Return to Madeira, half a century on

We’ve been home now, from our late autumn cruise, for just over a month, and I suddenly realised that I hadn't written anything about our visit to Madeira – officially the third port of call on our two-week voyage. However, as things turned out, with our aborted attempt to dock at Praia de Vitoria, Madeira was actually the second location we visited. Our ship docked at Funchal, the lovely and rather charming capital of Madeira, where we had an overnight stop at Funchal. This gave us two full days in which to explore this charming town along with the surrounding area.

As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’d visited Funchal before, again arriving by ship, although that time it was a school “educational cruise” in a converted, former troop ship. As almost 50 years had passed since that visit, my memories of Madeira are rather limited. Having said that, I’m pretty certain that my school mates and I just proceeded down the gangway and walked into Funchal, rather than being bussed into town, as Eileen, me and other passengers were. The drive itself took around 10 minutes, if that’s anything to go by, but after half a century, who really knows.

The coach dropped us off at a bus station on the seafront, where there were landscaped gardens, shaded with palm trees. We decided to explore the immediate vicinity before finding a suitable place for lunch. Eileen’s niece, and her husband had visited the island recently and had strongly recommended a restaurant situated further along the seafront. She hadn’t indicated how far along, but after reviewing the location on Google Maps, we realized it was a good 45–50-minute walk. This was rather too far Mrs PBT’s, and further too than I’d care to walk, just for a bite to eat. Fortunately, we discovered several excellent alternatives in the vicinity.

Our first stop was a small café with outdoor shaded seating, beneath a canopy. We dropped in, ordered a coffee each, as well as a delicious Portuguese custard tart. Sitting there gave us time to figure out where to eat later. We then wandered down one of the side streets that run parallel to the shoreline—narrow, bustling, and full of charm. 

There were plenty of local cafés and bars opening onto the street, all very inviting and tempting, although one particularly proprietor was rather too vocal and persistent for my liking, in his attempts to encourage visitors to try his rooftop bar. It may well have afforded views out over the seafront, but he didn’t get our custom, no matter how good his establishment might have been.

We moved on and looked elsewhere, and after taking a shortcut, back towards the sea front, we found the terminus of the city's famous cable car. For €20, you can ride right to the top of the hills (mountains) behind the city, and enjoy uninterrupted views stretching right across Funchal, and out to the sea beyond. Having watched the film “Where Eagles Dare”, I've never been that keen on cable cars. Mrs PBT’s felt the same, so we decided to skip that activity, and walked a little further in the direction of the ship. There we noticed a contemporary and laid-back place called “Loft”, with a few tables overlooking the grassy area we'd just passed through.

Wanting something light for our lunch, we checked out their menu, which included some nice bruschetta’s, and decided to give the place a try. We found a table, in the shade, and ordered some drinks. A half litre of Coral White – the local lager, for me and whatever Eileen was having - mineral water I expect. Our food arrived, looking nicely presented, and tasting as good as it looked. It was just the right size for lunch, as without wishing to sound too self-righteous, we were trying to be mindful about what we ate, despite being on holiday.

Afterwards, whilst Mrs PBT’s got stuck into her obligatory coffee, I decided to try the Coral Stout, but somehow, I ended up with another White beer. Something had obviously been lost in translation, but no matter. On our way back to the coach terminal, we found the inevitable souvenir shop and picked up a few goodies, including a couple of the ever-popular fridge magnets. No pineapples though, just to disappoint those who get excited about such things! Afterward, we took the bus back to the cruise terminal and returned to the ship.

The following morning, at Mrs PBT's suggestion, I went into Funchal on my own. If anything, the day was hotter than the previous one, and I was left wishing I'd brought my water bottle with me – an "elementary school boy error", as one of my colleagues would say. But I hadn't, regardless of my colleague’s advice, so after staying in the shade as much as possible, I found a nice little corner café, close to Funchal’s rather modest looking cathedral. I sat outside, in the shade, enjoying a coffee plus a bottle of ice-cold water, before contemplating my next move.

