On to Ecton. No, we’d never heard of it either.
Excitingly placed between Wellingborough and Northampton, it’s a tiny village somehow managing two pubs, one of them a “contemporary restaurant“. There’s villages three times the size locally that can’t manage one.
Ecton is very quiet on Sunday lunchtime, I presume everyone is at Billing Aquadrome, doing aqua things.
The village is a reminder of just how beautiful Northants stone is, even away from the honeypots closer to the M1.
All very well, but Mrs RM needed a drink in the Three Horseshoes.
The questions I always ask in places like this are “Why is it in the Beer Guide” and “How does it survive the slow death of the pub elsewhere“.
By having the entire population of blokes in this cheery one-roomer on Sunday lunchtime is the answer. And not contaminating the pub with cutlery.
No food except baps/rolls/cobs and crisps, and a beer range to cheer people who are bored with LocAle;
Mrs RM was doing the beer and crisp tasting, and judged both excellent (and cheap), with that Proper Job almost Oakham-like. I’ll say NBSS 3.5. The language would have made Mr H Smith blush, and I rated that even higher.
Not uniquely in Northants, an unimproved wet boozer. A wonderful photographic record of the village on the bookshelf suggests that not much has changed here in the last century.
A homely place, we were welcomed as guests, and left with “Nice to see you”.
A simple thing, courtesy. Why can’t all places be this good ?
retiredmartin 
The number of places the GBG takes you that I have never heard of is funny to me. I, and yes this may be weird, do sit around reading an English atlas. Yet you are constantly in places I have never heard of. Really a nice looking pub.
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I can picture you looking at the atlas. Northants is a bit of a mystery county, none of the towns are essential (perhaps Oundle) but few aren’t worth a visit.
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I thought Oundle extremely pretty. Pubs filled with teachers. We talked softy.
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You’re right ! Teachers pubs. Not many pupils 😉
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There’s an Ecton in Staffordshire in the Manifold Valley, and at first I thought it was going to be there. No, I’d never heard of this one either.
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I remember the Staffs one now. This Northants one has some history, it seems, and a Hall bigger than the village. Finding new places only an hour from home a rarity.
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Thanks. Now there are two i have never heard of. I know even less than i thought i did.
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But more than, say, 99% of the English. As I often write, folk in Cambridge (supposedly intelligent) couldn’t pinpoint Stafford on the map, let alone the Manifold Valley.
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Are you sure that picture isn’t to signify the pub hosting a Flanders and Swann apprecitation society meeting?
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Could be, ,Flanders & Swann’s beers still popular round here though now brewed by Marstons, of course.
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“I, and yes this may be weird, do sit around reading an English atlas.”
I use Google maps. 😎
Interesting post Martin. I just spent about 20 minutes poking around the internet, at first trying to figure out what animal is on the village coat of arms in one of your photos. Finally found the answer, but not before finding out the other pub in town is called The World’s End (located at the edge of town – hence the name? 😉 ) and that, according to village history,
“Benjamin Franklin’s Uncle Thomas was the last of the family to work the family forge, which was on this site and is commemorated in the pub’s name.”
Fascinating. 🙂
Cheers
PS – the animal on the coat of arms is a talbot; apparently now extinct but is credited with being an ancestor of the modern beagle and bloodhound. 🐕
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Not sure why but i like holding paper more than a PC😀
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Me too.
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I’m like that with books. 😉
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You know, I stood outside the church reading about Uncle Thomas and couldn’t be bothered to put all that dull history in the post. Should I have done ?
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You need to leave Russ, Dick and I something to do on the weekends.
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“Should I have done ?”
Nah. Leave something for us to look up. ☺️
And with that I shall acquiesce to Dave’s request. 😎
Cheers
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Apostrophe misunderstanding is great.
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Apologies Dave. I read your comment as asking me to leave (blush); rather than Martin leaving the three of us something to do on the weekends. LOL 🙂
Cheers
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No issue. Half of the comments and blogs are misinterpreted from what I can tell.
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53%.
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As in The Swan and Talbot in Wetherby, which features in Herr Protz’s book on Coaching Inns of the Great North Road.
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Looking at that map, I often go through Cogenhoe or Earls Barton on my frequent trips to Northampton (I have an aversion to highways), and I haven’t heard of Ecton either! I keep meaning to stop at the new (well, 1 year old) micro pub in Earls Barton – wonder if that might have been worth a pre-emptive strike? Seems like I should give the Three Horseshoes a go anyway.
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I thought Northamptonshire would be fertile ground for micros but they’ve been slow getting in the Beer Guide, anyway.
Tempting as it is, If I was to do every micropub as a pre-emptive I’d be dead.
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“All very well, but Mrs RM needed a drink in the Three Horseshoes”.
Presumably that’s Mrs RM in the photograph immediately below that quote, in the doorway and imploring you to get inside, produce your wallet and purchase the drink in question ?
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Mrs RM can buy her own drink, Fred 😉
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Pub sounds good, very disappointing beer selection, although Proper Job is okay when kept right, it’s Cornwall, Cornwall, Cornwall all the way, I’m surprised you didn’t bump into Rick Stein. I think you need a scoring system for these GBG places?
e.g. Micro = -1, Proper boozer = + 1, Locally sourced (not brewed by any company associated with mega brewer pubs like GK & Marston) beers + 1, GK or Marston’s beers -5, Nice toilets +1, unhygienic shitole – 1, etc. etc.
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Marston’s are great, don’t diss Marston’s. They brew Bass.
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Like I say Bass = -5 points, plus it’s a Marstons brand = -5, could, to my mind, with a dirty toilet and not in Yorkshire ( = -5) on top of that it could actually take a pub out of finite existence on my scoring system.
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I spy Michael Fitzhugh at the bar…
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It’s a great pub, been there many times, in fact pretty much every time I am in the area, last time I got talking to a bloke who collected Italian mopeds, nice guy with a nice wife, Deborah I think her name was
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A proper village pub, pleased to see it get recognition from the Good Beer Guide.
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