UK2013: Back to London

And so it was on the final Monday of my UK trip, I went to the train station with my Dad, where we both boarded a train bound for London. He had a meeting to attend near Gloucester Road, which was close to the Museum area. My flight was not until early Tuesday morning. It would normally be my plan to stay at a hotel in Heathrow the night before, but friend Andrew had invited me to stay with him instead. So I had a few hours to spend in London before meeting him. I chose to spend those hours in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I bade farewell to my Dad a couple of streets away from the museum; he went to his meeting and I went to meet some culture. The big London museums are awesome and the V&A is a wonderful place. It's filled with all kinds of art and architecture from all around the world. Let's have a look at some.

Here's the entrance to the V&A.

One of the main galleries with various stoneworks inside.

I'm standing on an upstairs walkway which opens out in four directions. Here you can see a clock in one of the archways. To the right is part of a fabulous glass sculpture, about ten feet tall, which hangs over the reception desk on the ground floor, below. It's a bit dusty... I suppose nobody dares clean that amount of fragile glass!

Another view looks towards this ironwork screen which used to be part of a church. It is all hand made and painted and is thoroughly beautiful.

Here's a close up of the two centre panels. I love the lightness of design in this.

The screen leads into an entire gallery of wrought iron fences, screens and panels.

Further down the gallery, at a meeting of ways, which open into this rotunda. An artist has placed flattened brass instruments at ceiling/floor height as a sculpture.

Downstairs, there are many galleries of historic artifacts. I love the intricate work of this door.

And the solidity of this one.

No museum of historical artifacts would be complete without a suit of armour.

I'm not sure of this was a screen or furniture, but the woodwork was magnificent.

There were two enormous halls, filled with major statuary and works. Some are replicas, others are not, but even the replicas are old. Take a look at the bottom left of this image; you can see some sarcophagus-type coffins there. The figures laid on top are life-size, to give you an idea of scale. The column on the right is huge.

At the end of the gallery, up a flight of stairs, there's a small window through which you can peer out. I was not expecting to see more above me, but the ceilings of these huge galleries are suspended below the original glass ceilings which are under restoration.

Even the ironwork of the building is beautiful.

I reluctantly left the V&A after four or five hours slowly digesting its delights (including a very nice sandwich in their extensive restaurant area). I indulged in a ride on the Heathrow Express again back to the airport, and found my way to Terminal 5. Here I met up with Andrew, who took me back to his place where I spent a very pleasant evening with his family, before he took me back to Heathrow in the morning, and I got my flight home.

That flight was entertaining; I'd managed to book the same flight as friend Tamzin, who had also been in the UK. So we depleted the aeroplane's wine fridge and kept the stewards entertained ;-) Thus ends the Tour of the UK 2013. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.

UK2013: Nympsfield

Nympsfield is to the south of Nailsworth, on a hill that overlooks Stroud from the south side. There is a gliding airfield on top, whose inhabitants I used to regularly watch flying around in the distance, from my school. There's also a fabulous view of the Severn estuary, but we would not see any of that today, as it was grey and cold.

However, the other thing Nympsfield boasts is a very good pub! We made the trip over there for a Proper British Sunday Lunch.

Here it is, the Rose and Crown.

As you can see, it's a big building. It gets very busy with walkers, pilots and anyone that likes good food. We enjoyed a lovely meal in there.

A few other views of the village.. Here's a nice place.

Every village needs its phone box and post box.

Finally, here's a good honest solid Cotswold stone bus shelter. They don't make them like this any more...

UK2013: Stroud and Bisley

On my penultimate day in Gloucestershire, our gang all met in Stroud, in order to get a coffee and visit the market. Stroud is the focal point of the local area, and the point at which all of the Five Valleys meet. The hills peter out into lowlands; west of Stroud lies the floodplain of the River Severn.

On the way to Stroud, it was a cold morning and there was snow on the hills. The roads were clear, at least.

We arrived, parked, and got that coffee, before wandering around a little. There's a few nice buildings in town, and (being honest) a lot of very ordinary ones. This first nice one is the Subscription Rooms, which is basically the Town Hall. Known locally as the 'Sub rooms', it was built in 1833 by public subscription and is used for theatre, art exhibitions and dances in the ballroom upstairs.

This is the side of what is now the TSB Bank. It has the same Regency architecture as the Sub rooms.

Facing the TSB is the Nat West Bank. Stroud is a town of banks and shoe shops, for some reason.

This clock tower stands almost opposite the Sub rooms and splits the road into a one-way system around the core of the town. Just beyond it you can see some rare beasties - red phone boxes!

We took a wander around Stroud market. My visit was during the height of the horse meat scandal; it was found that certain processed meat products such as burgers had high percentages of horse meat in them. Here's the sign by the troutmonger's stall.

We repaired for lunch in a pub on the edge of town, before heading into the Stroud Museum. Somehow I have managed to grow up in this town without having once ever visited the place, so it was time to rectify the situation. It's located next to the leisure centre in some nice parkland, and houses a collection that showcases the history of the local area, with a large emphasis on how local people used to live.

Here's a cooking range with various pots and pans.

