A TON OF FUN IN TIVERTON

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15th/16th January 2020

Day 1 of the Cornish Road Trip, and an overnight stop minutes off the M5 in Tiverton.

Tiverton

You could do Cambridge to Falmouth in a day, but then I’d not get to visit any Devon pubs, and mine and Simon’s attempt to get Devon taken out of the GBG is off to a patchy start.

A £27 room at Tiverton’s Bridge Guest House B&B also helped keep the average cost/night below £30. AND that included scrambled eggs and salmon for breakfast. Calm down, calm down.

This was the view from my bedroom.

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Note Spoons delivery van

Yes ! I’d got a B&B on the river, stumbling distance from the Spoons. #LifeWin

Free parking till 11am round the corner by the church, too.

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Rare non-pub in Tiverton

19,544 souls, none of them obvious as we hit the town, bar an old gent who shuffled to the other side of the street to avoid my parking.

Nice hilly bit from the river to the Town Hall.

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Hilly
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Spooky

Nice lamb.

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Wonder what the pub was called

But a sense of decay in the town itself.

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Art
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Nice clock

We loved it.

I didn’t love the 3 mile trip through tiny lanes in pitch darkness for a half of Cotleigh Tawny at the Butterleigh Inn, a long-time Devonian target due to historic interiors and outside loo. I couldn’t do it justice.

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Inviting though
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Cosy

Back in Tiverton at 6.50pm, my parking space reserved by Sis’s pashmina, we set about doing Tiverton.

Tiv2

Excitingly, ZERO Beer Guide entries.

I’m sure Courtenay’s has been in before Oh yes, there’s stickers.

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Sis struggled to walk past this the first time

An unpretentious micro, no less. Sis compared the feel to Cambridge’s St Radegund, and she’s right. It’ll be back in the GBG under the new owners if the Bays and Exmoor is this good.

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Crystal (not the dog) clear beer, crinkly crisp

Friendly advice on beers at the bar, where I was admonished for asking Sis if she wanted to try a half #EverydaySexism.

A shame there’s no Otter to go in the Otter glass.

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Love those glasses

“The locals have that “we know what we’re doing” look” said Sis, perceptively.

The debate about where to have tea took 0.37 seconds.

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View to a Spoons
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Local beers for local people

I’d been in the White Ball nearly 20 years ago during its spell in the GBG sun.

This post is being written from memory by looking at week old photos. The 5.8% Otter Head that came with the steak was a bad idea, a very good idea.

Time for tea and telly.

But no. Sis bullied me into an exploration of “proper” Tiverton, and we found ourselves in a tight terrace staring at the Racehorse with its promise of Otter Bitter and nowt else.

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A quiet pint

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We weren’t prepared for the tsunami of noise as we set foot in a packed pub with darts (top), cards and daftness. It reminded of a Bolton pub before the smoking ban. Without the smoke.

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Lads

“You’d never find a pub like this in Cambridge“. Not since 2007, anyway.

A decent half of Otter to end the night on a high, and prove that Dryanuary has been vanquished in this part of Devon.

All human life was here. Except the CAMRA tickers, of course.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

15 thoughts on “A TON OF FUN IN TIVERTON”

    1. Scott,
      Has it been replaced by womens’ football and womens’ cricket this century ?
      I never understood why they needed their own teams.

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      1. As far as I can figure, the bars which had darts teams are those which have disproportionately closed in the last couple of decades, possibly even more so those which had womens teams.
        I think there were womens teams because the guys were scared of most of them.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. Tiverton…might I remind you, that the Tivertsians, on the other hand, were an early eastern Slavonic people, who lived in the lands near the Dniester, and probably the lower Danube. That is, in modern-day western Ukraine and Moldova, and possibly in eastern Romania, and also in southern Odessa Oblast of Ukraine.

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    Reply

  5. “19,544 souls, none of them obvious as we hit the town” –This is a really great line, though I hesitate to say this as straightforward praise for the writing is discouraged in the comments section. 😉

    It must sadden you a bit that many pubs can only get a “spell in the GBG sun”, but I suppose that’s a part of the whole pub ticking game that you have long ago grown accustomed to!

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      2. Taunton is the home of cricket in the West country. Stadium is wonderful now and an international venue at last.
        Cracking little racecourse too. And of course the home of Thatchers

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