It had been quite a climb up to the cathedral, although given that Funchal is constructed on a hill, this wasn’t surprising. I’d ended up on the other side of the main thoroughfare that bisects the town, so I headed in a roughly easterly direction, and ended up close to where Eileen and I had been the day before. 

Not all the shops were open, as it was a religious holiday, but the restaurants, bars and souvenir outlets were certainly trading, as were the ice-cream sellers, so hiding behind the pretext that a cone, or small tub would cool me down, I ordered a generous scoop. It was one of those places that leave you spoiled for choice, but whilst tempted by mango, I opted for the pineapple ice cream – what is it about that fruit that is so tempting?

After crossing the busy highway that runs down from the upper parts of Funchal, towards the seafront, I realised I was back in the maze of narrow back streets where we had walked the previous day. I was tempted by a small, local fish-restaurant, where patrons could sit outside, and enjoy a meal whilst watching the world go by. With menus in English, and photos to guide one, I opted for a freshly grilled sea-bass – highly recommended according to the friendly waiter. Served with some freshly cooked, boiled potatoes and garnished with parsley and butter, it was the perfect lunchtime meal. A glass of Coral Stout - the beer I'd missed out on the day before, went down well with my meal, as well as being another tick on Untappd.

I went inside to make use of the “facilities” and also to pay the bill. As I was counting out the cash, the waiter, and the chef, offered me a glass of “Poncha”, a traditional alcoholic beverage, made with sugar cane rum, honey and lemon juice that is popular in Madeira. The rum was over-proof, so this shot, which was on the house, had quite a kick to it.  A nice place, though with good food, nice surroundings and friendly people, what more could one want?

With the afternoon drawing to a close, I returned to the bus terminal and took the bus back to the ship, aiming of course be back on board with ample time before the scheduled departure. I’m sure many of you will have seen those YouTube clips of late returning passengers running along the pier, waving their arms in a vain attempt to signal the ship to halt. This of course is a futile gesture, as once the vessel has prepared to depart, and cast off its lines it cannot return to the quayside, unless there is a dire emergency. Not allowing sufficient time to be back on board, doesn’t constitute such a situation.

Later that evening Mrs PBT’s and I sat out on our cabin balcony, watching Queen Victoria slide away from the quayside, before heading out to sea. With the lights of Funchal twinkling away in the background, the ship followed the coastline of Madeira for a while, until we reached a point where the island’s main airport came into view. The latter is quite a construction, on an island with very little in the way of flat land. The airport’s designers’ solved this issue by supporting the runway on concrete pillars, which rise above the hill side and an adjacent motorway. With the lights, and later sounds of an approaching aircraft, I retrieved my binoculars from the cabin and watched as the plane made a text-book landing. 

According to Eileen’s niece, it’s quite a scary descent and landing, so maybe arriving and departing by ship, is the way to go. It’s how both my visits to Madeira were achieved, although I’m fairly certain that airport hadn’t been conceived, let alone built back in 1971, when I first came to this charming and captivating Atlantic island.

 

It's that time of year, again

It’s that strange time of year that precedes the run up to Christmas, a commercial enterprise that seems to have started whilst we were away on our late autumn, Atlantic cruise. Mrs PBT’s and I are both too long in the tooth to concern ourselves with yule-tide activity, and son Matthew isn’t overly struck on the concept, either.  Working in retail means he is exposed to the madness that is “Christmas shopping” with all the pushing and shoving associated with the frenzy of buying those “must have” gifts. By the time the main event arrives, he is as cheesed off as the rest of us, fed up to the back teeth with Christmas, and the commercialisation associated with it.

If I had my way I’d disappear to somewhere really cold, where they have lots of proper snow, and an authentic “Christmas” feel about the place, rather than endure the damp, draughty and chilly conditions of a typical 21^st century, English winter.  I sound like some old boy, sounding off in the local pub about things not being what they were, even though I’m sure every generation that comes along feels the same. It’s party season as well, with pubs and restaurants geared up for what for them is supposed to be the busiest time of the year.  My firm’s Christmas bash takes place on Friday week and is being hosted by a largish pub at the bottom end of the High Street, in Tunbridge Wells. I won’t reveal the pub yet, but it’s an old established hostelry that has reverted to its original name, after years of trading under a series of daft names, that some trendy, pub company executive thought would appeal to the local “yoof”.

