A small dormitory town 10 miles east of Nottingham wouldn’t be enough to excite Mr or Mrs Average, so it’s a good job there’s people like Duncan and myself who regard Bingham as worthy of a visit.
With decent train services and Spoons opening hours, it lacks the challenge of The Well up the road to visit, but occasionally I enjoy a lack of challenge.
In a place like this I’m looking for exciting walks or weird architecture to entertain me pre-pub. Bingham is a bit flat (says the Fen Boy) and the town a bit modernised, but I enjoyed that modernity in the new Methodist Church.
Quite a contrast to the medieval Church of St Mary and All Saints, anyway.
Just the one authentic “attraction” in the market square. But more of the Wetherspoons in a moment.
From the Butter Cross you get the best view of the entrance to a surprisingly useful indoor shopping centre, which managed to make Bingham feel like a proper town rather than a dormitory.
On Friday lunchtime the shops were pleasingly busy, and not just with trade from Retired Gentlefolk. Plenty of mums out buying Halloween cards and shoe horns, or whatever folk do in shops these days.
Worryingly, it seems Bingham supports a thriving Home Brew (aka dishwater) trade.
My notes say “tidy and compact“, which doesn’t make great blog material but must help the town in it’s status as “Best place to raise a family“.
I found a great place to put a micro pub, hidden behind the Euronics store.
Expect to see homebrewed Four Finger Jack being served up there (Tue and Thr lunchtime only) in a Beer Guide entry soon.
For the moment the town has the long-standing Horse & Plough,
and the rather newer Spoons.
There was a shiny red mobility scooter outside (top) and a great mix of folk inside, from professional drinkers to shop workers to tradesmen. A melting pot.
There’s quite a lot of discourse on Discourse at the moment about Spoons in the Beer Guide, much of it depressingly missing the point that beer quality should dictate GBG entries, not the number of pumps, support for tin-pot microbreweries or beliefs of the owner.
The Dukeries beer here, from a tight range, was fine (NBSS 3). But no more.
I thought about eating, but was put off by a review by an eminent food critic from the Times “newspaper” who told me their food was inedible.
I’m joking, I just couldn’t use my Spoons vouchers with the meal deal that seem to be the only way to eat in Spoons these days, and not using your Spoons vouchers is a serious offence.
So I had lunch in Folk and Fables, whose largely vegan menu probably wouldn’t have met Mudgie’s approval.
A little slice of Chorlton in Rushcliffe, and possibly the most healthy lunch I will ever eat in my life. It took about 10 minutes for the ingredients in that Buddha bowl to be explained to me, and 9 minutes to scoff it.
retiredmartin 
Would someone please open a micro pub called the Overhanging Toilet selling out of date beers. It’d be a shoe in for the GBG.
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Don’t give middle-aged blokes in dumpy jobs in scummy parts of the country ideas now..
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Have you got a part-time job going round the country as a secret shopper for mobility scooter suppliers?
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I’ve seen that mobility scooter outside a ‘spoons before, in several places across UK. Apparently it’s some retired gadge that’s going around trying to do all the pubs in the good beer guide. I bet I see it in Leeds next week!
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You’ve found me out 😉
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I’ve suspected it for a long time. Shudder been a detective, me!
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Still time. Columbo was older than you.
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I’ve still got my DS’s overcoat! Full length black wool, went to a funeral in it last week and got told I looked like one of the G-men!
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What on earth is “folksmade” soup?
Anyway, good to see that the craft beer revolution has reached the homebrew sector 😉
Do you remember me using Bingham as an example to try to prove to “py” that his claims for an abundance of craft beer in and around Nottingham were nonsense?
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Made by folk. I spent that lunch wondering what you’d have made of it all. Actually very good, especially the coffee.
Craft has reached homebrew, but not pubs. I doubt beer range any wider in Bingham than it was 20 years ago, and Spoons seem to have called time on craft keg on general.
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That may be the funniest menu I have ever seen. What great names.
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I’m old. Please explain, does small batch eatery mean a greasy spoon without anything blokes like me would want to eat?
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Yes
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Folksmade = using only the ripest, freshest locally sourced folk as an ingredient. Soylent Green is on that menu, isn’t it?
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There is nothing wrong with Home brew,Martin,ive been drinking it since i was 14 and a lot better than that craft muck.
The Buttercross was a proper pub called The Crown,a keg Bass tied house that was the roughest pub in Bingham.
I got involved in a poll tax riot in Binghams court,a long story.
You can always tell when you are heading East from Nottingham,get past Radcliffe on Trent and it is a different world.
I did day two in Falmouth yesterday,but not much response.
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I put the link to your post on my Twitter account,.Alan. Will comment later.
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Thanks Martin,
A quick question,are those two long pink things on your dish,ETs fingers.
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Ha ! I see your point. Only if ET was vegan.
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I think Dr Spock was Vegan or something with a V in it,,but not sure about ET,i can not remember seeing him eat in the film,but he did go on a bike so probably half Vegan for helping the planet out.
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I was surprised that the Butter Cross was the Bingham gbg new entrant this year, rather than the Wheatsheaf. Expect a return in 12 months. That’s without considering the Yard of Ale micropub in nearby Radcliffe On Trent either.
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The Wheatsheaf looked the part, possibly revitalised too recently for consideration in January when pubs selected. I always welcome a revisit 😉
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Nice to see the Chesterfield pub is right across the street from Robert Miles Junior School. A mere hop over the school wall and you’re there! Reminds of the young wizards in Pratchett’s Discworld going over a part of the wall at Unseen University for a pint. 🙂
Cheers
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Schoolchildren in Canada must be different to schoolchildren in Bingham !
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It’s all that walking around with your red checkered flannel lumberjack shirt open when it’s 40 below. 😱😉
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