldest pub in England (any challengers?) and is an intriguing place with some bars partially in caves in the cliff.
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Yours aye ... TonyK
Posts: 2717 | From: Gloucestershire | Registered: May 2001
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
It would be nice if the saloons and pubs around here had such charming names! The Edison doesn't quite have the same quaintness.
But (a bit off topic), when I was with some friends in Malahide, we asked the taxi driver to recommend a place with good food. He suggested The Oil and View. Strange name we thought, but when we took another taxi to dinner, we asked to go to The Oil and View. No problem! When we got there, we discovered our unsuspecting Irish accents had delivered us to The Island View. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TonyK:
I would like to offer Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem.
It claims to be the oldest pub in England (any challengers?) and is an intriguing place with some bars partially in caves in the cliff.
The Bell Inn, Finedon makes a similar claim tracing direct descent from 1042 as the Tingdene Hostelrie, a monastic hospice for travellers. The pub has occupied more than one location in the town since then and the assertion may be as spurious as is, I suspect, my, just noticed, old secondary school's claim that "In Our 400 Years Existence We've Always Striven for Excellence" which seems to rest on a rather dodgy connection to a late Elizabethan Dame School.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I always smiled when driving past "The Dog House" at Frilford Heath.
If you're going to be in the dog house you might as well......
I've never been there but in the North Lanes in Brighton there's a pub named The Office (I'm sure there was one in or near Reading with that name some years ago). Very handy if you are in a session one afternoon and get a phone call ......
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:
... He suggested The Oil and View ...
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) Maybe I should change my Ship title to "oilander" ...
One of my favourite pub names is The Honest Lawyer - having worked in a lawyers' office I can quite appreciate the irony. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ 14. October 2013, 02:26: Message edited by: piglet ]
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
The Fighting Cocks in St Albans also claims to be the oldest pub in England.
Not that it now bears much resemblance to the pub of my youth, having been "gentrified" within an inch of its life and is full of signs saying "mind your head" and "uneven floor" - what would anyone expect in somewhere converted from a 15th century cockpit?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
The Haunch of Venison in Salisbury dates back to about 1320, or possibly earlier, and is also another haunted pub (well, it's not surprising that you'd find spirits in a pub). Also, the Turf Tavern in Oxford is said to have been mentioned in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". It's just at the edge of the old city walls, which form part of the back garden, with the tower of New College (built 1379) looming over it. However it sounds as if Tony K's pub wins by about a century.
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
The Haunch of Venison in Salisbury dates back to about 1320, or possibly earlier, and is also another haunted pub (well, it's not surprising that you'd find spirits in a pub). Also, the Turf Tavern in Oxford is said to have been mentioned in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". It's just at the edge of the old city walls, which form part of the back garden, with the tower of New College (built 1379) looming over it. However it sounds as if Tony K's pub wins by about a century.
The Turf claims "circa 13th century" for its foundations, but the oldest bit standing is 17th century. By the same token, the Bear claims 1242, but is currently located in its own stables, if that makes sense - ie the main pub was where Oxford Analytica and the back of All Bar One now is.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
Sorry for double posting (again). One for the connoisseurs in Oxford is that the oldest pub actually standing is probably the Priory, up behind the Kassam stadium. It started life as, er, a priory, so hasn't always been a pub, but its building (ie the one that is standing there rather than just the foundations a la the Turf, or being on the site, like the Bear) dates from 1445.
Sadly, it closed down over the summer and is now in a very sorry state.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Oxford also has a Wetherspoons named for a lad who grew up and began his career locally. It's called the Four Candles.
Saffron Walden's Wetherspoons is the Temeraire, after the mount of local lad made good Admiral Sir Eliab Harvey.
Adrian
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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blackbeard
Ship's Pirate
# 10848
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Posted
On the topic of Wetherspoons ...
not often that one gets a pub named after a woman (other than royalty), after a civil servant, an engineer or a motorbike racer.
Our latest local Wetherspoons is named the "Tilly Shilling", who was all these things and a local character.
