BRAPA .... WARMINGTON-NEVER-ON-SEA, AND RODDERS SPILLS THE OUNDLE TEA

Thursday 29th August 2024

I think it was Charli XCX who this week lamented the end of this BRAP Summer.

And now I've alienated my Journey and The Eagles loving audience, we'll continue.

It dawned on my that 'Oundle Mop Up Day' works very nicely as a #ThirstyThursday. You know why? All four pubs on my radar open at 12 noon.

That is right. Northamptonshire. Noon. Thursday. I was stunned too.

We start on a bus route near a Little Chef three quarters of the way from Peterborough to the big O. A pub so good, it DARES to open ten minutes early. Like they were waiting for me.

And what a classy pub the Red Lion, Warmington (2963 / 5123) is, and not a pub I've ever heard anyone wax lyrical about before which somehow makes it better. Food-led but the best of its kind as wet-led me is welcomed in with open arms, big smiles and had I been hugged I wouldn't have been surprised. Angelic staff. First Ms Lion, then the lad Monty whose sentences speed up when they get towards the end making it impossible to hear his punchlines, of which I'm sure there were many. A bloke with a bad shoulder gives me a beermat. "I feel naked without one HAHA" I tell him. He looks scared. Why do I insist on being weird? We get into a nice BRAP chat before his mate arrives to talk about a dead local. A bloke outside in sunglasses is drinking white wine on a mobility scooter in the the sun. Could it be him? Weekend at Bernie's? I ask about the angelic Ms Lion about the WiFi code. "For boring reasons like insurance and security which I won't go into, I'm afraid I can't give it out". The 4G was good enough. The pub has a grand fireplace and some chairs which look proper antique. Monty tells me he once had a 'Colin' + ALL family members and when I tell him I'm going to the Montagu Arms later, he replies "so good, they named it after me ..... hahaha, nt rlly". Another zinger. All this and the Timmy Taylor Landlord + bonus half Hophead were supreme quality. What a surprise gem!

A fifteen minute walk to the bus stop outside the village, and our bad shouldered friend says he might see me there. But he has half a pint to drink and a dead bloke to discuss so I have my doubts.

The bus arrives five minutes early, so I'm glad a twitchy headphones'd lad was concentrating cos I sure wasn't! And no sign of our bad shouldered friend either.

In fact, we are in Oundle only one minute after we were due to depart Warmington Little Chef. Buses eh? You cannae trust ' em. Pub two.

"Recent change of ownership and it just isn't gelling!" This was assessment of a local pub bloke I'd speak to later in the day of the Ship Inn, Oundle (2964 / 5124). It made a lot of sense looking back. 'Just like a library' you could say. Not unfriendly but could be mistaken for aloof. Staff may occasionally side-eye a colleague and make a pithy quip. That was the only way you could tell everyone wasn't thoroughly miserable. A world away from warm Warmington. A waste of a potentially excellent pub when you survey the scene - classic undulating carpet stretching to the bar with a happy yawn under a beamed ceiling in ancient market town thrummer. A posh elderly brussel sprout of a chap brings his American visitors in for lunch. Yankee #1 asks him "So how do we play this? Order drinks here, sit down and order food? Do it all at the bar? Or sit down now and do it all there?" The B.Sprout wilts under the questions, forgetting all he knows about British pub etiquette, and wanders into a dark side room shaking his head. And this was another problem with the 'pub', food was more prominent here than at the Red Lion. The Barnwell bitter drank averagely, and it was time for a long walk to a village of the same name.

One thing our bad shouldered friend from pub #1 had told me was that the walk from Oundle to Barnwell was 'something and nothing'. This gave me reassurance, considering he'd treated the 15 minute trek from the Red Lion to the bus stop as Edmund Hilary's final ascent of Everest.

Needless to say, he'd exaggerated Barnwell's ease. At one point, I climb into a field and after removing my woolly cardigan for fear of being accosted by the local sheep, a funny chap approaches me and says 'excuse me, I'm lost, I'm trying to get to Lilford Marina.' Despite looking it up on my phone, he refuses to accept he's come too far, and carries on towards Oundle. NO HELPING SOME FOLK!

I clamber a gate I shouldn't by the rowing club, reacquaint myself with the main road, and finally reach the tranquil village a sweaty mess, where I find the pub over a river where trouts are being tickled, crab apples are being raced down a stream by urchins, and a squirrel nervously watches an overhead kite from a hollowed out oak.

