4 minute read
Heritage
Star-studded pubs
CAMRA’s Pub Heritage Group has made changes to the way it classifies the UK’s most important historic pub interiors, resulting in hundreds more must-visit pubs being highlighted, as Paul Ainsworth reports
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PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL SLAUGHTER LRPS
Since 1992, the group has been
compiling listings of historic interiors. It first created a tier of pubs with ‘historic interiors of national importance’, then one of ‘historic interiors of regional importance’ and, lastly, ‘historic interiors of some regional importance’. The group has now decided to implement a simpler system – a single inventory of UK pubs with grades of three, two and one stars.
A CAMRA Three Star Real Heritage Pub is one that has stayed wholly or largely intact for the past 50 years, retains particular rooms or features that are truly rare or exceptional – or displays a combination of the two. A Two Star Real Heritage Pub has an interior where the intactness and quality levels will be somewhat lower than for a Three Star. One Star Real Heritage Pubs have either readily identifiable historic layouts or retain rooms or features of significant interest but more significant changes are allowable.
Aberdeen’s Blue Lamp was refitted in the 1960s with a Formica bar top
A particular change of note is the age criteria. Previously, pubs that had been altered since 1945 were not eligible for the top tier. Now, pubs can qualify for Three Star status if they are essentially unaltered for 50 years. Consequently, a number of great pubs have entered the higher echelons. Here, we highlight seven of the new must-visit pubs and more will feature in future articles.
We begin in Aberdeen, at the Blue Lamp, a famed music venue. The interior was refitted around 1960 and has hardly changed since. The main, U-shaped bar sports many features redolent of the age – a panelled counter with a black Formica top, a gantry with mirrored back and glass shelves, and leatherette fixed seating. The first-floor lounge has ply-panelled walls and a similar servery and seating. It’s a genuine time-warp bar.
Down the east coast we go, to Colpitts Hotel in Durham, built in 1836. The four-roomed interior has developed over the years, the late-Victorian servery in the main bar being especially fine. However, in around 1955, a new opening was made into the room in the apex and changes were made to the fixed seating, which debarred the pub from the top tier. Few would argue, though, that what you see now looks thoroughly traditional.
The Derbyshire Dales are our next stop, and the historic Barley Mow Inn in the charming village of Kirk Ireton. The pub has only had two owners in the past 100 years, which no doubt
Clockwise from top left: Good Beer Guide star Queen’s Head, Newton; hatch servery at Lewes Arms, Lewes; Half Moon, Cheriton Fitzpaine’s quirky part-glazed partition; quarter circle bar serves beer on stillage at the Hunters Lodge, Priddy
accounts for the undisturbed layout. The small, low-beamed public bar, with its enormous fireplace, is hugely atmospheric, heightened by service being via a tiny hatch-like counter. There were some minor changes in 1976 and one real ale is still served via a jug in the time-honoured way. Outbuildings house the village shop.
Heading south, we come to one of
my personal favourites, the Queen’s Head, Newton, near Cambridge. The star feature is the splendid old public bar with its stillage of casks and highbacked settle. In 1963, the small saloon on the left was extended backwards – the addition of a brick bar counter studded with wine bottles is a classic example of fitting out from the era. The games room to the side of the public bar also dates from this period. The end result is an atmospheric interior unchanged in nearly 60 years, deserving of national status. This is one of a handful of pubs to have appeared in every Good Beer Guide.
Lewes in East Sussex is next with the three-roomed Lewes Arms. Alterations in the 1950s had disqualified inclusion in the top tier. The layout comprises a delightful snug, a small rear bar served through a wide hatch in an old, glazed partition and a left-hand room that was enlarged in the 1950s and is served by a hatch to the passageway. The local pub game of Toad in the Hole is played here, as is occasionally the strange game of Dwyle Flunking.
Our last two pubs are out west. First up we have the Hunters Lodge in Priddy, Somerset, originally a farmhouse of around 1780 and owned by the same family for more than 100 years. Significant changes to the layout and fittings took place in 1964, though these have now developed their own period charm and patina of age. There is a stillage of casks plus three quarter-circle bar counters, which are very much of their time.
Finally, to Devon and the Half Moon Inn, Cheriton Fitzpaine. Again, this is an old building (a house of 1630), which has evolved over the years, most recently in the 1960s. That’s when two rooms front-left were combined and new barback shelving installed. A superb (and old) part-glazed partition separates this area from the small lounge where the stone fireplace is also from the 1960s. The large rear lounge with skittle alley is from 1986.
