You’ll remember (even if I don’t) my failed attempt to tick the Duchess of Cornwall last week, when I made the silly mistake of thinking you could get a half pint of beer without a table reservation via one’s butler.
Well, I don’t give up, and my butler phoned on the Sunday to book a table for one at noon on the Monday.
Poundbury, the posh Dorchester (joke), looks best from the air, where the space for a travellers site and sewage works to the north can be seen.
NB That McDonalds is the one where Charles and Camilla stopped in 2007 for Chicken Selects made with gold leaf batter.
Baa Baa was non-committal on the merits of Poundbury,
but I thought it was gorgeous, a mix of a mid-range Bavarian town (think Memmingen), Knutsford and Portmeirion.
The local bank is a branch of Handelsbanken, for goodness sake.
No Superdrugs, Poundlands or Wetherspoons here to lower the tone.
It’s ILLEGAL to be seen in the Queen Mother Square without a pashmina or cravat, so I arrived at the Duchess at 11:53, causing panic as my table hadn’t been industrially cleaned.
I was then treated to a longer safety announcement than you get on the Ryanair flight to Glasgow, and told that Jemima would be looking after me today.
I perused the menus for the price of a half of Badger I could leave on the table and run, but beer doesn’t feature on the menu of a Hall & Woodhouse “pub”.
I gave up, and ordered a burger. Noticeably. the Duchess is one of the H & W pubs NOT continuing “Eat Out to Help Out” off their own backs in September, and was still doing good business.
Their Badger was a cool but oh-so-dull 2.5, the burger satisfying without being in anyway gourmet,
and the banter was pants.
Oh, but the staircase was magnificent, and as for the tiling !
Portmeirion meets Wimpey Homes. And yet there are magnificent cask pubs in Derbyshire that can’t get in the GBG. I’ll get back in my cave now.
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Thor’s?
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I’ve built my own. Good place for a micro.
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Colin does seem the more talkative and emotional mascot. When is LAF going to join the mascot parade?
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Negotiations continue.
Baa Baa is stoical, that’s all.
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My mascot is a large pint of Bass…only comes out on special occasions…my reserve mascot is a bag of pork scratchings 😉
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Good call.
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4 dancing penguins? So Simon has already visited then? Somebody needs to get an Opus mascot.
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Opus Dei ?
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This little fellow
https://www.berkeleybreathed.com/?fbclid=IwAR2MnScwyEL4t_v3Es504BQhm8ed3gh_IkFqm9Y_JM0t3e5lKqqvfb_0kV0
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Close enough – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_the_Penguin
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Thought the Berkeley branded underpants would be under ‘Accessories’ but sadly not… 😉
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I think Poundbury’s great, and I like the little touches of Central Europe.
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It’s very impressive. Rarely features on the tourist trail, does it ?
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“the little touches of Central Europe” – Tim’s barmaids ?
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Love it, Paul.
I’d note that the people who make such a fuss about wearing a bit of cloth on their faces for half-an-hour in a shop seem to be the very same ones, who claim that their lives have been ruined by hearing someone speak Polish on the bus 😆
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Perhaps your jottings will help place it on the tourist map.
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