Posts: 823 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
If it's the Miss Shilling I think, she also had a famous orifice - is that so?
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TonyK:
I would like to offer Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem.
It claims to be the oldest pub in England (any challengers?) and is an intriguing place with some bars partially in caves in the cliff.
I've been there! With the bars dug into the caves, it's necessary to put a beer mat over your pint when not actually drinking it to stop the debris from the rock falling into it.
Another place that claims to be the oldest pub in England is the Coopers Arms in Rochester.
[ 14. October 2013, 14:05: Message edited by: Spike ]
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
I have a vague recollection of a Wig and Pistle in Norwich. Suspect the area may be a rich seam of interesting pub names.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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blackbeard
Ship's Pirate
# 10848
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sandemaniac:
If it's the Miss Shilling I think, she also had a famous orifice - is that so?
AG
Indeed so. It limited the fuel flow in a Merlin engine, permitting our aircraft to perform negative-g manoeuvres, thus enabling them to engage German aircraft effectively
Posts: 823 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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Meerkat
Suricata suricatta
# 16117
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Posted
May I be permitted to ass some to the list?
The Volunteer Rifleman's Arms in Bath
The Salamander in Bath
The Skyrack in Headingley, Leeds
I cannot guarantee that they still exist, but they were well-visited by me....... as was 'The Haunch' in Salisbury, the City being my place of birth. I went back there only about six weeks ago and the pub was still as I remember it from the previous visit.
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Simples!
Posts: 160 | From: Herts, UK | Registered: Jan 2011
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
We've lost several pubs here in Trumpington in the last decade, all with good old-fashioned names. The Coach and Horses, a seventeenth century coaching inn (I'm guessing Trumpington was the last stop before Cambridge on the coach route from London), is now the very busy Wok and Grill and The Volunteer (our village name gives away a history as an old camp ground) is a little visited Indian restaurant which has changed hands several times. We still have 3 pubs though, The Green Man is the more upmarket one and gets the professionals and foodies, The Tally Ho is a locals pub and The Unicorn has annoyingly rebranded itself as The Lord Byron in an attempt to get some tourist trade from Byron's Pool - the locals now refer to it as the Unibyron.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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tessaB
Shipmate
# 8533
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Posted
Our local in our holiday place is the Bell . Not terribly interesting but we've been told that pubs with bell or bells in their name were called after the number of bells in the local church. So a small village with a small church might have a Bell Inn, whereas a large town with a church with a big tower might have the Eight Bells.
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tessaB
eating chocolate to the glory of God
Holiday cottage near Rye
Posts: 1068 | From: U.K. | Registered: Sep 2004
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
There are a number of pubs (and used to be more) in Grantham with Blue in the name: Blue Pig, Blue Man, Blue Bull. Blue used to be the colour of the local Liberal Party and the pubs date back to the time when drink was used to encourage the voters (or the hecklers).
There was also a Blue Nag which an ex-Shippie commented must have referred to Margaret Thatcher.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
The Bear and Ragged Staff in Crayford transmogrified into the Orange Kipper, losing its lovely wrought iron sign. The manager off-handedly suggested it had gone into the skip. But it got its name, and the sign, back. (I have never known what the connection with the earldom of Warwick was.)
The usual story, probably entirely made up by some late Victorian journalist, is that pubs would be named after famous generals and admirals (or their badges) by old soldiers retiring to a peaceful life with their variously-gotten gains. And they would tend to be around port towns, or on the roads to the Channel ports, because that's where said soldiers would find themselves when shipped back to Blighty - or perhaps that's where they would want to set up shop to get trade from the next genertion of sailors and soldiers. Hence all those Marquises of Granby from the 18th century and Lord Nelsons from thr 19th - and Bears and Ragged Staffs from the 15th.