That depends, of course, on whether supplies of potable water have been restored to the spa town, or not, because as many of you will know, Tunbridge Wells has been making national headlines recently, for all the wrong reasons. Local residents have been without water, drinking or otherwise, for the best part of a week due to what can only be described as a “cock-up” of biblical proportions at the local treatment works. There are already reports of pubs and restaurants cancelling bookings, due to the water shortage, at what should be the busiest, and most lucrative time of the year. South East Water are the company behind this fiasco, and I can certainly empathise with residents of our neighbouring town, having experienced a similar shortage earlier in the year. Fortunately, that particular outage, only lasted a couple of days, but it still brought home how dependent we all are on having a clean and reliable source of water, piped into our homes.

I’ve spent much of the day catching up with various outstanding tasks, including some minor maintenance on my car, but the main job I had was renewing my UK passport. Fortunately, passport renewals can be carried out online, and this includes uploading a current photo of oneself. Snappy Snaps, photo shop have simplified this process, by providing a unique code, that links to recent photos taken in the store. In my case, this was last week and have to say that the end result is far superior to those provided by the photo booths we had to huddle in, back in the day. The booths were a regular feature in shopping centres and station concourses, and probably still are to a certain extent.

There is also no need now, to have one’s photo verified by an “upstanding member” of society, such as a teacher, church minister, doctor or similar profession. Quite how these individuals were considered more “upstanding” than us lesser mortals is beyond me, but I am quite glad to see the end of a requirement that really does belong in Britain’s class-ridden past. I lost out on 6 months validity on the passport I am surrendering, thanks to the shenanigans of Brexit, because since that inglorious day, the validity of passports, for non-EU citizens, is a strict 10 years from date of issue. 

To illustrate this point, my current document was issued in Apil 2016 but doesn’t actually expire until December 2026. That additional seven-month period is no longer valid, after the UK deliberately made itself a “third country”. I already knew this, but it was pointed out, when I checked in at Southampton, six weeks ago, prior to boarding our cruise ship. Thanks, Boris, you great big, useless lump of lard, and the same applies to all the other weaselly, Brexit-backing creeps, such as Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Redwood etc.

I had another disappointment earlier today, although not quite in the same league. Having submitted my online application, I had a bit of time to spare, prior to collecting Mrs PBT’s from her place of work. I had it in mind to visit the historic, George & Dragon, at Speldhurst. My last visit has been in August 2024, whilst completing the final stretch of the Tunbridge Wells Circular Walk. There have been a number of changes since then, the most noteworthy being ownership of the pub returning to the Sankey family. This was the culmination of a story dating back 65 years, when the grandparents of current owner, Matthew Sankey, bought this ancient old inn.

You can read the rest of the story here, but it’s worth knowing that Matthew Sankey also runs a restaurant-cum-pub, called Sankey’s, at the top of Mount Ephraim, in Tunbridge Wells. I was keen to see how things were progressing at the George & Dragon, following its return to family ownership, and with three-quarters of an hour to spare, it seemed the ideal opportunity. I hadn’t banked on being unable to park the car though, but after a fruitless drive around, I gave up on the idea. Too many large vehicles seemed the problem, but regrettably I too am guilty of this, having bought an SUV a couple of years ago. Much easier to slide in and out of, than a standard saloon, especially for Mrs PBT’s who has a few mobility issues, but not much good when it comes to squeezing in and out of tight places.

Sadly, I had the abort the idea, but on the drive back to Eileen’s work place, I thought of at least five former pubs in nearby Southborough, all of which are now sadly closed. All of these closures pre-date COVID and are just signs of the demise of the pub trade across the country. I shall make another attempt to visit the George & Dragon, in the not-too-distant future, but the fact that the car park was full, is proof that the pub is doing alright, now it is back in family ownership.   

