retiredmartin

April 2023.

Sticking to the knitting now; trips to unsung English towns with some pics of old buildings and adverts for enticing events you’ve already missed.

Not sure why Colchester is unsung, but it surely is.

Rather like the whole of Essex (except Grays, obvs), Colchester is a real 3.5 of a town. Which means “very good”, if perhaps not quite good enough to make you change your plans, if you even have plans.

New GBG pub (first since 2019) the Magnet sits 5 minutes the railway station following a decision by North Essex CAMRA to make the Beer Guide easier for BRAPA to tick.

So let’s do that first before we see the historic town centre, just in case it closes early for an awards ceremony/private party.

Though to be honest, Essex pub opening times are as reliable as the beer quality and the welcome and Hear’say.

In the Magnet, though, we get what Americans will know as “New Wave”.

The Magnet calls itself a “micropub”, and in these genre fluid days we can call ourselves what we want, but the Greene King sign on the wall reveals a previous incarnation as a “Proper Pub”, and there’s not very much here in common with the Herne Rules, thank goodness.

It’s a very, very good little pub, smart and welcoming just as Essex folk like.

Three pumps seems about right. I choose the middle one cos it’s in the middle. Switch Back from Howling Hops.

Nice to get back to some proper British murk after a week of that Balkan pils. The Mauldons glass isn’t quite as bad as the Adnams one, either.

Musically, we move from 1978 to 1979 (“Making Plans For Nigel“) and a bloke whistles along to “Heart of Glass“, which you don’t get in Brunning & Price, I can tell you.

Mrs RM would love it.

The road into town takes you past more excellent free houses,

but it’s the pargetting and reflections on the River Colne I’ve come to see.

Colchester is ancient, of course, it’s been here 4.54 billion years, though creationists may have a lower figure in mind.

The Marquis of Granby was built in 1520 in anticipation of a pub ticking “craze” that took a further 453 years to arrive.

Conversely, I’m nine (9) days too late alerting you to Cushti.

And I’m 14 years too late for the Stockwell Arms, too,

the last pub in the lovely Dutch quarter.

Use ’em or lose ’em, folks.

Someone should suggest that as a slogan at next week’s Sheffield CAMRA AGM, rather than “let’s reorganise again”.