retiredmartin

October 2026. Thaxted. Essex.

A Sunday night in a campervan in small-but-perfectly-formed Thaxted, staying yards from an actual GBG newbie in the Swan.

I’d have ticked John Webb’s Windmill (where the Giddy Up Bar is marked) as well, but the current restoration project rather scuppered my view.

Luckily, there’s a picture of what it did look like on the site.

CAMRA’s website shows me the pubs past and present from Thaxted down to Stansted Airport (RIP Wetherspoon Express),

with the red markers indicating a good GBG presence around this sparsely populated bit of Essex.

It’s a good 20 years since I last pubbed in Thaxted, so what brings this Greene King Old English Inn to the Beer Guide in 2026 ?

Well, high turnover helps the Swan. I could have stayed here for under £50, cheaper than in the modern hotel in Whittlesford, and a busy hotel means rare Sunday evening restaurant trade under the beams.

As I always note about Essex, more than any other county, folk demand a certain level of quality here, and while there’s fewer “Wow!” moments you’ll consistently get solid old beamed pubs like the Swan and decent cask.

And cheery staff, always cheery staff.

Cheery going on exuberant customers, too, including the “lads” meeting to discuss their conquests.

And by “conquests” I don’t mean bagging six GBG ticks in an evening or the highest point in Saffron Walden.

“She was in good nick for forty” and “shame about the Travelodge curtains” are the lines I can report back, though different sorts of lines were being described by our heroes.

The sort of bants Simon lives for, if not the beer. A solid Essex 3.5 for the much maligned IPA (or Ipper as I thought it was called 40 years ago). The Greene King glass does it no favour (see also : Adnams).

In a world of mid-80s pop, 2000s Emo and 2026 R & B, it’s oddly Essex to get early ’60s crooners as your pub soundtrack. I like that.

And I could have feasted here on “picky bits”, a phrase I suspect was invented in a Saffron Walden dining pub. But a man does not come to Essex for Serrano Ham and Sticky Pickle Sausage Roll.

Where’s my Chinese takeaway ?