When it comes to beer appreciation, and beer hunting, it is
often all too easy to miss what it on one’s own door step. Last Thursday
evening my local
CAMRA branch held a mini-pub crawl which included two of the
pubs nearest to my house, so the lad and I decided to join them. We had a good turnout for a mid-week meeting, and
almost achieved double figures. This was pretty good for our branch, and for a
cold mid-March evening was better than expected.
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| Vauxhall Inn |
We started off at the
Vauxhall Inn, a large
Chef &
Brewer outlet which has seen mixed fortunes over the years but which, at the
present time, seems to be on the up. When I first move to Tonbridge, 30 years
ago, the Vauxhall was a small, but attractive old weather boarded pub owned, as
so many were locally at the time, by our old friends
Whitbread. Being situated
on the old London to Hastings
road it was formerly a coaching inn, and the old stable block, which was
originally a separate building, was incorporated into the main part of the pub
when it was massively expanded back in the early 1990’s. Today’s Vauxhall is
three times the size of the original, but it remains an atmospheric pub with
plenty of character, particularly in the original part of the building.
There was welcoming log fire burning when my son and I
arrived, but the rest of the group were sitting in a separate area the other
side of the main fireplace. Two cask ales were on sale; Harvey’s
Sussex Best and
Vaux, a “house beer” brewed by Tonbridge Brewery, our local success story. Now
I am not a huge fan of “house beers” as not only do they seem gimmicky to me,
but they also seem something of a vanity project on behalf of the pub. A couple
of my CAMRA colleagues agreed, and one remarked that you know full well that
the beer is just the brewery’s bog-standard bitter, re-badged.
I wasn’t that keen on the beer, although I am normally quite
a fan of Tonbridge Brewery products. Perhaps it was a dodgy cask, as it had a
slight woodiness to it; either that or it hadn’t been looked after properly. My
companions though confirmed that the Harvey’s
was drinking well, so I suspect the former. There were quite a few people in
the old part of the pub, but I couldn’t see how busy the dining area was, as it
is sited on a lower level, but a pub like the Vauxhall is always going to
appeal to the solidly middle-class inhabitants who live locally. An added bonus
for those visiting the area is the adjacent Premier Inn; a throw-back to the
pub’s days under Whitbread, but as both establishments are conveniently sited
just off the southern end of the A21, Tonbridge bypass it makes a good base for
exploring this attractive part of the Garden of England.
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| Primrose Inn |
We moved on, just after 9pm,
walking just a short distance down the road to another old weather boarded pub,
the Primrose Inn. The Primrose is another former Whitbread pub, but whilst it
has been knocked around considerably inside, it has not been extended
externally, unlike the neighbouring Vauxhall.
It was fairly quite when we walked in, with just a few people sitting at
the bar, although there was a darts match going on. Pub darts matches seem
quite a rarity these days, although I know they must still take place, because
a couple of my work colleagues are regular players for their local pub.
We found an alcove in the corner, adjacent to where the
darts was taking place, but far enough away from the game so as not to be
affected by it. Harvey’s
was the sole beer on, but it was in good condition. It was cosy and pleasant in
the pub, but today’s Primrose is totally different from the pub I remember from
when I first came to Tonbridge. This was back in the early 1980’s, when I was
working in the town but living in Maidstone. Back then
the Primrose was a traditional two-bar local, and myself plus a couple of
co-workers would visit once a week for a lunchtime drink. This was back in the
days when a “three-pint lunch" was both acceptable and quite normal. These days though, it would have me
falling asleep at my desk!
We just stayed for the one, but the landlord thanked us when
we left, no doubt glad of eight additional drinkers boosting his Thursday night
cask sales. We had toyed with the idea of heading next to another former haunt
of mine, but thought better of it, for reasons I will explain shortly.
Our next and final port of call was the
Punch & Judy;arguably Tonbridge’s best surviving traditional pub, but in order to reach it
we had to pass two other pubs. The first was the
New Drum, tucked away down a
side street called
Lavender Hill, and a pub which has seen various changes of
ownership as well as several different names over the years. Converted from two
adjacent 19
th Century cottages, the pub was originally known as the
Drum, but when I first came to Tonbridge it had been
“modernised” (gutted), and re-named
the
Victoria Tavern.
The new name didn’t last long, but it was a far better one than
what it was called next! Some time in the early 1980’s a couple called Tom and
Margaret bought the pub, and re-named it “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Fortunately this
rather silly name was soon shortened by the locals to either “The Cabin”, or
sometimes just “Tom’s”. The couple expanded the range of beers and the pub
became a very pleasant place to drink in; attracting a youngish and slightly
Bohemian crowd who I fitted in well with. By this time I had moved to Tonbridge
and had adopted the pub as my local. The Sunday lunchtime sessions were not to
be missed, with a meat raffle as an added attraction, but mainly it was the
company of like-minded people which attracted me to the place. Most Sundays it
was not unusual for me to stagger out of the pub at around 4pm, and whilst this
might not appear out of the ordinary, one has to remember this was before all
day opening came into force, and the Sunday lunchtime session was restricted by
law to just two hours from midday to 2pm.
