Packhorse, South Stoke

I could just lift all the text from the Packhorse pub notes from 1998, since nothing much as changed. Indeed, nothing much has changed about this pub in a couple of hundred years. And therein lies the appeal. This is a destination pub, one to be sought out and experienced. It is ancient, characterful, unspoilt. The beer is good, the cider is good, and the history is fascinating.

There is a central, stone-flagged corridor that divides the building. Through this, funeral processions would progress to the churchyard beyond, but not before downing the round of drinks that had been traditionally allowed for in the deceased’s will. Either side of the inglenook fireplace are small doors with tiny cupboards beyond, into which disruptive drunks would be unceremoniously shoved until they sobered up. Heck, even the shutters on the inside of the windows are five hundred years old.

The pub itself is tucked away on the south side of the City of Bath, a short walk across the fields from Wellsway. Down the narrow, winding village street, and there it is on the right, perched precariously on the side of the steeply sloping street. A rambling old building, much of which was put together in 1489, when the two main rooms on the ground floor were laid out. That makes up the bulk of the pub today. It is not difficult to imagine the atmosphere in the establishment centuries a ago, which is to say, it probably has not changed much.

Except of course there is a snag. While the Packhorse has been pulling pints since 1489, it was not necessarily in this wonderful old building. The building is indeed that old, but if you head east out of Southstoke, you come cross a house called 'Pack Horse Farm'. This was the original pub, and the tenants moved into Southstoke itself, probably in the 1700's. The jury is out on whether this makes the Packhorse any less romantic.

Southstoke itself is the source of controversy - is the village name Southstoke, or South Stoke? A lot of people are worked up about this!

Setting up the business in the late 1400’s, the owners were free to run any kind of establishment they wished and there is a strong possibility that the evenings were a little on the raucous side, since formal, national licensing laws did not come into effect until 1552, when it was decreed that local magistrates could grant or deny operating licenses to hostelry owners based on any number of factors, not least of which was their impact on the local community.

Pubs around this time were indeed gaining a bad reputation. To use a modern phrase on a medieval period, people suddenly had more disposable income and disposed of it quite happily on alcohol. Since in this case, the church next door kept a watchful eye on the flock and still at this time dominated the social arena of the village, maybe the Packhorse maintained a certain amount of respectability through the ages, and so survived the 500 years from birth to this admirable maturity.

They do food, but I would not say that people come here for just that. You can get a beef burger, fries and garnish for a little over $3, or splash out $9 on the Rump steak, egg, mushrooms, onion rings & fries. It is not bad, but wait till you get to the beer & cider. The beer and cider is why people come. The shove ha'penny is why people come. The old stone floors, the creaking black oak doors, the timbered ceiling, the huge fireplace, the roughness, the honesty, and the total absence of tourists.

The pub is enhanced still further by the fact that we can walk to this pub from Mum's house, thereby avoiding use of a motor vehicle. As we set off down a little footpath, we step over a small linear hump on the edge of a field, and while most people would ignore this completely, they should actually pay attention, because this is history: This is Wansdyke, a sixty-mile earthen ditch-and-wall construction of great antiquity.

We have talked about various dykes already, such as Offa's Dyke on the Welsh border and Tor Dyke up in Yorkshire, but this one may be the most mysterious. Some sources put its origins as specifically as 466 - 473 AD, with the western extension being built around 627 AD by King Cynegils of Wessex, in an attempt to counter incursions byKing Penda of Mercia, whom he later stomped on in a battle at Bampton in what is now Oxfordshire. But others point to the fact that it connects the two largest stone circles in England, Stanton Drew and Avebury, and postulate that this puts Wansdyke=s age at about that of the stone circles, which in Avebury’s case is 2300 BC. Most likely, sections were built or improved throughout the Saxon period, but what they were built or improved upon is still open to argument.

The ditch of the original Wansdyke is on the northern side of the rampart, so it was presumably built by a tribal group lurking on the south side, but who they were and why they needed such a colossal earthwork, sixty miles long, is one of the mysteries of the Dark Ages. Not only is its age under question, but its use is also shrouded in mystery. It is unlikely that these defenses were ever intended as linear fortifications, like Hadrians Wall between England & Scotland. No Anglo?Saxon kingdom would be able to sustain sufficient forces to provide adequate defenses for even a small part of their length, there simply was not the population available. One theory, which I struggle to grasp, claims that served as ‘trip-wires’, ensuring that enemy raids were identified so that they could be intercepted by forces stationed in the interior of the kingdom. Another, that they were just elaborate border markers.

Shove Ha’Penny provides at least part of the entertainment in the Packhorse. Shove Ha’Penny is a wonderfully simple, old game that involves shoving small metal disks across a small board that has lines drawn across it. Land your disc within two of the lines (‘in the bed’) and you score a point. Take points away from your opponent by knocking their disc out of the bed with your disc. From there, the rules are pretty much your own. One version states that if you manage to score three coins in one bed in a single turn, congratulations, you have scored a ‘sergeant’ and if all five coins should score in a single turn, it is a ‘sergeant major’ or a ‘gold watch’. Which all makes sense of course.

Shove Ha'Penny in its present form started around 1840 but earlier versions were played in taverns as early as the 1400’s and would have been known as Shoffe-Grote, since the coinage at the time under Edward IV was the groat. One important rule to remember: If you are playing this game in its purest form using actual coins, and you wish to smooth down one side of the coin, do so only on the tails side, since it is a crime to deface the head of a monarch.

The Packhorse is a Destination Pub. How many of those are there? Not many. The White Horse in Welton; the Falkland Arms in Great Tew; the George at Hubberholme; the Thwaite in Horsehouse; the Forest Inn on Dartmoor; and this year we added the Kings Head at Gunnerside. Seven. Of those seven, three are really personal Destination Pubs, meaning they are wonderful to us, but not necessarily to people who do not know the background (the White Horse, the Thwaite, and the Kings Head). So in effect, four.

Many more receive Honorable Mentions. The Falcon Inn at Painswick; the White Hart Inn at Hawes; Fox & Hounds in Great Brington; Tan Hill in Yorkshire; and we have been fortunate enough where that list can go on for a while. But a Destination Pub is one where I have no qualms whatsoever about recommending that a friend go there for a beer or two and I can guarantee them an interesting evening.

The George, with its ancient tradition of renting local land by the expiration of a candle, where you can get lost in the Small World between the surrounding hills; the Falkland Arms, with its creaky ancient timbers and spectacular whiskies in a picture-perfect village; the Forest Inn on Dartmoor, remote, intimate, friendly, and a gastronomic delight; and the Packhorse, a step back in time, for just an evening.