Well, its a nice story. I have no idea if there is any evidence.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
And a bit further into London - I've known of only five pubs called "The Tiger's Head", and all of them are in the bit of suburban south-east London that used to be the north-west end fo Kent. Two in Bromley (one now closed), two in Lee (facing each other over a street. known as the Old Tiger's Head, and the New Tiger's Head) and one in Catford (now closed, demolished, and turned into flats)
Anyone know if thre are any anywhere else? Or if the name has any special connection with SE London or North Kent?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
The Blackboys Inn at - er - Blackboys in Sussex does not claim descent from Charles II. The current etymology put forward by Harveys is that it was named for the charcoal burners associated with the iron industry who used to drink there. My mother lived in the village in her youth and had not heard that one. It is definitely older than the Stuarts, though, as a Richard de Blakeboys is recorded in the 14th century. I've seen, but simply cannot find, a derivation from the French for wood, which I think my mother had found during research when she was at college.
(ken, do you have access to the Victoria County History for Sussex?)
[ 14. October 2013, 17:51: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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Morlader
Shipmate
# 16040
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Posted
The Bucket of Blood, Hayle, Cornwall is said to be the only pub in England* with that name, officially. There are other pubs with that nickname because of bare-knuckle fights which took place in them.
TBoB got its name because of a story about the landlord drawing a BoB from the well because a corpse had been dumped there. But I suspect it may be a corruption of a Cornish name, long forgotten.
*Cornwall is not really England, of course, but joins it at the Tamar (tangentially, one might say).
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.. to utmost west.
Posts: 858 | From: Not England | Registered: Nov 2010
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And a bit further into London - I've known of only five pubs called "The Tiger's Head", and all of them are in the bit of suburban south-east London that used to be the north-west end fo Kent. Two in Bromley (one now closed), two in Lee (facing each other over a street. known as the Old Tiger's Head, and the New Tiger's Head) and one in Catford (now closed, demolished, and turned into flats)
Anyone know if thre are any anywhere else? Or if the name has any special connection with SE London or North Kent?
Interesting. Didn't one of them- possibly the Catford one- change its name for a time after a shooting in, I suppose, the 60s or early 70s? Possibly to the Governor-General, or that may be another pub altogether.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Bene Gesserit
Shipmate
# 14718
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Posted
In Leicester, near the railway station, there's a pub called The Last Plantagenet.
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Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus
Posts: 405 | From: Flatlands of the East | Registered: Apr 2009
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
(ken, do you have access to the Victoria County History for Sussex?)
Might be a copy in the college library - but their online index doesn't have any hits for Framfield or Uckfield so it might be they haven't got to that part yet.
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Interesting. Didn't one of them- possibly the Catford one- change its name for a time after a shooting in, I suppose, the 60s or early 70s? Possibly to the Governor-General, or that may be another pub altogether.
There was a Governor-General pub in Downham which was closed by the police in the 1990s. I went there a few times but I don;t know if had a previous name. The one I was thinking of was at the bottom opf the hill near the pool on the Ravesnbourne where the big Sainsbury's Homebase is now. Cornr of Southend Lane and Bromley Road, near Bellingham and beckenham Hill stations. It was a (huge) modern building built on the site of an older pub. Also had a bit of a reputation for nasty goings-on. I know an ex-landlord of it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
In my RN. Days I was an habitué of the wonderfully named Still and West of England Inn. Other good Pompey names were The Ship Leopard and The Spice Island.
Kidderminster has The King and Castle, but only those in the know would appreciate this is after the two classes of locomotives of those names built by the Great Western Railway.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
We have T'Old Steam Pig in Huddersfield, the name celebrates old woolen mill machinery. Going further back, and celebrating the Luddite heritage of the town, is the Croppers Arms.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Isn't the bear with a ragged staff the county symbol for Warwickshire?
Blackbeard, I used to live in Farnborough (attended the Church of the Good Shepherd) so know the Tilly Shilling well.
In Eastbourne there is a pub called The Lamb Inn which dates from 1180 - the sign is the haloed lamb with flag. The church next door is almost as old, and used to have a tunnel connecting it to the pub.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Isn't the bear with a ragged staff the county symbol for Warwickshire?
.
Yes, which was the badge of Warwick the Kingmaker - hence why there are so many of them around in middle England where his levees came from. It is also worn today by Warwickshire County Cricket Club (spit).
