A PEEP INTO NEEPSEND

“Banning Christmas would be inhuman” says the Prime Minister today, proving himself out of touch with a nation only bothered about how I’M getting a pint on my birthday (22 December).

If anyone wants to interview me in a pub for an imaginary job on the 22nd to exploit the “Business Usage” loophole I’m happy to offer my services as a Guide to the Rough Bits of Kelham Island.

The 20 minute walk into the Valley of Beer looks best on the OS extract.

In sharp contrast to Waterbeach, which can only boast my parents cottage and a Roman ditch among its attractions, Neepsend (hidden by blue dots on the map) bursts with delights old and new.

2 pints of Ward’s if you can identify the pub above.

More lovely dereliction for you in the shape of Cannon Brewery.

You can see inside it here. It’ll make a great Brunning & Price.

And 2 pints of Stones Bitter of you can get me inside to look at the graffiti.

My goal was next to the Cutlery Works, Sheffield’s answer to Mackie Mayor.

Yes, I’ve succumbed to the pub take-out again.

Yes, it’s the Gardeners Rest, unsung hero of the Valley, offering beer from the pump at £2.50 a pint.

Sadly I couldn’t go in while they filled my 4 pint milk bottle, but here’s a reminder for you fellow Tier 3 sufferers what pubs look like.

I’d like to tell you I’d only bought the wonderful Sleepy Badger Stout for Mrs RM, as home drinking is a mortal sin, but decanting into a Bass glass acts as a sort of indulgence for lapsed Catholics like her, and you can’t let cask go off which it does after 3 hours.

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.

40 thoughts on “A PEEP INTO NEEPSEND”

  3. I find myself dearly wishing I could win those 2 pints of Wards, though I can’t identify the pub, and I don’t even know what Wards tastes like. 😉

    I do hope the vaccine can get everything quickly back to something approaching normal– I know there are an awful lot of pubs that won’t be able to survive very much longer.

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      1. No, Wards was lovely beer.
        I first discovered it ( on metered electric pumps ) in the Devonshire Arms at Peak Forest on 2nd September 1972.

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      2. That’s as I remember it TSM.

        I’m trying to recall the character beyond its being good – maybe a little like the then Tetley’s but a touch maltier?

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      3. TET,
        I’m not one for giving detailed descriptions but I’d have my first gulp out of a pint of Wards and think “yes, proper beer that”.
        “Fine Malt Ales” summed it up admirably until “Fine ales” was appropriated for the signs outside those pubs that couldn’t boast “Real Ale”.

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      7. They used to do filled giant Yorkshire puds of a lunchtime, but stopped doing them, because they were “too popular”, according to the lady doing the food back then…

        I wonder if they ever started them up again after all these years?

        There’s a tide, in the affairs of mortals…

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  4. Martin, I hereby offer you the opportunity to apply for the job of notetaker The principle responsibility is that you hide round the corner and take notes whilst I mystery shop people and forget what actually happens. All applicants successful in gaining an interview will need to identify a licensed premises in which we can legally hold the interview as the first suitability assessment.

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  5. “proving himself out of touch with a nation only bothered about how I’M getting a pint on my birthday (22 December).”

    You do know it’s still legal to have one in your underpants at home. 🙂

    “I’m happy to offer my services as a Guide to the Rough Bits of Kelham Island.”

    I thought all of Kelham Island was the rough bits! 😉

    “The 20 minute walk into the Valley of Beer looks best on the OS extract.”

    (rubs hands)… (looks at map)… (sighs)

    Good lord but that’s a boring blancmange of names!

    “bursts with delights old and new”

    In the photo below, I’m not ‘quite’ sure what she has in her mouth.

    As for the photo right below that one, I’m assuming that the Kelham Flea when none pursue? 😉

    “More lovely dereliction for you in the shape of Cannon Brewery.”

    Look, if you’re going to bring Catholic orthodoxy into your name then you’re bound to fail. 😉

    “It’ll make a great Brunning & Price.”

    Or something in the next Walking Dead video game.

    “And 2 pints of Stones Bitter of you can get me inside to look at the graffiti.”

    Two pints here, two pints there… you’re trying to get me drunk aren’t you?

    “offering beer from the pump at £2.50 a pint.”

    Hang on; that’s the price the Fat Cat was offering (apart from the Anniversary Ale).

    “but here’s a reminder for you fellow Tier 3 sufferers what pubs look like.”

    Pretty much the same as Tier 3… since no one’s bloody inside!

    “as home drinking is a mortal sin, but decanting into a Bass glass acts as a sort of indulgence for lapsed Catholics like her”

    Aha! Just like how Cannon Brewery fell into disfavour. 😉

    Cheers

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      1. The Beer Orders, you say ? Isn’t that the move to break the link between brewer and pub that CAMRA championed so vigorously ? Don’t blame me, I wasn’t drinking then.

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      2. Yes, that’s it, the move that saw six national brewers replaced by fewer and worse multinationals and pubcos like Punch and Enterprise.

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      5. They’d already downsized the brewery, hadn’t they ? I loved their stock Bitter and Mild in the 90s when it sold hundreds of pints in the city centre pubs, but volumes plummeted after that. Their craft beers have been good to be fair but you rarely see them in the free trade. Same as Charles Wells I guess.

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      7. Wye Valley has kind of been adopted?

        After all, places like Llancloudy and Llangarron are in England, so fair’s fair, like.

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      8. Etu,
        And Samuel Arthur Brain, born in 1850, was brought up in Bristol before moving to Cardiff to train as a brewer and so Brains wasn’t properly welsh. .

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  6. As a fellow Catholic, I’m sure Mrs RM will agree with me that a better word would be dispensation (a temporary exemption from the normal rules) rather than indulgence (something that shortens your spell in purgatory).

    I’ve had a four pint plastic carryout of cask beer myself in Tier 3, but found it a bit flat (someone suggested doing this to recreate a pub-style head on your pint: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1547892072062934&id=467337980118354).

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    1. This is clearly the most educational pub-themed blog, Matthew. Thanks for that clarification. Tier 2 is more akin to purgatory I think.

      I know I’m a bit of a plastic Northerner, as I tend to prefer flat beer in pubs, particularly if it’s thick and rich rather than thin. Opinions on this may be divided.

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      3. I look forward to you bringing him along if we ever have any Proper Day Out again.
        ‘Slim’ and ‘Tim’ were the whippets I knew when I was working.

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  7. Of course! I’d forgotten the mandatory accoutrements of living ‘oop North’!

    Do you need to purchase extra-large trousers to keep the ferrets down, with really deep pockets for the pigeons?

    BTW, if, as Russ suggests, you spend your birthday drinking beer in your underpants, won’t it make them go soggy and the beer taste funny? I’d stick to a glass, if I were you.

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  8. The Farfield was a shockingly bad pub – it was put out of action by the bad floods a few years back and hasn’t opened since. Unsurprisingly, I also went there on one of my annual grot crawls with my mate Richard, They even managed to sell sub-standard Guinness and Stella.

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  9. Very best wishes to you and Mrs RM, in your new home! You’ve chosen the best county in the whole world – naturally…

    Don’t know about a Brunning & Price – the old cannon brewery has got ‘Weatherspoon’s Adventure Land’ written all over it 🙂

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    3. Slaters renamed the Wolverton Arms in Crewe the Monkey but it didn’t last long.
      Holts did better with their Old Monkey and Ape and Apple in Manchester.

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