Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Chelmsford

  • Chelmsford – Woolpack

    Chelmsford – Woolpack

    I visited this pub in October 2020, this isn’t some lockdown breach…… Although it’s Greene King, it’s also in the Good Beer Guide and has been the local branch’s pub of the year.

    The pub didn’t have any dark beers and no craft beer, and the poor member of bar staff was left with a dire choice of beers to recommend to me, namely Hardys & Hansons Olde Trip. This beer is, frankly, not particularly good at the best of times, so I wasn’t entirely thrilled. However, I forced myself to have a half, as it seems a little pointless to try and visit every Good Beer Guide pub and then not have a drink.

    The interior was decorated for Halloween, or at least I assumed it was….. I tried to ignore the ‘Create Your Own Dance Video’ machine, which seemed ill-fitting in numerous different senses. The presence of this machine confused me a little, is this trying to be a local community pub or Yates? There were also numerous ‘4 shots for £12’ which isn’t really much of an offer when it includes Cactus Jacks, where an entire bottle costs far less than £12. Anyway, all this seemed muddled, and I got the impression that beer drinkers are being shunted out. If you want a young and vibrant theme then get better craft beer, not machines to create your own dance video. Anyway, I digress.

    On the point of beer choice, I was slightly annoyed to see there was a picture frame full of Titanic Brewery pump clips as well, as that’s one of my favourite breweries and I would have very much liked to have enjoyed one of their beers. Instead, I was stuck with Greene King’s finest.

    The pub serves food including Sunday Roasts and there are burgers and the like.

    The service was fine, although the pub being empty didn’t add much to the atmosphere. The staff member asked me for help spelling words on a document he was writing, which made me feel useful at least. I suspect there’s quite a community feel to this pub in normal times, it had that sort of atmosphere to it. It’s quite a ‘lived-in’ pub and I hope they don’t try and modernise this VIctorian pub pointlessly, it’s got charm as it is.

    As for the beer, it was bloody awful and on the turn. Usually I’d get it replaced, but it’s such a bland and boring beer anyway that it didn’t much change my enjoyment of it. I think Greene King work hard on their obsession to deliver mediocrity and this beer delivers on that. It comes to something though when I’ve started to wonder whether Greene King beers actually tasted better when they’ve gone off, at least there’s some sort of flavour.

    It seems that in normal times there is actually a relatively wide beer choice available, so I was maybe unfortunate to visit when the pub was struggling to offer much of a range. The Railway Tavern in Chelmsford had told me the day before that they didn’t have the trade to justify putting darker beers on, which didn’t seem an unreasonable thing to say. But, judging solely on what was available when I visited, this was sadly just the bland Greene King offering and it also wasn’t kept well.

    Whatpub note that the pub underwent a change of management at around the time that I visited, so perhaps this was the dying days of the previous owners, which would explain why things were a bit ropey. So, nothing particularly impressive from when I visited, although it was clean and the pub seemed to be taking the Covid-19 rules seriously. But, the whole set-up seemed to be focused more on moving away from beer towards gimmicks, and I’d rather they went the other way and pushed towards craft beer as that’s where being on-trend lies. This is all very confusing though, the pub is clearly popular with CAMRA and real ale drinkers, but it felt like it was trying to be something else. Maybe this just all makes more sense during normal times, being a publican is hardly easy during these strange times.

  • Chelmsford – Disgusting Offence

    Chelmsford – Disgusting Offence

    As an aside, and not one of the most decadent things that I’ve written about, this type of story is alarmingly common in nineteenth century newspapers. The crime relates to the village of Margaretting, which is a few miles to the south of Chelmsford, but which was tried in the city’s courts. The exact nature of the crime it’s best to leave to the imagination, although it was one punishable by the death penalty.

    The Chelmsford Chronicle reported this in January 1860:

    “George Brazier, labourer, was charged with committing a disgusting offence at Margaretting on the 23rd December. The evidence not being sufficient to support the capital offence, the case was dismissed. Brazier was then charged upon the same evidence, with cruelly treating a donkey, and was convicted in a penalty of £2 10s and 8s costs, or six weeks’ imprisonment”.

    £2 10s is worth around £150 in today’s money, so George got off quite lightly given what the potential punishment could have been.

  • Chelmsford – Chelmsford Cathedral and 1832 Great Reform Act

    Chelmsford – Chelmsford Cathedral and 1832 Great Reform Act

    I quite liked this story from the Chelmsford Chronicle in 1832, which was written after the passing of the Great Reform Act, a bit change for the entire country. I can imagine the clash between the characters at what is now Chelmsford Cathedral, although was a parish church back then, when some thought the bells should be used as part of the exuberant celebrations.

