retiredmartin

May 2024. Deddington. Banbury.

As so often these days, two days after a night out in Warwick and I’m back trudging down the M1 to Middle England, a stop-off on the way to entertain both sets of parents for a few days.

UK highways, improving for a few years, have hit a rough patch of almost continual upgrades to emergency areas and slip roads and the M1 through the East Midlands is particularly grim.

But it’s made bearable by the presence of Mrs RM, tapping away on her phone to my side, and a new GBG pub in Deddington, (pop. 2,146, average age 62),

which I could argue with its golden stone marks the spiritual start of the Cotswolds except that 6 years later someone would come in comments and declare war on me.

No-one is breaking a tour of “Little Ol’ England” to survey Deddington, not with Oxford and Stratford and Bicester Shopping Village close by, but the Church of Saints Peter and Paul is a gem,

towering magnificently above the market place,

and I’d have loved to have scored it for you (probs NCSS 4) but Mrs RM was more interested in the pub than the church. She’s like that.

We walked the bounds in 20 minutes, visiting the castle site with its honest “Is there a castle here ? No” sign, in fact little more than a mound of earth and football pitch.

“They only need one goal as other teams won’t play as there’s only one goal” I tell Mrs RM, who feigns disinterest. “It’s a real circle and egg situation”.

“You’re mixing your metaphors there”. Pedant.

I was pleased to see the quaint little art collective at Northcote I discovered last time is still there, albeit without the Chinese takeaway nailed, Luther style, to the door.

Deddington is ruined by parked cars, a blot on every photo of the picturesque market place, but there are still hidden joys like The Tchure, which is easy for you to say.

Wiki tells me;

“The parish’s topography is alluded to in a local rhyme:

Aynho on the Hill
Clifton in the Clay
Dirty, drunken Deddington
And Hempton high way“

Drunken Deddington ?

Well, five pubs for 2,146 souls tells a tale.

But that Unicorn I visited in 2017 is locked up,

Hook Norton’s Crown & Tuns, one of the Silver Selection (ever present in the first 25 Guides) is still for sale,

and even the GBG newbie Red Lion has that worrying To Let sign on display.

So my hopes aren’t high heading to the bar of a comfortable but plain village all-rounder at 4pm opening,

and see, rather than the micros that (allegedly) get you in the Guide, beers you’ve heard of.

And, perhaps helped by the permanent sunset on the big screen,

the Harvey’s and Proper Job were quite majestic. Cool, rich, chewy (NBSS 3.5/4). The retiring landlord and landlady are certainly going out with a bang.

I could have done without the faux Cornish accent of the local at the bar (“Propaar Job”) mind.