This
is actually quite a bad little pub. After a day such
as this when we have memories like the Falkland Arms
in Great Tew; the Sun Inn in Hook Norton; and the
Red Lion at Cropredy, do we push our luck and take
in one more pub, or do we call it quits while we are
so far ahead? We pushed our luck. The George is not
necessarily a pub we would rush to go back to.
Admittedly,
they adhered to Truth in Advertising Act by calling
this place the George Hotel, because the main lounge
bar had a definite hotel feeling to it. The strangest
seating arrangement too, with all the patrons sitting
around the perimeter of the room, all looking in and
across at each other. Cavernous ceiling, lots of red
carpet, a long way from an intimate pub.
The
Highgate Saddlers beer looked promising and certainly
offered a challenge but was ultimately disappointing,
lacking depth of any kind. Was it the fault of the
beer on its own? Or did the poor atmosphere &
surroundings contribute? Did the very poor cider skew
my opinion? Probably all of the above. In pubs, rarely
does one component stand head-and-shoulders above
all else. A nice fireplace should always be good,
but not if they have unpleasant beer. Good beer is
a welcome sight, but not in an unfriendly establishment.
On all-too-rare occasions does everything come together.
The
George has little going for it, other than an apparently
small, fervent, local following. It once stood on
a major through route and probably generated quite
a bit of business, but they built a roundabout a hundred
yards to the north and funneled the local traffic
towards it, so that now the George stands on a dead-end
street, with railings out front to protect customers
from traffic that no longer passes by. The building
was constructed to handle much more business, with
large rooms, wide doorways and multiple bars. Alas,
such commerce is no longer available.
It
once certainly was. Kilsby is on the north-south route
that takes in Watford Gap, a natural low spot in the
topography caused when a huge glacial lake broke through
its confinement and headed south, leaving only little
Rutland Water behind. It is through this convenient
gap that generations of engineers have pointed their
roads, railways and canals. At Watford Gap in the
space of a couple of hundred yards, you can see the
M1 (the arterial London-Birmingham motorway); the
main north-south rail line; the Grand Union Canal;
and the old A5 roadway, all squeezing through side-by-side.
And there is more. The Romans built a road through
here too. It is an amazing fact that between the departure
of the Romans in AD410 and the first Turnpike Act
of 1663, no engineered roads were built in Britain.
Many roads were established during this period but
these would have developed from simple tracks. And
they would not necessarily offer a direct route or
be covered with stone.
Watford Gap is
part of the English language in more ways than one.
It is something of a geographical landmark in that,
to a Londoner, anything 'north of the Watford Gap'
is considered to be truly north, and only a short
hop from the Arctic Circle. To a Northerner, anything
south of the Watford Gap is severely suspect.
In addition, fairly
or unfairly, the motorway service area known as Watford
Gap Services has come to symbolize everything that
is bad about English service, and believe me, there
is plenty about English service that is bad. In Roy
Harper's poem 'Watford Gap', he says: "It's the
Watford Gap, Watford Gap, a plate of grease and a
load of crap".
In
fairness, motorway services areas have been dramatically
upgraded over recent years to the moderately tolerable
level. It is a different system to the United States,
where services of all kinds pop up at the freeway
interchanges, pretty much on a free enterprise basis.
In England, the service areas are islands, cut off
from all but the motorway, and commanding a captive
but transitory audience. All the service areas in
the country are run by about four different companies
and offer just about identical buildings containing
somewhere to eat, somewhere to shop, and somewhere
to go to the bathroom. In addition, the Automobile
Association guy will accost you in the parking lot
trying to sell you a membership in their organization,
as he will in just about every services parking lot
throughout the country.
There are a known
seven thousand miles of Roman road in Britain, some
still in use today (the George's address is actually
Watling Street, a Roman road). Perhaps as much as
another two thousand miles of roads remain undiscovered.
The Romans understood the power of infrastructure,
and set about the task of building roads on about
Day One of the occupation of Britain. All the roads
were built completely from scratch in the first century
of occupation; one mile of road produced every three
or four days for a hundred years. An incredible accomplishment.
Watling Street itself was quite impressive, running
from London north to intersect with the Fosse Way
at Leicester and then west to Shrewsbury. It has been
in continuous use throughout the ages.
My wife and I walked on the original stone of a Roman
road some years ago, high on top of the Yorkshire
Dales, going over from Hubberholme to Dentdale. It
was a foul day, the wind and rain was whipping in
from the west, the gray clouds swirled around us,
and we were soaked through. It was part magnificent,
but mostly wet. After we survived and were sitting
warmly in the Sportman’s Inn in Dentdale, we
could not help but think of those poor Roman soldiers,
leaving their Mediterranean homes and being posted
to the seemingly Godforsaken upper reaches of Britannia,
and wondering what the heck they had done to deserve
it.
Up in the rain
and the clouds on the windswept moors on the road
itself, you could almost hear the clank of armor,
and the muttering in Latin.