    “On the receipt of the news here on Tuesday morning, of the passing of the Reform Bill by the Lords, the flag was hoisted upon the Church, and the ringers were set to work. The bells were going merrily round, and the firing was performed with more than usual precision, when the ringers were ordered to desist by a churchwarden in person, who, with his usual courtesy, ejected the Bob-Majora and the TrebleBobs from the church, and the flag was taken down.

    A request was, however, made for a renewal of the harmonious peal, not only to the Churchwarden but also to the Rector, and the circumstance of the bells having been permitted to ring in October last, when the Bill was rejected by the Lords, was advanced in justification of such a request, and as a proof of inconsistency if denied.

    The Churchwarden not only refused, but declared that so long as he remained in office, the bells should not again be rung to celebrate any political event! The Rector received the party with much courtesy, and after hearing their argument in favour of the application, acknowledged that the example adduced was a sufficient excuse for what had already occurred, and to the ringing of the bells on the present occasion he should not individually have objected, had the consent of the Churchwardens been obtained, but he felt bound to support the parish officers, although, the Rev. Gentleman intimated, the bells were strictly under his control. The result of the application disappointed many of the inhabitants.

    In the course of the day the ringers ventured to resume their amusement, and the flag was rehoisted, but the Rector came into the town, and finding that the consent of the Churchwardens had not been obtained, he interferred his authority and these rejoicings were frustrated. The Rev. Gentleman at the same times very politely wrote a note to one of the applicants, repeating the original objections. Thus disappointed, the Reformers dispatched a messenger for the Baddow musical Band, who in the evening arrived and played many loyal and constitutional airs, whilst the ringers paraded another part of the town with their musical hand bells, in which they are allowed to excel. The two bands played in different parts of the town, and were each followed by a great number of persons, who appeared to take a lively interest in the event. The whole passed off in the most peaceful and creditable manner.”

  • Chelmsford – Random Urban Archaeology

    Chelmsford – Random Urban Archaeology

    OK, I admit there’s no real archaeology here. But this is the view from my hotel window and I puzzled over why the road and roundabout looked a bit strange and put it down to the road once going straight through. As it happened, this was an event in Chelmsford, it was a flyover which was pulled down a few months ago. They quite liked the flyover in the city, but it was falling down and the engineers agreed that this wasn’t ideal. So they knocked it down in case it fell down on some cars and lorries. And, I think it all looks better now without having it, although car drivers in the area probably don’t agree as apparently the roundabout is now too busy. Well, there’s a solution here, and that’s more public transport. But, I digress.

    It’s an aside really, I like how urban development changes a landscape and traces of it remain. I need to get out more, I admit.

  • Chelmsford – Travelodge

    Chelmsford – Travelodge

    I’ve moved away from Accor Hotels on this trip as I’m booking everything at the last minute. Accor do this moderately irritating thing of returning their room rates to a higher price nearer the date of booking, which is fine if they’re full, but not ideal if they’re not. Travelodge just charge what they need to do to get rid of the rooms, a strategy that I prefer as a customer.

    The reception area, which was the scene of some moderate drama. I went to check-in, but there were no staff members visible. A very angry lady behind me confronted a staff member when she appeared, telling her with some force that she was tired of her key card not working. The staff member was polite, but defensive, which escalated the matter and for a good minute I watched this argument developing. At that point, I felt the need to be moderately rude to ask if I could actually check-in if they were just going to have a heated debate about how the hotel was run and what was the area manager’s phone number. It wasn’t an ideal first impression, but the staff member was polite to me, likely pleased the other woman had gone back to her room to phone the area manager.

    Incidentally, the hotel appears to be a little lax with GDPR. They had the prices of what each customer had paid for their room on sheets left at the reception desk and I was pleased to discover that I had paid the least. This isn’t really information that should be left around though and I would have been most annoyed if other customers had received a better bargain.

    The room, which was clean and well presented, with a bath and shower which only some of the rooms had (as in only some of the rooms had both, not that some rooms just had an empty bathroom). This was all fine, especially for the not much over £25 that I had paid.

    The food in the photo looks dreadful and the reviews of their bar cafe are equally poor. I’m not really sure why they persist with trying to serve mediocre meals, I can’t see any benefit to annoying customers with low quality food.

    Housekeeping cleaning rooms only once every six nights is clearly ridiculous, way more than other hotel chains I’ve been in. There’s being careful with the current health situation and just not bothering to clean the rooms….

    The milks in the room were out of date. I do check these and I probably need to get out more…..

    All in all, I thought that this was a perfectly good deal for the two nights which cost just over £50. There are extra charges for parking, wi-fi and breakfast, although I didn’t need any of these. The hotel seemed quiet and in relatively sound repair, so I was content with my stay. It’s about a ten-minute walk to the city centre and there’s an Aldi supermarket opposite for those who need supplies of any sort.

