retiredmartin

June 2025. Great Warley. Essex.

A day down in Southborough attending to the father-in-law on his 87th birthday. When you get to 87, or 60 for that matter, all you want is a pint and a sumptuous Chinese Meal for Three from Meow’s.

His pint would have to wait. Our pint came on the way home, just past a busy Dartford tunnel, in the picturesque little village of Great Warley, near Brentwood.

A first new pub tick round here for nearly a decade, so rare that I didn’t even realise I had such an easy tick till I checked the GBG26 TO DO spreadsheet.

If there’s a “Essex Village Pub” kit, then the Thatcher’s Arms would be what you’d build.

We enter to the sound of Heart Radio (obvs) and the slight smell of wet dog (also obvs) and a chap trying to find out if any food short of a £19.95 Steak and Ale Pie might be available.

“Any snacks ?”. “No”.

“Pork pies or anything ?”. “No. crisps or nuts”. It’s not Brunning and Price, mate.

Nothing frilly on the bar (apart from that brass object) either, just two beers the locals have heard off and an exotic one from Masham.

Mrs RM takes the seat by the door, then immediately moves to the corner because “This one’s set for food”.

That’s a bit harsh; there’s no cutlery or wine glasses, just a one page laminated menu.

Note the main course prices. And this isn’t Jamie Oliver Essex; you’re between Barking and Basildon here.

The bar has a nice buzz of pre-dining banter. Two teachers on Guinness and Moretti, two business blokes on the Landlord, which makes an easy choice for me.

Not a Landlord for the sparkler fan, it’s curiously flat, in a good way (NBSS 3.5). When a pint in an Essex pub doesn’t score 3.5, that’s when we should worry.

There’s the odd nice photo of Old Brentwood,

that one predating the major development in Essex pubs in the last century,

the Squishy Dispenser.