BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD IN LEAMINGTON

August 2023. Royal Leamington Spa.

Checking my photos now I see I’d left the Boiler Room before 4pm, so a whole night lay ahead to explore the many wonders of Leamington Spa.

Starting with the Busker of Jephson Gardens. Press PLAY and work out the tune.

Always give a busker your last quid. Unless you need it for your last pint.

The gardens are a polite highlight,

and though I’d missed the art gallery (why does art stop at 4 ?) the Angel’s Trumpet in the hothouse is definitely my Plant of the Month (if only because I don’t know what any others are).

Now I’ve completed the GBG I can take a leisurely approach to exploring the UK’s lesser-known gems, with their weird plants and brutalism.

The slight downside is that where in 2021 I’d have nipped in the Boiler Room for a half and then rushed back to Leamington station for a connection to Kenilworth, now I have time for pints and exploration.

What’s behind that scaffolding ? There is an 83% chance a pub behind scaffolding will be worth your time.

The Drawing Board is Leamington’s equivalent of a bar on Manchester’s Ducie Street,

with Manga on the walls,

1970s children’s annuals,

and garlic salt.

I’m not sure if the drawings would swing it Mark Crilley’s way, but Blackpool Jane would absolutely love it.

Ignore the Purity on cask, look at the keg.

More specifically, look at the keg fonts.

The lovely young man gave me the dregs of the Walton Turner (on the left, below) that had just gone,

and a week later I still can’t tell you if it was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. Or the best. The Jam Roly Poly from Middlesbrough tasted exactly as you expect.

Perhaps I’d peaked too soon, but I reckoned the Drawing Board was a classic; how can you not like a place which tells you its food comes from Iceland.

I almost stayed for Spam fritters, but at that precise moment, as I found myself nodding my head along to this;

Honestly, I never knew it was Kings of Leon. I am so, so, sorry.

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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.

12 thoughts on “BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD IN LEAMINGTON”

  1. Nostalgia these days comes in the form remembering how my jaw bounced off the lovely wooden floor in there at the keg beer prices. That was 5 years ago, everywhere else has boringly caught up…

    (Ye Real) Mark

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  2. 14 years ago, I attended a GMP course (don’t ask), that was held at (Royal) Leamington Spa. It involved an overnight stay, so us delegates, plus the course tutor, went out for a curry in the evening.

    I didn’t manage to sample any of the town’s pubs, but I got the impression of a nice, friendly place that seemed popular with students. Nearby Warwick Uni, was one of my original choices, back when those things mattered, but poor “A” level grades meant I ended up at Salford Uni, instead.

    No regrets, though!

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    1. Salford did you no permanent damage, Paul ! And as Stafford Paul will tell you, Warwick Uni (home to a CAMRA Members Weekend recently) is a LONG way from civilisation.

      I was just reflecting that Leamington had a good student crowd, and is certainly friendly and youthful. Not many places aren’t friendly these days, though many will tell you otherwise.

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      1. “And as Stafford Paul will tell you, Warwick Uni (home to a CAMRA Members Weekend recently) is a LONG way from civilisation” and yet in my ignorance fifty years ago that was where I would have been going from 1973 to 1976 had I not also achieved “poor A level grades”.

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  3. Hi Martin – I’m sure I have a picture of that very same shelf of annuals somewhere in my archives, although I definitely steered clear of the garlic salt. The Drawing Board impressed me a lot when i first went there, and the Jephson Gardens are always worth a mooch around – it helps that Nick is a fan of carved hedgehogs. Cheers, Paul

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  4. After Iceland and Hungary I was expecting dishes from Armenia and Monrovia too. Pretty adventurous stuff from the town that claims to be at the centre of England.

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  5. You might still have secured a place at Salford, Paul. Two D’s plus an E at “A” level, secured me a place on a joint honours course in Biology with Chemistry, although I dropped the latter subject after the first year, because I couldn’t get to grips with Organic Chemistry.

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    1. Paul,
      Yes, but then I didn’t know what Salford / Manchester had to offer in terms of beer and pubs and opted to live several miles from where I had grown up. I don’t think I really wanted to study Geography and Politics and should have just tried to think what sort of job might have suited me. Only this month I have found and recycled the prospectuses for several universities I was originally considering.

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      1. Neither did I, Paul, but I soon found out when I arrived in the Salford/Manchester area. Lees, Holt’s, Hyde’s, Robinson’s, Oldham – never heard of them, although a school friend did tell me to look out for Boddingtons. (I’d discovered Greenalls, a year previously, on a school geology field trip, to North Wales.</Paul
        In my ignorance, I had to look up Salford on a map, as all I knew was it was “some place, up north!”

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