After a busy weekend there’s a lot more than usual to post
about, so let’s get straight on with a quick post about yet another local breakfast
venue, and a pub one at that.
The Robin Hood
is a large estate pub on the edge of Tunbridge Wells, close to the area known as High
Brooms. The pub was built at the end of the Edwardian era and
started life as a private residence. It became a public house in 1971,
primarily to cater for the residents of the adjacent Sherwood housing
estate, and was named the Robin Hood because of the Sherwood
Forest connection.
For much of its existence the pub belonged to Whitbread and,
despite me not being a fan of estate pubs, I became quite well acquainted with the Robin Hood during
the late 1980’s, when I worked on the nearby North Farm Industrial Estate.
After Whitbread ceased being a brewer, and started
running hotels and coffee shops instead, the Robin Hood passed into the
hands of Enterprise Inns, and in 2007 a major refurbishment was carried
out. It was somewhat surprising then when, just six years later, Enterprise
closed the pub and put it up for sale.
Fortunately, Greene King stepped in and rescued the
pub, converting it into a Hungry Horse in the process. The Suffolk
brewer seems to have made a good job of the conversion, as the Robin Hood
usually seems busy, attracting customers from both the local estate and
slightly further afield.
Son Matthew and I fitted into the latter category on Sunday,
when we called in after a visit to the nearby “waste transfer station”,
otherwise known as Tunbridge Wells tip.
We arrived a few minutes after the 11 o’clock opening, so were surprised to see a
few hardened drinkers already there, getting stuck into their pints. No beer for us though, but rather a mug of tea each to
accompany our £2.99 full English breakfast. Actually the bill came to slightly
more, as with the drink option, plus a round of toast each, breakfast worked out
at just over a fiver each.
It was freshly cooked and pretty decent, my only gripe being
the lack of hot plates. We could perhaps done
without having to listen to the chavvy
couple who came and sat just across from where we were sitting – is it some
kind of strange “herd instinct” which makes certain people gravitate to where
others are sitting, even when there’s acres of empty space elsewhere?
Such is life, but the bottom line is yet another place for a
decent start to the day, without breaking the bank; or indeed having to steal from the rich!
9 comments:
"Friar Tucked" - I love it.
That'll be rhyming slang for the state of politics in this fair land then.
I thought at first that you had been to Nottingham, but we stumble across such reminders all over the place - even in Yorkshire.
Your "herd instinct" note reminded me of when I parked in a near-deserted, huge car park, on a hot day, to break my journey with a nap, under the shade of a small tree. I was peacefully asleep, door open, when I was awoken by tooting. A guy wanted me to close my door so that he could park next to me. I won't darken your fine pages with what followed.
Politics is definitely "Friar Tucked" in our green and pleasant land and yet there are still retards supporting a single issue organisation, which isn't registered as a political party with no policies, and led by a former public schoolboy and multi-millionaire city trader, who claims to be a man of the people!
Your carpark experience reminds me of some of my own. I reckon I've enough material to write a blog post on the subject.
Greene King pubs do seem to do quite well, and the beer is usually reasonably well-kept. However, the choice is usually confined to GK IPA, GK Abbott and Old Speckled Hen, which shares only its name with the beer I used to like a long time ago.
Yes, RedNev, I used to like the taste of Old Speckled Hen very much too, but like Ind Coope Burton Bitter, it could give me a headache, within minutes of my first pint sometimes. I'd forgotten that there was another, until your mention.
I still haven't the courage to try a few these days whatever.
This is off-topic, but on a subject dear to your heart and mine Paul, and the fine Gina Miller writes an interesting article here.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/nigel-farage-european-elections-remain-vote-brexit-party-gina-miller
I am not yet sure as to its merits on balance, but it would apparently stop Farbage's phoney bunch of attention-seekers from possibly coming first.
If anyone deserves to be Friar Tucked, it's that shower of lying s*** IMO.
I do enjoy your posts about real life and real pubs, Paul.
Could do with a Spoons in the Southborough/High Brooms area so you can have their excellent Miner's Benedict for breakfast !
On Greene King, I do think the implied criticism that the beer range is only Greene King beers is odd. They're a Greene King pub; it's in their interest to sell their beers. We don't criticise McDonalds for not selling KFC chicken.
I see a lot of comments about lack of guest beers in GK pubs in CAMRA magazines around the country, but when GK do add loads of guest beers (see: their pubs in Sheffield) no-one buys them and the beer is dull. Brewery owned pub companies should stick to the knitting.
Martin, I seem to recall that we've been around the pubco warehouse - and what it sometimes means for ale quality in non-brewery owned chains - loop before.
As for those such as GK, they are in a position to save us from that, and jolly well should.
Seconded.
And as for Paul's style, yes, his sincere, balanced attention to detail is a very welcome change, from the Earnestness Of Being Important, that we sometimes find elsewhere!
Etu, thanks for the link to Gina Miller’s site on tactical voting. Sound advice for all those who want to stop the great Brexit con-man, Farage.
I will certainly be taking note, especially as this part of the country seems a fertile breeding ground for old frog-face and his followers.
Thanks for your kind comments, Martin and Etu. Glad you are both enjoying them.
Spoons are off my list at the moment. A hard no-deal Brexit, of the kind championed by Tim Martin, would kill my company’s business stone dead, so I will continue to vote with my feet (and my wallet), until the whole sorry Brexit fiasco is finished, one way or the other.
I don’t have a problem with the beer range at the Hungry Horse. Most of the punters seem to lager drinkers anyway, so there’s little point the chain stocking an unfamiliar range of cask beers from brewers, which most drinkers have never heard of.
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