  • Chelmsford – Chelmsford Cathedral (Then and Now)

    Chelmsford – Chelmsford Cathedral (Then and Now)

    This is one of my random then and now photos, comparing what Chelmsford Cathedral (then St. Mary’s Church as it didn’t become a cathedral until the twentieth century) looks like now, compared to what it looked like in 1892. The Francis Frith photo is towards the end of this post (if for some reason it doesn’t load, it’s 31510 in their collection) and as can be seen I haven’t done a great job here of taking a comparable photo.

    The area has all been reset, so the path which once led to the church door on the right (the priest’s door) has been removed and there’s a war memorial there now. Well, mostly removed. There’s a section still left of the old paving in front of the door, although it just leads to the grass now.

    There were once iron railings separating the path from the graves, which were likely removed during the Second World War for the war effort. The tombs are all still there in the same place, or at least, they seem to be, but there are graves missing from the right hand side of the older image. What is interesting (to me anyway) is that they have numerous stones lying flat and I had thought that this was done more recently.


  • Chelmsford – Banksy on Manor Road?

    Chelmsford – Banksy on Manor Road?

    This figure was painted between 2014 and 2016 onto the end of this wall on Manor Road. I accept that it might not be Banksy, and indeed I accept that it’s nothing really like what he’s done, but I still like the imagery. I also like that no-one has painted over it during the last five years or graffitied anything else on the wall.

  • Chelmsford – United Brethren

    Chelmsford – United Brethren

    The United Brethren pub is a short walk to the town centre, a little tucked away just off Moulsham Street. It’s not in the Good Beer Guide, but CAMRA noted that it was the sole pub in the Brighton based Pin-Up Pub Co estate (I’m not quite sure why their sole pub is nowhere near their brewery). The beer selection wasn’t quite as exciting as I might have hoped, it was limited to two real ales and no dark beers at all.

    The service was though engaging and polite, so the environment was warm and welcoming, even though I was the only customer. I went for half a pint of the Captain Bob from the Mighty Oak Brewing Company, a reasonable session beer which is meant to have hints of gooseberry (I felt like I had returned to the Hop Beer Shop and the beer I had just had….) although I couldn’t detect them. It was well-kept and at the appropriate temperature, but nothing I’d write home about. Just write about here instead.

    The decor seemed a bit muddled to me, but I’m not an interior designer and so struggle to comment much on that. There’s often music played here in the evening, hence why I went in the early afternoon. I looked back on Untappd to see if the beer selection was a bit more exotic before the health crisis, but it doesn’t seem to have been, although at least they had some stouts from Pin-Up. Anyway, all entirely comfortable and friendly, as well as being quite spacious (especially when you’re the only customer).

  • Chelmsford – Hop Beer Shop

    Chelmsford – Hop Beer Shop

    This is another listing from the Good Beer Guide and is apparently, according to CAMRA, the first micro-pub which opened in Essex. I like micro-pubs as they usually have an informal and welcoming atmosphere, although these are challenging times for them as they’re often quite small in terms of their size. Hence the name…. Also today, the Government has confirmed that Essex is going into a different tier, which means that as from next week, this pub’s trade will be even more adversely affected.

    The welcome was friendly and immediate, with the staff member finding me a suitable place to sit, which was about the last seat going. There were some interesting options for beers and ciders, with plenty of cans and bottles as well offering a wider choice. The environment in the pub was welcoming, even though all of the customers seemed to know each other. I suspect that someone new to the area would soon feel part of the crowd here.

    I went for the Al Capone from Mighty Oak Brewing (which isn’t on the board as it had just become available) which is relatively local as it’s brewed in Maldon. The beer had a flavour of gooseberry, which isn’t necessarily something that sounds delicious, but it was an agreeable taste. The beer was well-kept, at the appropriate temperature and was something a little different.

    The selection of cans and bottles that are available to take away. All told, I liked this pub, there was a laid-back environment, decent selection of beers and I can see why it’s in the Good Beer Guide.

  • Chelmsford – Statue of Sir Nicholas Conyngham Tindal

    Chelmsford – Statue of Sir Nicholas Conyngham Tindal

    This is the statue of Sir Nicholas Conyngham Tindal (1776-1846) and it was installed on the renamed Tindal Square in 1850. The bronze statue was designed by EH Bailey and sits on a sizeable stone pedestal.

    Nicholas, if I can call him that, was born in Chelmsford and went on to become the Chief Justice of Common Pleas and a respected judge. He was also chosen to defend Caroline of Brunswick, the then Queen of England, at a trial in 1820 when she was accused of adultery. The King didn’t want her around, but the people loved her, so Caroline wanted to assert her role as Queen. The defence was successful, but the whole situation was a little ridiculous, even at King George IV’s Coronation in 1821, Caroline wanted to attend and he barred her at the door of Westminster Abbey. Sounds quite an exciting drama.