 

Draught Burton Ale - DBA

Just a quick post to report on the appearance of a classic beer that I thought had long vanished. I’m talking about Ind Coope’s Draught Burton Ale, or DBA for short. Those of us with long memories aka, those of a certain age, will remember this classic Burton beer, and the storm it caused within the beer world when it first launched in 1976 – 50 years ago to be precise! The appearance of this beer marked a turning point in what CAMRA had described as the “Real Ale Revolution.” It was certainly the moment in time when the large brewing conglomerates began to take “Real Ale” seriously.

If my memory is correct, and that’s not always a certainty after half a century, DBA was a beer based on the bottled version of Double Diamond, which was a completely different brew to the fizzy keg beer of the same name. Promoted under the slogan “A Double Diamond works wonders”, keg DD was weaker in strength than the bottled version and lacking in taste as well. Bottled DD was a successor of the true Burton pale ales of yesteryear, whilst the keg version was just that – a mass-produced, and heavily promoted keg bitter, designed to compete with other national keg beers, such as Courage Tavern Keg, Watney’s Red, Whitbread Tankard, and several others, of similar ilk.

It was a stroke of marketing genius though, to launch a cask beer with the strength and credentials of a genuine Burton Pale Ale, and for several decades Ind Coope DBA was a well-deserved success. However, further takeovers and mergers within the brewing industry, left the beer out on a limb. Other, equally characterful cask beers came along, with most of them brewed by independent brewers. Slowly, but surely sales of DBA began to slide, and eventually, Danish giant Carlsberg, who by then owned the brand, decided to put the beer out of its misery. This happened in January 2015, with the Danes claiming that demand for DBA had fallen to “an unsustainable level”. With virtually no promotion behind the brand, and the beer itself, almost impossible to find, this was hardly surprising.

And there, the DBA story might have ended, had it not been for the duo behind the small, Burton Bridge Brewery, who announced they planned to brew a batch of a beer called Draught Burton Ale for the local CAMRA beer festival the following month. It was fitting then that Geoff Mumford and Bruce Wilkinson, both of whom had worked for Ind Coope, and had been involved in devising the recipe for the original DBA, should brew the beer.

Fast forward to March 2020, and the period shortly before the first, national COVID emergency was declared. I was visiting Burton-on-Trent with a group of beer and pub enthusiasts, drawn for the ranks of the CAMRA Discourse, Beer & Pubs Forum, plus a number of beer bloggers and enthusiasts like me. We were on what might be described as a “curated tour” of some of Burton’s finest pubs. One of those pubs was the famous Burton Bridge Brewery, and the company’s version of DBA was on sale at the pub of the same name. We of course, had to try a pint, and you can read what I wrote about my experience of the beer, here.

A couple of weeks after that visit to Burton, the National COVID Lockdown came into force, and what with partial lifting, “firebreak” shutdowns, “Zones" and all the other nonsense we had to endure, it was the best part of two years before such “curated tours” were again possible, and things started getting back to normal.

In the meantime, I’d forgotten all about Draught Burton Ale, so imagine my surprise at seeing it on sale at the Nelson Arms, in Tonbridge. I’d popped in for a glass or two of Harvey’s XXXX Old Ale, a beer that you might recall I am quite fond of. Seeing the pump clip, brought back memories, so I just had to try a pint, and that provoked other memories, because the DBA tasted every bit as good as I recall. Checking with the Burton Bridge Brewery website, I’m pleased to confirm that this legendary beer is still available, at least in bottled form. Presumably, the beer must be packaged in cask form too, at least from time to time.

 

Topsham's Bridge Inn, at last

In the previous post, you left me at the Lighter Inn, the rather posh Hall & Woodhouse establishment, overlooking the Quayside, in Topsham. I was about to head off, through the town, up the hill, and past the station, before turning right at the top, and along a road lined with a mix of rather ordinary looking suburban bungalows and houses. 

