retiredmartin

December 2024. Icklesham. East Sussex.

I feel a little awkward adding so many pubs to the Top 100 recently, but then again the Queen’s Head is, in its way, as essential stop near Rye as the Ypres.

This is a GBG perennial I visited just before the blog started, and it’s inexplicable I hadn’t taken the 11 minutes trip past Spike Milligan’s grave at Winchelsea since getting a caravan at Rye Harbour. Always waiting for that perfect moment, I guess.

Never wait for that perfect moment; it may never come #PocketBookPhilosophy

I knew Mrs RM would love this Insta-friendly place, she loves tat in pubs.

It’s genuinely old, and Old Skool, and in contrast to all the pubs packed with youngsters this December was almost entirely full of gentlefolk on a Monday lunchtime.

As always I attempt to compare the Queen’s Head to a pub you’ll know; something akin to its namesake in Newton or Pauline’s favourite the Lord Raglan in Staplehurst.

Very much a pub, no uniformed staff here, and I remember sensational beer a decade ago.

Harvey’s Old and Abbot from round the back, and a table near the fire.

Old Mudgie will be delighted to hear they’re playing the Jethro Tull Christmas album,

but it’s the hum of gentlefolk laughter that makes this place what it is.

Oh, and proper lunches like cod mornay and steak and stilton pie.

Old a 4, Abbot a 4, pie a 4.5, bicycle dangling from the ceiling minus 0.5.

A wonderful place, and we barely scratched the surface of the rambling warren of raised rooms and secret corners

There was a minor mix up, the squid becoming haddock, which we only mentioned in case an octogenarian colonel was fuming about the presence of squid bits round the corner.

“Shall I ask someone to come over ?” asked a nervous young lady, expecting confrontation.

It nearly broke our hearts