August 2024. Headcorn. Kent.
A Monday night in the Weald of Kent, then a slow slog home to Sheffield, via two (2) new GBG pubs. Riches indeed.
I’d never been to Headcorn, as the Charlene No.1 goes, perhaps one of vanishingly few sizeable villages to have evaded the Beer Guide in my ticking lifetime.
3,387 Kentish souls, a rail station on the London-Dover line that in 1865 saw the crash that diminished Dickens’s creativity,
and one of the most attractive stretches of medieval England I’d managed to miss in my 59 years.
The compact High Street is functional, the bakery and cafes so dull we bought meal deals from the little Saindbury’s,
but the run of buildings from the Post Office to St Peter and St Paul (NCSS 3.5) was something else.
Sometimes, words are unnecessary.
This stained glass gem commemorates “the pleading of St BRAPA for entry to the micropub“.
If Tap 17 does make the GBG I’ll be back. After Andrewsfield Airfield I guess that Wings Bar is a better bet.
It’s the buildings surrounding the parish church that make the American go “Ain’t that just lil’ ol’ England“.
Perhaps the chap who designed this wonky classic could be contracted for the reconstruction of Himley’s Crooked House.
retiredmartin 
“one of the most attractive stretches of medieval England I’d managed to miss in my 59 years” – but another seven years and a Bus Pass might have you getting about a bit more !!
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Here in Scotland you get your bus pass when you’re 60. Wouldn’t be without it. I love my bus pass.
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Bill,
Is that with life expectancy being six years lower in Scotland than in England ?
Or is that just Glasgow ?
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It’s only lower because they’re running across the road for pints of Tennents rather than cask, Paul.
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I’ve only lived in Scotland for 6 years so my exposure to deep fried Mars Bars has been minimal. Plus I’ve still never tried Buckfast.
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Tap 17, no cask, according to that symbol on What Pub, so highly unlikely to feature in the GBG. No cask either, two years ago, when I stopped off in Headcorn on my way back from visiting Hukins Hops.
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“Possibly key keg” will do for the GBG these days, Paul !
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An interesting prospect, Martin. What would CAMRA’s founding fathers have thought?
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I think some of the founding fathers would have embraced quality craft keg, Paul.
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Guinness was the “quality craft keg” of 1971 and it wasn’t “embraced” by “the founding fathers”.
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