After turning left, into Bridge Hill, it wasn’t long before the pink-painted, Bridge Inn came into view, just a short distance away at a point where the houses thin out, and the road takes a turn to the left. The bridge that gives both the road and the pub its name, over the River Clyst, comes into view, as does the more open countryside overlooked by the hills in the distance. There, overlooking the river, stood the pub I had travelled through several southern English counties, in order to visit.

There’s always a palpable sense of excitement when approaching a new pub for the first time, especially when it’s one like the Bridge that I’d been wanting to visit for some time. There’s a danger that the excitement can be dissipated when you discover that the place isn’t quite what you were expecting, despite the description and photos you may have seen beforehand. The other side of the coin is the place is much better than you’d thought it would be OR, it is just different. Usually, the place you’ve been looking forward to visiting, is a combination of all these actions and emotions. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, recently, even to the extent of writing a separate post on the subject, but after teasing and tempting you all over recent posts, let’s launch straight in to the Bridge Inn, at Topsham. As I descended the hill, towards the pub, there was a decorator painting the window frames - an unenviable task given the cold, outdoor temperatures. Unsure for a moment, which door was the entrance, I asked this painter which was the way in. Once inside, it still took me a while to get my bearings and spy out the lay of the land.

A long corridor ran towards the rear of the building, with a door marked private. There were various rooms leading off from both sides, and as I discovered, the middle one on the right, was private, and was where the beer was kept, and the food prepared. Even now, I’m still a little confused, but I think there was a room at the front, again to the right. The room I wanted to be in was at the far end of the corridor, and this is where orders for beer and food were taken and paid for. It was packed, and there weren’t any spare chairs, or indeed tables there, but I did order a pint of Golden Fiddle, a highly quaffable, 4.0% golden ale from Branscombe Brewery. Served in a dimple, pint mug, as are all the beers at the Bridge, it was both pleasant and refreshing. It was also another tick on Untappd.

I ordered one of the Bridge’s legendary homemade pasties, and after giving my name to the lady behind the bar, made my way to the front of the pub, where I managed to squeeze onto the end of a table, in the room on the left. With windows on two sides, this room was bright and spacious, with a friendly and welcoming feel. It was a while before my pasty arrived, but this large, and freshly warmed, homemade delicacy, was worth the wait. It was brought in by the same person who took the order, and from what others in the room referred to her by, I gather her name was Caroline.

Her name, linked to the Bridge Inn, crops up in the acknowledgements at the end of Adrian’s book, where she receives a very special thanks, from the author, and as I’ve noticed other, online references to this lady, I’m of the opinion that she’s a member of the family who own, and run the Bridge. That aside, I didn’t feel inclined to introduce myself, as I’m just another beer writer and pun enthusiast, and I’m sure that the pub receives plenty of visitors, throughout the year, drawn from various parts of the country, and all eager to experience the atmosphere and ambience of this classic, English pub. My pasty arrived, piping hot and served with a simple garnish of tomato and pickle onion, both of which were sliced. It was an excellent pub snack, but after watching other peoples’ lunch arrive, the bowl of warming, homemade vegetable soup, with crusty bread and butter, looked equally inviting. 

Perhaps I should have pushed the boat out, and gone for the soup as well? Another beer was called for, and this time I went for Darkness – The Prince of Ales from Exeter Brewery. This 5.1%, smooth chocolate stout, wasn’t as impressive as my first pint, but was still another beer for Untappd. It was time to make tracks back to Exeter, although I’m still kicking myself for not visiting the Passage House Inn, back in Topsham. The train journey to Exeter, is along the mainly single-track line, that runs up from the coast, at Exmouth. Its noisy, diesel-powered DMU’s, brought back memories of the Tonbridge-Redhill line, prior to electrification, as well as the lines out to Romiley from Manchester Piccadilly, back in my student days.