There was a large section about brewing. These are some of the tools and vessels used by the breweries to make and distribute their wares.

Stroud itself was founded on the woollen industry in older times. The town's coat of arms features red squares on a green background, with a white wavy line running diagonally through the middle. The squares represent the red cloth laid onto the green hillsides to dry, while the wavy line represents the rivers. The red cloth was used to make soldiers' uniforms and later on was used on pool tables. The Museum has some examples of the uniforms and various clothworking tools.

Here is a lawnmower of the design created by Edwin Budding, a Stroud engineer. Next to it is a cloth mill. Budding saw the blade on the cloth mill that sheared off the fuzzy bits, making the cloth smooth, and realised it could be used on grass. He also invented the adjustable spanner.

After our visit to Stroud, we went back via the village of Bisley. It lies on the hilltops, about five miles from Brownshill, and was a frequent haunt for me on my bicycle as a child. One of my favourite places in the area is the Bisley Wells. They are situated on a side street in the middle of the village. At the top of the street, there is this monument to the local blacksmith.

Walking past this, we find the wells. Water springs from the hillside into these troughs, at first.

The troughs channel the water further down the hill.

These are the wells proper. Aren't they beautiful? They have been here since forever. They get decorated with flowers on Ascension Day in a Well Dressing ceremony. If you climb the hill behind the wells here, you'll find there is a church on top.

Another view, showing the permanently-wet ground. That iron grate has been there since I was a kid; I wonder how many things have been lost down it...

A close up of one of the well heads. The ancient Cotswold stone shows plenty of moss and lichen growth.

UK2013: The Beer Diaries

During my travels around the UK, it was of course my pleasure and delight to sample various Ales according to which region I was in at the time. The UK appears to be enjoying a resurgence of breweries, both micro and otherwise, and there are plenty of tasty beverages to be had.

I'm going to backtrack a bit and take you on a whistle-top tour of the UK and its beers; stay with me for tours of a couple of Gloucestershire breweries. However since I'm writing this so long after drinking them, my mental tasting notes are faded with time; I'm not a beer writer - don't be expecting detailed descriptions of hops or aroma but I'll do the best I can. So let's return briefly to Bury St Edmunds, where I encountered my first British brews after a trip to Waitrose with Sarah.

Oakham Ales' Citra. This comes from Peterborough, so not very local but it was tasty and refreshing. I do love the Green Man Hop on their label.

Sharps' Doom Bar. Even less local - from Cornwall - but a well known beer in the UK these days.

We decamped into town to check out the new Wetherspoons pub, in which I couldn't ignore Bury St Edmunds's most famous local beer, Greene King IPA. They appear to have changed the logo, it used to feature a stern-looking king, not a landscape.

During my time in Sudbury, I made it a point to meet all my friends in the town's Brewery Tap. This is the Blackadder Tap just on the edge of the town center, and serves primarily beers from Mauldon's Brewery which is on an industrial estate up the road a mile or so. They also serve a good selection of other local beers, and they don't have TVs or serve food, it's a Proper Decent Pub. Definitely the place to enjoy a pint in Sudbury.

I think this was a pint of Mild. I tried a few Mauldon's beers and they are always pretty good.

At the end of the week, I found myself back in Bury St Edmunds, in the Old Cannon Brewery with friend Rob. They do flights of beer in 1/3 pint glasses. Since I was about to get on a train, I figured I'd try three beers this way.

I believe we have here some Old Cannon Best Bitter, Old Cannon Gunner's Daughter and some Adnams' Broadside.

Three train rides later, I was in West Yorkshire. This next pair were actually in Bradford, in another Wetherspoons pub there.

This one was OK

This was very ordinary. And with a name like that... aimed at the Stereotypical Yorkshireman, methinks.

These next two were in the Stubbing Wharf pub in Hebden Bridge. This place was really nice and very busy, with good reason. They did fabulous Sunday lunches and are located right by the canal. Nice place to be.

I had some Longdendale Lights, which I recall as being very drinkable, a nice light summer ale.

I had some Golden Pippin which was pleasant, but I preferred the first one. And then I had some Landlord because it would have been churlish not to.

Now we're in Gloucestershire, and in the Whole Foods supermarket I found This, next to a bottle of That. Teme Valley Brewery have a sense of humour, it appears. (When I was a kid, my mother said she wanted to get three cats and name them 'This One', 'That One' and 'The Other One'. I'm sure the vet would have loved us).

I am sure it was nice. It doesn't appear to have lodged any particular impression in my mind.

Moving up the hill to the Carpenter's Arms in Miserden, we find this nice handpump from Wye Valley Brewery, whose product we became quite familiar with.

Nice quaffable Pale Ale. Not as hoppy as an American one but pleasant.

This was in the Weighbridge Inn on the road out of Nailsworth, just before we went into Nailsworth for a very nice dinner.

My first exposure to Stroud Brewery's products. Teasel was very refreshing. We had some more from a bottle, back at my Dad's house later on. And for our American readers wondering what a teasel is? Here you go.