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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St. Stephen the Stoned
Shipmate
# 9841
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Posted
In Bristol there's a pub called The Bear and Rugged Staff, which always annoyed me. As did some of the customers.
[ 15. October 2013, 07:48: Message edited by: St. Stephen the Stoned ]
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Do you want to see Jesus or don't yer? Well shurrup then!
Posts: 518 | From: Sheffield | Registered: Jul 2005
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
The New Tiger's Head at Lee is now defunct, but has seemed to have some odd occupants - not your usual squatters, more Eastern European, and families. Only saw them once, though. I usually try to avoid that route because the traffic is vile at that junction.
The Rose of Lee has transmogrified into The Dirty South.
The Paxton at the bottom of the hill below the Crystal Palace mast spent a bit of time as something gothic and painted black (Dungeon? Crypt?) but now celebrates Paxton again.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Here's the Catford one.
The dead cat, now demolished.
The Bromley, Mason's Hill, one was first mentioned in 1706.
There's one in Mildenhall, Suffolk. First publican recorded in 1830.
Here's one in Chiselhurst - apparently the tiger's head was the crest of the Walsinghams, who owned a lot of the area. The site has been an inn since the 15th century. Interestingly, it shares with the Lee inns an association with out of town gaming.
Chiselhurst's tiger - watch out for pop ups
There's one in Norley, Cheshire.
So, the South London scatter seems related to the Walsingham estates - I can't find any such connection for Cheshire and Suffolk.
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hanginginthere
Shipmate
# 17541
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Posted
What would The Cricketers (in North Finchley, London) score in pub cricket?
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'Safe?' said Mr Beaver. 'Who said anything about safe? But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'
Posts: 72 | From: Eboracum | Registered: Jan 2013
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Meerkat:
The Skyrack in Headingley, Leeds
I cannot guarantee that they still exist,
The Rack is still there, or was as of last year. It was a favourite haunt of mine back in my student days .
We don't have too many weird and wonderful pub names round here, but The Old Contemptibles is a fairly uncommon name. The Old Joint Stock is appropriately named, as it's in a former bank. And I've always liked the rustic charm implied in The Old House At Home.
There's some Civil War history in the area, as seen in pubs like The Fairfax and The Camp (near where the said parliamentarian general's army stayed during the brief siege of a local royalist fortification).
But my favourite, sadly now gone the way of so many other pubs, was The Jolly Fitter. It was one of the drinking houses of choice for workers at the Austin car factory (now also sadly departed), hence the name.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Meerkat:
The Skyrack in Headingley, Leeds
I cannot guarantee that they still exist,
The Rack is still there, or was as of last year. It was a favourite haunt of mine back in my student days .
We don't have too many weird and wonderful pub names round here, but The Old Contemptibles is a fairly uncommon name. The Old Joint Stock is appropriately named, as it's in a former bank. And I've always liked the rustic charm implied in The Old House At Home.
There's some Civil War history in the area, as seen in pubs like The Fairfax and The Camp (near where the said parliamentarian general's army stayed during the brief siege of a local royalist fortification).
But my favourite, sadly now gone the way of so many other pubs, was The Jolly Fitter. It was one of the drinking houses of choice for workers at the Austin car factory (now also sadly departed), hence the name.
The Old Contemptibles and the Old Joint Stock are both old haunts of mine from 6th form days (and, indeed, 14 years later, Christmas reunion drinking) - as is the equally left-field named Tap & Spile. The OC in particular is a lovely pub, dripping with history (and purveyor of excellent pies). We also used to frequent the Gun Barrels (after Birmingham's gunmaking heritage) but only because it was the closest pub to school, not because it was in anyway good....
The Old House At Home sounds rustic, but then you realise it's in Blakedown and the illusion rather crumbles. Still, it's a better pub than the Swan I suppose.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hanginginthere:
What would The Cricketers (in North Finchley, London) score in pub cricket?
