WHEN THE LAST BUS BACK FROM TUNBRIDGE WELLS HAS LEFT AT 5:28pm

September 2023. Royal Tunbridge Wells.

I was taking a break from in-law drama in the Pantiles,

and after a couple of pints of pre-emptive and post-emptive craft thought I’d better get back for 6.

Google maps tells you when and where to catch the bus from the station.

“You’ve just missed the last bus mate” it said.

No wonder it was so quiet in town, all the day-trippers from Tonbridge had scuttled back to avoid being stranded.

I contemplated my (limited) options. Taxi or walk. Always walk, except in Maidenhead.

Sadly I’d just missed the Lib Dems weekly surgery,

so a pub it was. A revisit to the Sussex Arms, the scruffy pub in the Pantiles (not their description).

In 2017 I noted the soundtrack, but I have no idea what they were playing at 5.28 (hey, perhaps I could have made that bus).

It’s just a very relaxed, unfussy pub, hard to write about* but a place you sense no-one could really dislike, though BRAPA scored a Spoons in Loughborough above it this year.

Too many beers, obviously.

But though the Long Man was definitively scored a 3+ it was somehow perfect, rich-bodied and tasting of beer,

rather than “Lost in Mosaic New World IPA”.

Why can’t ALL beers be called BEST ?

*especially when you forget to write any notes.

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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.

7 thoughts on “WHEN THE LAST BUS BACK FROM TUNBRIDGE WELLS HAS LEFT AT 5:28pm”

  1. Last bus back at 5.28pm ? You don’t know you’re born in the south-east !
    My last bus back from Brewood is 1.26pm, or 2.26pm changing at Penkridge, or 3.36pm going on to Wolverhampton and getting the train back from there.

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    1. Never mind the bus, I walked to Penkridge this morning which worked up a proper thirst for the Boat, Cross Keys and Star. Then the train back and a pint of Bass in the Railway and a large kebab walking home.

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      2. From our end of town and with walking back from Stafford station it totalled nearly eleven miles but I’m just so very thankful, and surprised, that my knees have recovered enough to be able to do a proper distance like that.

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      4. Thanks Martin.
        I can’t do it hot weather though. That’s why I got a taxi from Temple Meads to the Avon Packet, and why I never intend getting far during July and August.

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