August 2025. Thrapston. Northamptonshire.
Wednesday saw us down in Kent, whizzing father-in-law to Maidstone Hospital and back, via what I can only call a chaotic stop in Tonbridge Spoons, where Mrs RM managed 2 pints of £2 Jaipur in half an hour. At least someone is getting use of those CAMRA vouchers.
Thursday morning brought a more sedate trip east to Birmingham, and a rare stop in Thrapston.
It was so long since our last visit I’d actually forgot what the town at Junction 13 of the A14 was called, and had to attempt to help Mrs RM guess, which is a fun family driving games.
I’ve never visited a GBG pub in Thrapston (pop. 7,238), and judging by the lack of Pint Pots on CAMRA neither has anywhere else.
Even Corby can do better than that.
But there’s cask in all 4 pubs, and a brewery tap with a sister bar under the Bermondsey arches,
so perhaps there’s hope.
I should arrange a CAMRA “curated pub survey” and tell folk the brown stuff in bottles is a rare Northants beer style.
At 10am our stop was more sober,
artisanal sausage rolls and coffee in Bennetts, one of many, many cafés for gentlefolk.
It’s not quite as exciting a place as the artwork suggests,
but on a day like today I could show you the unsullied stonework and sell it as “edge of Cotswolds” to JD Vance.
The quintessential small Midlands market town,
and I bet the Conservative annual dance is still the pick of the social calendar.
We detoured to Lyveden’s enigmatic Elizabethan lodge for our 20 minute National Trust tick,
and then headed for Brum.
retiredmartin 
We’ve pretty much given up with the Tap, they seem to think everyone wants to drink beer with their head in a bass bin at a Jamaican sound-clash, even when we’re the only customers in there. Nice beer though.
I can only assume you two have gone Vegan, the Butchers in Thrapston is one of the very finest, only let down by the absence of Square Sausage.
(The Real) Mark
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If they wouldn’t serve him in the Cotswolds, they won’t serve him in the Midlands will they?
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Sadly, my only memory of Thrapston is an under age pint of Watney’s Red in the Masons Arms.
That was with my parents and brother.
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Someone should revive Watney’s. Thornbridge ?
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Actually, being with a meal it wasn’t “under age”.
And I think Sambrooks revived Watneys a few years ago – probably the resounding failure that could have been expected.
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I think you’re right about Watney and Sambrooks. Was it a green pump clip ?
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I’ve not seen the pumpclip.
It wasn’t going to draw me to London like Humphrey’s Yorkshire Stingo did.
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The Conservatives must have been made of stern stuff. The dance was on a Wednesday and went on until 1.30.
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Sounds like a Ken Dodd gig, Jon !
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