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14-11-2018, 21:13
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/the-distant-gleam-of-a-backstreet-pub/)
There’s something Narnia-magical about looking along a silent terraced street at night and seeing a corner pub throwing its light out over wet asphalt.You know the feeling – walking up the centre of the road because there’s no traffic, TV light flickering behind curtains here and there, and the sound of your boots crunching and echoing in the quiet.
It’s special, too, because by our reckoning, after pubs on housing estates, this is the most endangered species (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/death-of-the-backstreet-boozer/).
Last Saturday we made a concerted effort to ‘tick’ a few pubs for our #EveryPubInBristol (https://twitter.com/hashtag/EveryPubInBristol?src=hash) mission and so ended up in Totterdown, across the river from Temple Meads, wandering among rows of humble Victorian houses.
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/shakespeare_1_sign_booze_food.jpg
Our first target was The Shakespeare, a pub we gathered from the 1975 guide (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/02/complete-guide-bristols-pubs-1976/) was once a bit naughty…
The pub that one of us came very close to being beaten up at… [but] pub guide writers can run faster than nice young men with Nazi badges!
It looked mysterious and inviting, like one of those West London mews pubs (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/11/classic-pubs-in-posh-london/), hidden from casual punters. To find it, you’ve got to live in the neighbourhood, or be hunting for it, or be a bit of an explorer.
Inside, it’s all scrubbed wood and mild gastro tendencies, but by no means pretentious: “Unfined? We don’t sell that hazy shit here.”
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/new_found_out_pub_exterior.jpghttps://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/new_found_out_pub_sign.jpg.png
Less than a minute’s walk away, deeper into the maze, there’s the curiously named New Found Out – another corner, another spill of yellow, but also an air of mischief.
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/new_found_out_pub_door.jpg
It was plain, bright, and lively in that way which makes it hard to quite relax.*But, still, there was a bloke reading Brian Aldiss between puffs on his asthma inhaler, and everyone seemed friendly enough, even if we did feel as if we were drawing a few stares.
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/oxford_pub_totterdown_exterior.jpg
Our final pub, The Oxford, wasn’t quite on a backstreet, but was hardly on the main road either. We felt like Goldilocks here: if the first pub was too posh, and the second too rough-and-ready, The Oxford was just right.
It sat in the sweet spot between scuzzy and characterful (https://boakandbailey.com/2010/02/the-alchemy-of-pub-atmosphere/), with a ska band, a lot of Spaniards, and a bloke in a pork pie hat who looked as though he’d been sat in the same seat since 1968.
The Distant Gleam of a Backstreet Pub (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/the-distant-gleam-of-a-backstreet-pub/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/the-distant-gleam-of-a-backstreet-pub/)
There’s something Narnia-magical about looking along a silent terraced street at night and seeing a corner pub throwing its light out over wet asphalt.You know the feeling – walking up the centre of the road because there’s no traffic, TV light flickering behind curtains here and there, and the sound of your boots crunching and echoing in the quiet.
It’s special, too, because by our reckoning, after pubs on housing estates, this is the most endangered species (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/death-of-the-backstreet-boozer/).
Last Saturday we made a concerted effort to ‘tick’ a few pubs for our #EveryPubInBristol (https://twitter.com/hashtag/EveryPubInBristol?src=hash) mission and so ended up in Totterdown, across the river from Temple Meads, wandering among rows of humble Victorian houses.
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/shakespeare_1_sign_booze_food.jpg
Our first target was The Shakespeare, a pub we gathered from the 1975 guide (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/02/complete-guide-bristols-pubs-1976/) was once a bit naughty…
The pub that one of us came very close to being beaten up at… [but] pub guide writers can run faster than nice young men with Nazi badges!
It looked mysterious and inviting, like one of those West London mews pubs (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/11/classic-pubs-in-posh-london/), hidden from casual punters. To find it, you’ve got to live in the neighbourhood, or be hunting for it, or be a bit of an explorer.
Inside, it’s all scrubbed wood and mild gastro tendencies, but by no means pretentious: “Unfined? We don’t sell that hazy shit here.”
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/new_found_out_pub_exterior.jpghttps://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/new_found_out_pub_sign.jpg.png
Less than a minute’s walk away, deeper into the maze, there’s the curiously named New Found Out – another corner, another spill of yellow, but also an air of mischief.
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/new_found_out_pub_door.jpg
It was plain, bright, and lively in that way which makes it hard to quite relax.*But, still, there was a bloke reading Brian Aldiss between puffs on his asthma inhaler, and everyone seemed friendly enough, even if we did feel as if we were drawing a few stares.
https://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/oxford_pub_totterdown_exterior.jpg
Our final pub, The Oxford, wasn’t quite on a backstreet, but was hardly on the main road either. We felt like Goldilocks here: if the first pub was too posh, and the second too rough-and-ready, The Oxford was just right.
It sat in the sweet spot between scuzzy and characterful (https://boakandbailey.com/2010/02/the-alchemy-of-pub-atmosphere/), with a ska band, a lot of Spaniards, and a bloke in a pork pie hat who looked as though he’d been sat in the same seat since 1968.
The Distant Gleam of a Backstreet Pub (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/the-distant-gleam-of-a-backstreet-pub/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/the-distant-gleam-of-a-backstreet-pub/)