The Forest of Dean is the gift that keeps on giving. I recommend you cancel your fortnight in England’s most beautiful town, wherever that is*,
and spend a night in a £30 guest house in Coleford or Cinderford. Update your will first.
Two pubs for One today, starting with the Royal Spring.
I’m sure Russ will spot something to enjoy here, even if it’s just The Pludds.
A tremendous walk up the hill to the Spring, which is kind enough to open on Monday. Not that there’s anyone else to enjoy it; I guess these pubs are the wrong side of the Wye.
“I thought you a brewery rep” said the long-serving landlady (of 28 years) as I went round the bar to peruse the handpumps (Rev James obvs, NBSS 3). Makes a change from “Are you one of them Camera ?”.
It’s hard to ignore the licensee when you’re the only customer, so we had a good chat about Forest life and the inconsistencies of trade from walkers, particularly mid-week. She probably thought I was a brewery rep.
Some nice ’90s clips, and the sense of a pub run for all; I was particularly impressed by a giant stock of Haribo and Panda Pop bottles for children.
As I walked out, a group of lady gentlefolk rolled up. “Go in. She’s expecting you!” I said, a little too excitedly. Bet the food was good.
I had lunch in the Red Hart in Blaisdon, which was actually my closest unvisited GBG pub at the time. Closer to civilisation (well, Gloucester), it was clearly a bit more reliant on the food trade than the hands-on locals in the Forest proper.
But I walked in to a discussion between locals about the retirement of the village ratcatcher, which I sensed wasn’t the euphemism it might have been in Slough.
In dining pubs like this you’re supposed to dither, as the veggie fussers were doing to my left. So I just pointed at the sign on the bar saying “Lemon Chicken” and dispensed with the menu. The Otter also picks itself, doesn’t it.
I found the best seat anyway.
The best seat to observe children lying down on the floor at the bar, dogs lying down next to diners, and that sense of adults unable to control children and pets.
The Otter was a 2.5, the chicken was a 2.5, the service was a 4, the music a 3 (“Uptown Girl, of course). But the soft porn in the Gents?
You’ll have to score that yourselves.
*Clue – It starts with an “S”.
retiredmartin 
How many kegs of Punk did you manage to sell her?
Did you stop licking the dog?
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Friends of mine once had the Kerne Bridge Inn about a mile north-west of the Royal Spring Inn.
That would have been about thirty years ago and I think it’s now ‘The Inn On The Wye’ even though it’s actually beside it.
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Misleading advertising.
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I drove past there in May and wondered what had happened to the Kerne Bridge Inn.
When you turn the corner and head up through Lower Lydbrook you really do enter another world.
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Great setting. The Royal Spring was the pub she asked me what game I was going to and insisted I had been before. Who knows she might have been right. Forest of Dean is unlike any other part of the country and blog gold as you are skilfully illustrating.
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Oh yes, remember now. Will link to your post.
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I can imagine her saying that ! Not quite landladies in their 80s running parlour pubs, but quite a few like this if you include the ones just over Gwent border.
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Can’t believe Cinderford didn’t make the cut so looking forward to your post from there.
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By cut, I assume Mudgie’s most beautiful towns. He really is the self-appointed arbiter of beauty, isn’t he ? (😉)
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I have put £10 on Stamford at 5-1
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Stamford is currently being beaten by Southwold – better get voting!
Oddly, nobody suggested Cinderford or Coleford, and Monmouth is in Wales.
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I’ll be starting my own poll shortly – “Which Cinderford street is the most scary ?”.
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These quiet rural pubs should just start stocking decent keg beer, there’s obviously no call for decent cask ale as many of your posts evidence (that or they are utterly incompetent at keeping it). On a positive note the Forest Of Dean is a lovely, relatively unspoiled place, although we still have a village ratcatcher.
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In Leeds Village ?
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Is that somewhere down South? I know they’ve named a Carsell after Leeds (NB correct southern spelling of Castle).
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East of Maidstone ?
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There were quite a few customers on Monday evening in Wolverhampton’s Hogshead with its 17% Brewdog Brew G Stout and 8% Brewdog 8-Bit so you might be right there.
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They could start by just having the one cask beer. Otter would be good 😀
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Otter can be quite nice.
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Hypocrite ! Just cos it’s in trendy Devon.
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Re the OS map -the airstrip at English Bicknor interests me -love a good OS map -we have a large collection -happy memories of holidays in the early 80’s & family trips later on
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And Welsh Bicknor is in England.
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And I’m sure Martin will have spotted the red triangle on the OS map at Welsh Bicknor, not that he would get Draught Bass there.
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“the airstrip at English Bicknor interests me”
I think that’s for folks who are “one” with nature. Rather than use material things such as towels they prefer to stand outside in the altogether and let the air dry them. 🙂
Works a treat on hot days to cool off.
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“the airstrip at English Bicknor interests me” is one of the best things written on my blog.
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I remember Riding Bitter…
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Quite a distinctive flavour that one.
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Riding Bitter, yes, that was the first unfiltered beer from the Hull Brewery in about half a century, a couple of years after I worked there, and carried on after being taken over by the Mansfield Brewery whose first cask beer in yonks was XXXX soon to be renamed as Old Baily.
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I did not know it came fromHull (though I’m sure you’ve said before). I saw Mansfield Bitter on the bar (next to Pedigree) in the Wetherspoons in Coalville. What a time to be alive.
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Is the landlady hiding on the right or the left?
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“I’m sure Russ will spot something to enjoy here, even if it’s just The Pludds.”
The letters are too bloody tiny!
Oh wait; there’s a map just below. Hang on a tic…
(whoops, you meant that one it would appear)
Ok, Pludds is worth a giggle. But, I’m wondering why English Bicknor has a Motte and Bailey, which is named after a Bait and Switch? (coined by Professor Nicholas Shackel). 😉
“I guess these pubs are the wrong side of the Wye.”
I would ask why, but that might be stretching it. 🙂
“Lovely landlady hiding on the right”
You sure you got that ‘right’?
“They’ve even wrote the name of the beer you should order on the bar”
Subliminal advertising. 🙂
“But the soft porn in the Gents?”
I’ll admit they are pictures of naked ‘brids’, but it doesn’t do anything for me. 😉
Cheers
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“The letters are too tiny!” Then buy a retiredmartin magnifying glass, just $12.99 ($25.98 for 2) from my shop.
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Her right, not my right. Right ?
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Correct!
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I’m sure there’s no truth in the rumour that the village ratcatcher took early retirement because there’s only three of Tim’s venues within ten miles, one in Ross and two in Monmouth.
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Oh, well done Sir.
NB Think the two in Monmouth are just because the hotel is listed separately in the brochure, irritatingly.
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Sorry, yes, my mistake.
A venue that includes accommodation is listed as separate entities so that the total of 879 venues are shown as 937 “pubs” and 58 “hotels” in a bid not to reveal the extent of the closure lists.
I don’t know the reason for such a decline, maybe that staff from across the Channel aren’t so readily available now.
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It confused me too.
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