retiredmartin

February 2026. Letchworth Garden City.

Not a great day to explore Letchworth on foot, and apart from pubs and “Marty Supreme” at the cinema there’s not a lot to do apart from loiter in pubs, but you can’t visit and not see the old underwear factory. It’s now offices where people sit at desks and encourage you to sue ill-fitting underwear suppliers, I guess.

Some attractive housing in our first Garden City; it was quite a draw for well-to-do worthies in the 1920s, the Hebden Bridge of its day.

Not much of a pub scene, mind, so the Broadway Hotel must have been a blessing when it opened in 1961, two years before the arrival of The Beatles and *e***l **t*******e.

It’s a beauty, from bay windows to font to sign,

but of course it’s that magical yellow light that draws me in, perhaps for the first time ever as I really can’t remember a drink here.

Perhaps I’d popped in to use the phone.

I enter to the sound of Heart, and the smell of boiled cabbage.

It’s a rambling hotel bar with a couple of beers from a Bury St Edmunds middle-class homebrewer,

and I neither expect, or get, a great half (NBSS 2.5). Mind you, I read somewhere that pints are better than halves, so there’s that.

BUT, and with pubs there’s always a big wobbly “but”, it’s worthwhile just to sit here for a quarter of an hour and watch an efficient gastropub operation on a busy Sunday afternoon.

The young staff seem genuinely happier than the customers; it’s a joy to watch their teamwork and their quiet efficiency in the face of fussy orders.

“The gentleman who wants a Heineken Zero wants it in a pint glass with the lemon in first“.

The chap opposite seems alarmed to be getting two (2) pizzas when he ordered one. I hope he’ll give me one of his, but he doesn’t, devouring the first in five minutes. It’s not Man v Food mate !

An unexpected joy, for all the wrong reasons.