I was very excited to read on Wikipedia about the modern art installation in Didcot. If you look very closely below you’ll see it in the middle of the photo, between New Look and Store Twenty One.
Tim from Newbury tells me this was part of Berkshire ’till 1974, when the local CAMRA branch lost the Battle of Ardington Wick to an Oxon rival equipped with better cask breather detection weaponry. At least West Berks got to keep the Bell in perpetuity. Some you lose….
According to my records, only the Wheatsheaf has represented Didcot in the Guide in the last decade or so (though not this year). At the risk of sounding sarcastic, Didcot looks like Swindon without the Ember Inns.
As with Wiltshire’s finest, Didcot is surrounded by attractive industrial estates, supermarkets, and pretty villages. East Hagbourne is virtually contiguous with the south end of town, but I bet the resident below doesn’t own to being from Didcot when asked.
This really is a gem of a village, its Tudor buildings and topiary putting it on a par with Finchingfield. There were a number of visitors with socks over their boots and laminated OS Maps round their necks in the little alleys connecting up with the disused railway line.
The Fleur de Lys could have been a gastro nightmare, but wasn’t.
Yes, it had young children sitting at the bar, and the sound of barking dogs competing with their shrieking would have had Pub Curmudgeon in a frenzy. That’s my excuse for failing to bring you any conversational gems, and of course I don’t make those up.
But it was a comfortable, unpretentious pub for a smart village, and was good enough for Dr Who and Sarah Jane when they arrived here to solve the Shakespeare mystery in 1602. Their disappointment that the Speckled Hen was off isn’t evident in the top photo.
No signs of its Greene King ownership except the Morland, which is a real rarity these days. I followed the locals and went for the Tyneside Blonde, which was cooler than cellar cool and a very tasty NBSS 3.5. Boltmaker and Westerham Bulldog completed a particularly solid line-up, only let down by the inevitable jam jars.
And if you want Scouse hospitality and Draught Bass, head a few miles north to here.
retiredmartin 
And Piper’s crisps along with the Bass!
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Good spot Sir. All the best pub…
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Those crisps and that Bass are making me very thirsty.
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A back street pub in Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent, will be the last place on earth to sell Draught Bass. Possibly sooner than you’d hope. Pipers will survive The End of Time, the tomato ones anyway.
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From experience the Pipers tomato is the first flavour to go out of date.
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I will happily buy outdated bags cheap.
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Re-jamjars….A visiting friend of asked in our local – why have you got small jars of honey on the bar? Not quite as good as the moment she asked an Aussie barman in Devon for 5 pints of Blow Job. A proper mistake that one.
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I can understand the honey mistake; the other one, no. Presume the beer was Otter Head. Oh, come on.
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The Aussie’s classic response was, I’ll do my best love.
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Pipers crisps, Draught Bas and a Robert Dyas. What’s not to like?
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Nothing at all Tand. Fish and chips were good there too, if more Oxon than Mersey priced.
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Or even Draught Bass!
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Barking dogs are infinitely preferable to shrieking children. With a bit of luck the dogs might bite the children, if not eat them. There’s nothing wrong with dogs, except that they’re not cats.
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Just for once I must disagree. The sound of barking drives me mad. Why can’t all dogs be like Nick’s little Tabor ?
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Dogs are a complete pain, almost as bad as their fawning owners who think we should all be blessed because we’re being irritated by them…oh hang on, that’s other people’s children as well.
What’s the common factor here I wonder (said the “hospitality professional “)?
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The issue is that some dogs and some children, ie twilds, are a complete pain in the arse and should be removed. If they behave, which in the case of children means not being noticed by me, then I don’t have a problem. The trouble is, with both species, it is the bad ones we notice and remember in the main. Apart from that German Shepherd in West Bridgford, he was the model of pub pet behaviour.
Until Tandleman’s comment, I had never heard of Robert Dyas. Is he a tailor?
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