You will already be familiar with the ending of my day-out, in the welcoming warmth of the Imperial, close to Exeter St Davids, as well as the broken-down train on my journey back to London. Leaving that incident aside, it had been a most enjoyable day out, visiting a part of the country that I hadn’t been to before. One or two work colleagues questioned my sanity, as did Mrs PBT’s, but in the general scheme of things it wasn’t that lengthy a journey – I’ve done Tonbridge-Edinburgh in a day, and found time to visit a local brewery. The only question that needs answering, is where to next?

Topsham comes out tops

According to the details on my phone camera, I arrived at the small, estuary town of Topsham, shortly before 11:20am. This would have been around the time that this poster for 70’s prog-rockers Curved Air, came into view. It’s somewhat idealised picture of the lovely Sonja Kristina was sufficient to melt the heart of this septuagenarian and transport him back 53 years to a previous existence as a rather shy sixth former, at Ashford Boy’s Grammar School. Then the bubble burst, because despite watching many well-known groups play their stuff, primarily at Folkestone’s Lea’s Cliff Hall, Curved Air with their attractive, lead singer wasn’t one of them.

I suppose that had I spent a couple of additional days in the Exeter area, then my boyhood crush might have been fulfilled. But of course, it wouldn’t have been – moments in time and all that. Instead, here I was in this picturesque Devon about to fulfill another, and far more recent wish, namely that of visiting a pub that only entered my consciousness six months ago.

 I’m sure many of you will realise I’m talking about the Bridge Inn, a pub that I’d read about in Adrian Tierney-Jone’s excellent book, “A Pub for All Seasons.”  The Bridge is a little way out of town, back towards the station, and then some distance beyond that. It overlooks a river, but it’s a separate water course to the River Exe which separates Topsham from the countryside on the opposite bank. We are talking here about the River Clyst, which is much smaller than the Exe, into which it flows a few miles downstream.

With forty minutes left before the Bridge was set to open its doors, it seemed sensible to start by visiting some pubs in Topsham, holding off on the main event until later. So, decision made, I headed down to the waterfront and the Lighter, the first of the town’s pub on my list. Situated directly on the Quayside, my research showed this Hall & Woodhouse pub opened its doors at 11am. So far, so good, except that the Lighter was resolutely closed, its doors locked, and any welcoming internal lights well and truly dimmed. Not a good start for someone who’d been steadily nursing a thirst since reaching the West Country, two or three hours earlier.

Undeterred, I headed back along Topsham’s main street towards the imposing Globe Hotel, an establishment that I’d passed earlier, and one that I knew was already open. Its signage, displaying little doubt as to it ownership, by leading Cornish brewers, St Austell, who acquired the premises in 2011. 

The Globe is a former coaching inn, which dates from the 16^th century, and today still offers accommodation in a number of stylish rooms. The food offering looks good, although it comes at prices one might expect from a high-end establishment. I entered beneath an extensive porch at the front of the building, which opened up into the main bar area. A log fire, opposite the bar, provided some much needed and very welcome warmth, that was much needed after the bright, but cold conditions, outside.

Being a St Austell house, the cask beers were Proper Job, a seasonal beer containing maple syrup, and Gem Amber Ale, from Bath Ales – who are a subsidiary of St Austell. I gravitated towards the Proper Job, and a right decent job of a beer it was too. With its heavily beamed ceiling, wood-panelled bar, plus rooms leading off in several directions, the Globe was just the place to settle in for a slow, leisurely afternoon. I had other pubs to visit though, so I retraced my footsteps, back to the Lighter Inn which, by this time was now open.

Situated on the Quayside, in a prime spot on the water overlooking the River Exe estuary, the Lighter is similar, in many respects to the Globe.  Good-quality food is served all day, and it can get rather busy, especially in the holiday season. That wasn’t the case last Friday, although given the pub’s shoreline position, and it overall setting, it’s not difficult to understand the Lighter’s popularity.  Another attraction, of course, especially to beer lovers, is the range of Badger beers, because the Lighter is a tied house, belonging to Dorset brewers, Hall & Woodhouse.

