retiredmartin

Only one GBG newbie in Rutland this year, and it doesn’t even look like it’s in Rutland.

Walkable (just) from Stamford station, the Crown in Great Casterton is virtually on the Rutland/Lincs border, with Peterborough postcode. For the usual prize, what actually forms that Rutland/Lincs border ?

I estimate conservatively that I’ve passed with a few yards of the bypassed Crown on 1,768 times over the year, never once thinking “I wonder….“.*

If I had stopped, the Church of St Peter & St Paul might not have detained me,

but surely that little lantern would have…

Unless they’ve put it up in the last year to ride the new Bass craze sweeping the country (well, Derby). Of course, a Bass lantern/sign/mirror is no more a guarantee of Bass than a pump clip advertising Green Devil in Spoons is a guarantee of a £1.49 pint of 6% heaven.

The car park serving the restaurant was full, I assumed with the range rovers of Rutland Rogers, but there was a bar marked “locals bar” so I entered to find those locals ignoring the rest and drinking the best (I could have been a beer slogan writer).

“I’d better have the Bass since you’ve gone to the trouble to get it !” I said, overexcitedly, as if they’d swam through Rutland Water with a barrel strapped to their back or something.

The locals eyed me suspiciously as I started to drink their Bass supply, so I cowered in the corner next to someone last seen gracing a BRAPA post in 2020.

Martin the Owl, if it was him, was impressed by a beautifully presented pint, only let down by a slightly odd flavour I can only describe as “Halls cough sweet“.

A dozen gentlefolk drinking beer (mainly Bass) on a Thursday lunchtime. There IS hope, though perhaps the Crown will lose out on the coveted Woke in Rutland award when the judges visit the Gents.

I’ve had to heavily redact this image to make it suitable for family viewing, so visit yourself.

*Now I come to think of it, I did walk with James to the hamlet of Tickencote (pop 2 cows) once.