But wild horses wouldn't have prevented me from ticking off this GBG mainstay, and I can report favourably on the Montagu Arms, Barnwell (2965 / 5125). One of those centuries unspoilt sunken pubs from an age when folk where about 5 foot tall and had I been a pub ticker then, I'd have been widely known in Chaucer's Tales as BRAPA the Pub Ticking Giant. The beams are holding up the pub up by straining every sinew, and who needs a carpet when you've got tiled flooring like this? Mine host is a young chatty lad, possibly a friend of Monty from the Red Lion, perhaps a bit bored, though a bewildered cyclist pops in for a lemonade and a natter, closely followed by an old crone in need of gin. As I sit quietly supping my Fools Nook (a much fresher Digfield than the Barnwell Bitter in the Ship), resting my face against the cool limestone, admiring sash windows, glazing bars, wood lintels, gable ends, Lincolnshire dormers, ALL THAT GOOD STUFF, I reflect that if the pub were to collapse on me now, I'd be happy with a forced declaration of 66% GBG completion.

Col manifests pub collapse

I labour on my long walk back to the big O due to terribly timed buses back to Peterborough, still one tick here at the top end of town.

I wasn't expecting it to be other side of t'road, but the large Nene Valley brewery rears up and as I trot around the back, I find that it is quite the development, featuring a bakery, kitchen design and bike shop for gorillas.

Hmm, interesting frontage, very '21st century / have you had your tetanus booster jab?' as we enter Tap & Kitchen, Oundle (2966 / 5126). A pleasant bright and breezy brewery tap bar with fine beer, a good work ethic and the sort of awkward seating that goes right up ya. The only carpet in evidence is a solid 8, but is reserved for sloppy diners, which always seems rather back to front to me, but gives Dunfermline / Limekilns, and I'll let you decide if that is a positive or negative. I've just finished asking the kind barmaid if there is only one cask on, to which she confirms "four actually" which throws me into such a spin, I order the only one I could see in the first place, when I think I recognise the bloke just down the bar. Then, he tells the barmaid he has a bad shoulder. Of course, our bad shouldered friend from Warmington. Yes, he did try for that early bus and saw it departing just as he reached the roundabout so he trudged back to the pub, bumped into a friend who drove him here! I invite him to join me at my table, and I'm quite privileged cos he's one of those blokes like Quosh in Stalybridge who knows EVERYONE in town. Rodders is the name, and I love how he calls me "good boy!" at regular intervals as I explain BRAPA and my Barnwell pilgrimage. Lovely man. So I let him wield the Staedtler before I leave.

The bus is delayed by ten mins but my bladder copes manfully as we pull into Westgate bus station and I trot over the bridge to the station.

Because I've booked myself on a train after 8pm (back to front from last Saturday, where I stupidly did 6pm), I calculate that I can get to Spalding and back with about 35 mins for pub time.

Two to do here, only time for one, so I'm keen to pick the micro with the mean opening hours!

Hard to get a sense of Spalding on such a whistle stop tour but it appears to have a thrilling clientele comprising excitable Poles, ladies of the night, well meaning smackheads and upper middle class twerps convinced they live in Britain's most beautiful market town.

The selling point of the Prior's Oven, Spalding (2967 / 5127) is of course, the shape of the building which resembles a prior's oven, probably, not sure I've ever seen a PO in the wild. Has actually been a bakery, and a prison. 800 years old, more ancient micropubs which smell of Edward I's armpit please! Full and very much an echo chamber with only nine people inside, the loos are an inevitable 'central London-esque' vertical climb due to the lack of width. The locals are richly drawn characters. I'm convinced godfather of micros Mr Hillier pays them a living wage to inhabit such pubs and talk quirky bollocks at regular intervals, keep the dream alive. As I peer at the beers, a glassy eyed cove recommends me a local ale, I ask who brews it. "Charli(e)" he replies. Well, I meant brewery but never mind! And before I've said owt else, the barman is pulling me a pint of it! One man chats beekeeping, whilst a freckled ginger Irish lady disappoints all by confessing her recent weight loss is the result of injections, not hard graft. Henry Hoover winks at me from beneath a microwave. Colin gets no attention here, far too normal. Endearing little boozer.

Back in Peterborough in just enough time for a slightly speedy half of a very pingy Oakham guest in the Brewery Tap.

End of a great day which really shows what can be achieved on a Thursday if you book generously timed trains well in advance. More of that will be needed in the 2024/25 season I suspect.

Thanks for reading, I'll try and knock out Hampstead before the weekend as I'm not pubbing tomorrow (in fact, I'm having a crazy boring sober week in!) so see you soon.

Si