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.