retiredmartin

Interesting to look through the 4 odd years of the blog and see how the photography gets more, er, surreptitious. Clearly following BRAPA’s lead, I reckon.

Anyhow, 3 more Newports for you, incredibly.

Starting in rural Essex, scarily close to the town where BRAPA was born (presumably Audley End).

Very much JamieOliverLand, right on the Essex/Herts/Cmbs borders, pleasantly weatherborded, if not Weatherspooned (sic).

Residents were surviving with stocks from the last Pandemic (1918, not the arrival of BRAPA 70 years later).

I was impressed with the White Horse in 2017, which I guess is why it’s still in the Guide.

Early evening drinkers at the bar, pint and scratchings well under £4, and beer from my own village scoring NBSS 4.

Could have been in my Top 100 on another day, but Essex pubs are forever fated to occupy the positions between 127 and 388.

Three hours north-west, the Slopian Newport suffers from not being Market Drayton, a fate it never thought it would suffer.

And the New Inn is no Anchor at High Offley.

But the New Inn was buoyant on Sunday folk night, even if the Joules Pale was a pale shadow of its best (somewhere in Stoke, I think).

Our final Newport is another 3 hours slog, south-west this time. But here the scenery in Pembroke is magical, enhanced by Duncan’s singing Skids B-sides on a balmy June night.

Newport (Pembrokeshire) itself isn’t all that, but it’s rare to get real ale here and the Royal Oak delighted us with its craft offer of Abbot or nothing.

The Guest Ales, presumbly “Coming Soon” sounded intriguing.

From the hills above Newport we could see all five Dublin Wetherspoons, a becon for hope in a wicked world. Or something.

And in ten minutes time we’d arrive at another unworldly pub.

And if you don’t know that one, you really haven’t lived.