Off to lunch with friend Cherry the next day, and she had very kindly bought me a couple of beers. These are from Wickwar Brewing in South Gloucestershire.

I drank this at Cherry's. It was a nice, honest, English ale.

I took this one back to Dad's and drank it later. I don't usually drink Porter but this had a good flavour and wasn't heavy at all.

Now we're off to Gloucester for the first part of Dad's and my brewery tour. Yay! We went to Gloucester Docks after visiting the Cathedral and found the relatively new Gloucester Brewery.

They have these unusual wooden-clad brewing vessels which look great in the red brick brewery.

Why hello there, bags of Cara Pils and Crystal Malt. You look familiar, from Alan's brewing here at home.

This is the tasting station - straight from the barrels! It seems to be the way of British breweries to use these plastic kegs. They are lighter than metal ones and don't get stolen for the metal value. Each brewery has its own colours; Gloucester has the grey, pink and red you see here.

The shop area, from which you can buy tasty wares. Of course, we did not come away empty handed ;-)

Just outside the brewery lies this water trough for horses. It is inscribed, "Drink and let no man hinder you" Robert Brewin 1890. Kind of appropriate for the location of a brewery! That's a box of Gloucester beers sitting on top which we had just bought. It was a mixed case which allowed us to try a selection. They were generally enjoyable, for sure.

Onwards to Stroud Brewery. This lies in the valley between Stroud and Chalford, fairly close to where I grew up. It, like Gloucester, is a pretty new brewery. (There used to be another Stroud Brewery, it was situated in town and disappeared many years ago. This new one is no relation that I'm aware of.) Stroud's focus is on organic craft ales and intensely local names.
They have an open house on Fridays from 3pm onwards, which we didn't know about, and we had arrived a bit early. They kindly gave us a tour around anyway.

I think these are a mash tun and a hot liquor tank.

They were proud of the fact that all their grain comes from the last remaining traditional maltings in the UK - Warminster Maltings. This means that the malt is laid out to dry on the floor, in a large multi-level warehouse in which the grain is turned manually, just as it's been done for hundreds of years.

They have a nice control box for the brewery systems, made for them by another local company just up the road, so I was told.

These are the brewing/storage vessels. Lots of tables and chairs stand ready for the evening's festivities.

Inside the fridge. You can see here that Stroud's colours are green and brown. They were proud of the fact they'd just taken delivery of a large batch of new kegs. More kegs = more beer!

A selection of beers above the bar. There's some good local names amongst these. Five Valleys is named after the five valleys that radiate from Stroud. Tom Long is named after Tom Long's Post, a signpost that sits in the middle of Minchinhampton Common. Woolsack refers to the local woollen industry. The town of Tetbury still holds Woolsack Races, in which big, burly men run up a 1 in 4 hill carrying 60lb sacks on their backs.

They mentioned that they had a brick oven, which I was most amused to learn, so I had a quick look at it. It seemed about as finished as ours was at the time (Alan has done more to ours since then), although of smaller dimensions.

In the bar, we found they had a cunning way of taking beer home, in these 2-pint Tetrapaks. It was kind of unusual to be able to visit a brewery and just pay for beers to drink there, like you would in a pub. Texas laws at the time forbade breweries to charge for beer, so when you visit a brewery in Texas, they usually have you buy a glass and then fill it with free beer. Since my UK visit, the laws have changed a bit, allowing breweries to charge, although many are still using the old model. However, I don't think you can buy beer to take away in Texas, yet.

We bought some Budding to take home, named after Edwin Budding, the inventor of the lawnmower, who lived in Stroud. And of course we drank some there, too!

This one is Stroud Life, named after a local newspaper. It was a nice light and refreshing brew.

Back home to Dad's place, and we opened up the box from Gloucester. Let's see what's in here... First up, some Priory Pale, which was probably my favourite, but then I generally prefer the paler beers.

Cherry and White is named for the colours of the Gloucester Rugby team, I believe. According to their website, it is a re-badged Mariner copper ale.

Puddle and Spice is a festive beer named for the old nursery rhyme 'Doctor Foster, went to Gloucester, in a shower of rain. He stepped in a puddle, right up to his middle, and never went there again'.
I didn't get time in my visit to try the Dockside Dark, although Dad later said it was probably his favourite from the box.

We had one more encounter with Gloucester Brewery, at Stroud Market. Stroud Brewery had a stand there too.

One more beer; Butcombe, at a pub in Stroud. Pleasant enough; another very traditional English best bitter. Although after drinking so many excellently hoppy American beers, a lot of English ales just seem a bit flat somehow. I guess my palate has changed.

And one last bit of local history for you. These plaques appear on pubs all over Gloucestershire. This one is in Nympsfield, home to a lovely gliding airfield and a pub (the Rose and Crown) that does very nice food. It turns out that Stroud Brewery of old merged with Cheltenham Brewery to create West Country Ales. They stuck these plaques onto all their pubs from 1958 until 1967. (thanks to gloucestershirepubs.co.uk for the info).
Seeing these around is just part of growing up in Gloucestershire; they've always been there in my eyes.

So there you go; I hope you enjoyed this tour around British brewing. Cheers!