November 2024. Great Cransley. Northamptonshire.
GBG25 has many themes, I may even blog about them if I stop going to pubs, but rewarding unsung towns is a key one.
The suburbs of Rotherham are flush with good newbies, and now we have a second debutant in the foothills (?) of Kettering.
In truth, I’d no idea where Great Cransley was, only 45 minutes walk from Kettering station and Wickstead Park,
a walk that rewards you with the golden stone of east Northants.
A smart looking village of 305 souls whose nearest What Pub entry while the Three Cranes was closed was the (keg) Broughton WMC.
I had time to admire the singularly unimpressive village sign,
and a stunningly autumnal dead end walk to the parish church.
The village has had its struggles with opening hours in the past,
and you get 4pm opening here, though as is always the way the door was actually open while I stood patiently waiting for the clock to tick.
“Come in !” urges the irrepressibly cheery landlady.
I compliment her on playing Chappell Roan rather than Eurythmics as in the rest of the east Midlands, and we agree that Chappell’s appeal lies in having “no filter”.
She gets to pick her own music while hubbie is off watching the rugger, and pours me a beautiful looking pint of Phipps.
The 3 ladies behind me in the queue for the bar (“Hello darlings !”) have the advantage of banning the sofas by the fire,
but I’m only staying to the end of “Red Wine Supernova” which is an apt description of the ladies by fire in an hour’s time, I suspect.
A genuinely upmarket wet led pub, in Kettering. Blimey.
retiredmartin 
The only Three Cranes I remember was a Paines pub in Turvey fifty years ago.
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Very smart dining pub now.
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Yes, much can go wrong over fifty years.
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It certainly did with some of us, yes, Paul.
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And too late to try putting it right now, Etu.
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Yes, that fact is a great comfort, Paul.
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