I expect it would score 22 for eleven players, although if the sign showed a game in play I'm sure someone would claim 26, to include the batsmen.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by hanginginthere:
What would The Cricketers (in North Finchley, London) score in pub cricket?
I expect it would score 22 for eleven players, although if the sign showed a game in play I'm sure someone would claim 26, to include the batsmen.
The Cricketers scores 4 points. If the number is not specified, then you assume two of the thing. So Horse and Hounds is 12 points, 4 for the horse and 2x4 for the hounds. Coach and Horses is 8 points, Fox and Hounds is 12 points, The Swan is 2 points, The Swans is 4 points, The Seven Swans is 14 points.
The Cricket Team, however, is 22 points.
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
as is the equally left-field named Tap & Spile.
I thought of mentioning that, but it's not that left field - a tap is a device used to get beer out of a cask, and a spile is a device used to control the flow of air into a cask.
quote:
We also used to frequent the Gun Barrels (after Birmingham's gunmaking heritage) but only because it was the closest pub to school, not because it was in anyway good...
If you mean the one in Selly Oak, that's gone now as well ![[Frown]](frown.gif) .
quote:
The Old House At Home sounds rustic, but then you realise it's in Blakedown and the illusion rather crumbles. Still, it's a better pub than the Swan I suppose.
I was thinking of the one between Harborne and Bearwood, but the same comment applies in either case!
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sighthound
Shipmate
# 15185
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Posted
The Q Inn is a very strange name (Stalybridge).
Personally, I'm always surprised at how many White Harts there are, given that Richard II (whose badge it was) was deposed in 1399 and is commonly supposed to have been unpopular. Perhaps his Cheshire Archers all went off and opened pubs.
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Supporter of Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue.http://tiagreyhounds.org/
Posts: 168 | From: England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
The Q Inn is a very strange name (Stalybridge).
Personally, I'm always surprised at how many White Harts there are, given that Richard II (whose badge it was) was deposed in 1399 and is commonly supposed to have been unpopular. Perhaps his Cheshire Archers all went off and opened pubs.
I suppose it might be pertinent to ask who he was unpopular with.
There's an odd thing about King John who "was not a good man, who had his little ways" (A A Milne). When the French invaded, with the support of the barons for the Dauphin to usurp the throne, he called out the tradition armed bands of the common people (the old Saxon fyrd). He had no means to enforce this. But they came. And fought. And defeated the French for him. And, further, when the Pope imposed interdict on the whole nation to bring the possibly atheist John to heel over the choice of ABC, the populace, expected to rise in outcry about being denied the sacraments, and burial in consecrated ground, did nothing of the sort and went calmly on doing whatever they did. So who was John unpopular with?
Perhaps the same applied with Richard. After all, if he had not been popular, inns suggesting support would not have done good business, whoever set them up. I imagine they would not have been popular with Henry IV, though.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
We've got some goo pub names in York, as you might expect.
The Hansom Cab is so named because the cab's inventor, Joseph Hansom was born in York.
When the York Brewery opened its first three pubs, they all had names that riffed around the theme of hanging.
The Three Legged Mare is the stool you stood on before it was kicked out from under you, The Last Drop Inn refers to the drop that killed you, and The Rook and Gaskill refers to the last two men hanged in York.
Posts: 3120 | From: Yorkshire | Registered: Nov 2006
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'm not sure if its still there - it was in 2010 - but there's a pub in Pembroke called The Cross Saws Inn. I've never encountered another of the name, have you?
It served a decent pint and standard ham roll on a hot summer day.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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birdie
fowl
# 2173
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Posted
Naming new pubs can be contentious too. There's a pub in town which opened last year, and was initially going to be called The Sanderling, which is a seabird which we don't have around here ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) .
However the brewery saw sense and the pub is called The Starling Cloud, in reference to the starlings which roost on the pier.
I think it's a lovely name, although it's a shame it's in English rather than Welsh.
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"Gentlemen, I wash my hands of this weirdness."
Captain Jack Sparrow
Posts: 1290 | From: the edge | Registered: Jan 2002
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