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| New Drum |
As well as afternoon “lock-ins”, the Cabin was notorious for
staying open long after the normal evening closing of 11pm. Customers sitting in the window seats were asked to
draw the curtains, the house lights were dimmed and the door placed on the
latch. Customers departing after this time were told to shut the door quietly
and leave without disturbing the neighbours. I imagine the local constabulary
were in full knowledge of this but, as there was never any trouble or rowdy
behaviour, turned a blind eye.
Tom and Margaret sold the business, some time in the late
1980’s. Neither was getting any younger and Margaret was rumoured to be getting
a bit too fond of the bottle – an obvious occupational hazard for publicans.
Another elderly couple, Richard and Joan, bought the place and things
continued in much the same vein. I continued to drink there until late 1991,
when the birth of our son considerably curtailed my pub-going activities.
I’ve probably dwelled too long on this pub already, but
since the mid 90’s, the pub has had a succession of owners, along with a change
of name back to one which reflects its original one. Having been extended back
and almost doubled in size, the New Drum promotes itself as a “sports bar”. If
you like sport of every description, but especially football, shoved in your
face from large TV screens mounted in every corner, then this is the pub for
you. If you like a load of blokes in football shirts, ‘ffing and blinding then
this is also your sort of pub; but it is not mine, and neither is it the pub
most of my friends and colleagues enjoy either. Had it been a quiet night we
might have been tempted to call in and sample the solitary remaining cask beer
– Harvey’s. However, we knew from
the Primrose that a EUFA Championship match
was taking place so we thought the presence of eight strangers bursting in
whilst the game was in full play might not have gone down too well.
We therefore walked past the junction of Lavender Hill and
then past the next junction where the second of the two “pubs to avoid” is
situated. Like the Vauxhall, the Primrose and also the Punch, the Somerhill is
another former Whitbread pub, but today, unless you like karaoke, loud music or
again Sky Sports in you face it is somewhere best avoided. I won’t elaborate on
its past history as, unlike the New Drum, it’s a pub I have never frequented
all that much. It did go through a spell during the mid 90’s as a pub
specialising in cask ales, when it was known as the Hooden Horse, but a
succession of dodgy landlords, and equally dodgy owners inevitably led to it
attracting the wrong crowd, and whilst it is nowhere near as bad as it once
was, it is still not the type of pub I feel comfortable in.
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| Punch & Judy |
The same cannot be said of the last pub on our walkabout,
the
Punch & Judy. With four cask ales on tap, including local favourites
Harvey’s and
Tonbridge, a welcoming log-burner, and a choice of different
seating areas, the Punch ticked all the right boxes. We had another reason for
wanting to visit the pub, as the Punch is hosting a beer festival over the
Easter weekend, and we wanted to express our support.
The pub was quite quiet for a Thursday, which meant we were
spoilt for choice of somewhere to sit. We opted for the raised area at the rear
of the pub, but not before availing ourselves of some beer. I opted for the well-hopped
Black Sheep Best, whilst others, including our Scottish branch
chairman, went for the
Edinburgh Ale; a malt-driven beer from the Scottish
capital’s
Caledonian Brewery.
We stayed in the Punch until the landlord called “time”.
With no other customers in the pub, he was probably keen on an early night.
Before we left though, he gave us a copy of the beer list for the pub’s Easter
Beer Festival. There are some interesting beers on the list, including one of
my favourites; O’Hanlon’s Port Stout. I do feel though that the Punch will
struggle to sell Fraoch; the heather ale from William’s Bros., but we will see.
The night proved an opportunity to visit a handful of local
pubs which I normally wouldn’t bother with. What is interesting is they are all
former Whitbread pubs, which just shows the monopoly this former Big
Brewer had in the area. Of the three, the Vauxhall came
out best as a place for a quiet drink, but for a pub with something for
everyone, well that honour goes to the
Punch & Judy.
It was bargain-basement time this weekend at our local Marks
& Spencer, with a couple of slow-moving beer lines being sold off cheap. On
Saturday I picked up a few bottles of M&S Orange Barley Beer; a 5.5%
offering from Batemans of Wainfleet. Priced at just 90p per 330ml bottle this
beer was a bargain which was too good to miss. The company claim “The beer is infused with bitter Seville oranges to create a fantastically fragrant
and zesty full-bodied tipple that pairs beautifully with chocolate puddings.”
They will come into their own, come the autumn, although it’s
been so cold these past few days that I’m sorely tempted to crack open a bottle
later tonight!