Unlike the previous pub, I decided to be a bit more adventurous, this time around, and opted for a glass of Shadows Fall, H&W’s dark, seasonal offering.  It was quite pleasant, although on balance I would still prefer a pint of Tanglefoot.  Like its neighbouring pub, the Lighter is a dog-friendly establishment. In case you are wondering about the pub’s name, a Lighter is a large flat-bottomed barge used for transporting cargo, especially used to deliver or unload goods to or from a cargo ship or transport goods over short distances.

I didn’t dally too long at the Lighter, as I was keen to reach the third pub on my list, and the one that had been the prime reason for me journeying through four English counties in order to visit Topsham. That pub, of course, was the Bridge Inn, and whilst the first two pubs had been good, the Bridge was definitely the icing on the cake. More about that next time, but the only regret I have regarding that visit, was missing out on the chance to visit the Passage House Inn.

Breakfast catch-up, at the Chaser

After last Friday’s day out, and the drama of the journey home, here is a quick, stop-gap post before we return to the picturesque town of Topsham, and its legendary heritage pub, the Bridge Inn. The day before my trip, son Matthew and I enjoyed a bit of father-son bonding over a cooked, pub breakfast. 

With the not quite so recent now, arrival of a girlfriend in Matthew’s life, it’s been a long time since we spent some time together, and with Mrs PBT’s working, and the pair of us free that morning, what better way to spend it than in a local pub, enjoying a spot of breakfast. The first meal of the day seems to feature quite regularly amongst local pubs, and whilst this is largely confined to weekends, a small, but growing number of West Kent hostelries, are now offering a cooked breakfast on every day of the year.

One such establishment is the Chaser Inn, at Shipbourne, an attractive and well laid out village to the north of Tonbridge, situated at the base of the Greensand Ridge. The Chaser is owned by pub-group Whiting & Hammond, whose portfolio includes the Little Brown Jug in Chiddingstone Causeway, close to where I work. It is a large and impressive building with a tile hung exterior and a white veranda at the front. There is an attractive conservatory at the rear, plus a wood panelled and timber roofed dining area at the rear. If you haven’t twigged already, the Chaser is an unashamed, food-led pub with plenty of seating intermingled with unsegregated drinking areas and open fires.

Parking at the Chaser, has always been an issue, especially at weekends, and with the nearby common a popular spot for dog walkers, and people setting out on rambles, it can often be a case of no room at the inn. I knew the pub used to do breakfast on a Sunday morning, and a few years ago, before the advent of the pandemic, and Matthew and I had tried, and failed to get ourselves a breakfast there. We arrived rather too late that particular day, and whilst I wasn't expecting to be able to park at the pub itself, I thought there would be spaces on the large green opposite. Unfortunately, there was no such luck that day, as Shipbourne Common can be very popular.

Thursday was a bright, sunny and rather cold day, where the term “crisp” springs to mind, especially when there’s a frost on the ground, as there was that day. We were given a choice of several tables, but chose one which benefited from the fire, blazing away in the grate. I restricted myself to a couple of poached eggs on toast, but Matthew went steaming ahead, and ordered a full English. The bacon, sausage, tomato, and black pudding stacked up on his plate appeared to be cooked to perfection, and served on top of two slices of thick, nicely done toast, seemed the perfect combination.

My poached eggs were good as well, although I couldn’t help thinking that some nice crispy bacon would have gone down well with them too. As I’ve mentioned before, it is obvious from the taste of the bacon and the sausage that they were quality items. Locally sourced too, according to the menu, proof that it really does make a difference paying that little bit extra, and backing up what Mrs PBT's is always saying, about getting what you pay for!

We had a large pot of tea between us, which was sufficient to keep us going throughout breakfast, with several cups each. The pub dining area wasn’t packed, but then again, we’d arrived rather late, only narrowly beating the 11am cut-off time. 

With its bright and sunny outlook across the common, coupled with the chance to catch up on things, it was a good place to start the day. With a 6am start looming, for the following morning, this pleasant interlude acted as the perfect foil for what I knew would be a hectic end to the week.