This memorial tablet is a little different with its musical score, marking the burial of Haydn Keeton, the cathedral’s former organist. He was born on 26 October 1847 in Sheffield and served as the cathedral’s organist from 1870 until 1921. He died at the age of 73 and during his time in Peterborough he lived at 4 Park Road and on Thorpe Road, doing well enough to have three servants during his time at the latter address.
Featured in the Good Beer Guide, Charters is located on the lower deck of this boat moored on the River Nene and it has been trading since 1991. Upstairs is the Thai restaurant of East and it all looks well maintained. So I thought I’d better have a little boating adventure on this barge, which was built in 1907.
The beer selection is chalked up on the board, it’s a wider choice than I had expected. I also liked how it was clear where to go on the boat when boarding, I feared it might all be a little bit complex.
I went for this as it looked like the best dark option and I was pleased to see that there was a CAMRA discount of 20p off. Every little helps…. The beer is from Oakham Brewery, which isn’t a brewery I’ve really ever taken to, and this stout was quite bland in flavour. There were some notes of malt, but it wasn’t exciting or rich in taste.
Other than the slight lean to the whole proceedings, it was easy to forget that I was on a boat. The surroundings were pleasant although it wasn’t as busy as I had expected.
I didn’t eat during my visit, but if I came again I think that I might go for the burger and a pint offer for £10. The service was polite and helpful, with the only slight negative about my visit being just how warm it was on the boat. I decided to go and sit by the door in the hope that people would keep coming in and out, thus also bringing in the cold air. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really busy enough for that plan to work out.
This bar, which Nathan suggested, claims to be a “product of passion” which strives to get the best drinks, both alcoholic and soft.
What a beautiful back bar, both in terms of its look and also the contents contained therein…. The staff member seemed pretty excited to explain the options, with the darker beers located on the right hand side. That’s one of the best selections of stouts I’ve seen and if it were a bit later in the day then I’d have been tempted by one of the imperial stouts. But early afternoon seemed a bit early to start on something that strong.
There was a bit of a brewery tap take-over, with all the beers this week from Thornbridge Brewery. Look at some of those flavours! I like a dark beer which has flavour flowing through it.
I opted for half a pint of the coconut chocolate porter, not the cheapest at £2.85, but it seemed very tempting indeed. And it was an absolute delight with the flavour of coconut being subtle so that the beer didn’t become like some form of Malibu, but instead it just had a pleasant aftertone. It was at the appropriate temperature and was beautifully rich, a gorgeous taste of coconut and chocolate.
The interior of the pub is quirky and it was apparently used as a bookmakers before the current occupiers took over. The design is quite quirky with some exposed walls and a variety of different seating, with perhaps too much low seating though. They also have a shuffleboard table and claim they’re the only pub in Peterborough to have this, which I can well believe to be true.
The service was attentive and engaging, but it was primarily really enthusiastic. This is good, I’ve been to too many pubs which claim they are really exciting, but who have bar staff who look like they’ve just woken up from a little nap. So this pub offered a combination of great service and great beer, which is rather lovely indeed.
Peterborough Cathedral was badly damaged by marauding Civil War Parliamentary troops in 1643. They wanted to remove all traces of the catholic faith and they destroyed much of what they could get their hands on, including the library, vestments and the cathedral’s records. They also destroyed tablets and memorials, with this being one of the memorials which was attacked.
I’m slightly surprised that this memorial was never removed after it was so badly damaged, but it’s a real piece of history to see what’s left still in place. The memorial belonged to the wealthy Orme family, who had been given land in the city by King Henry VIII in the early sixteenth century. The family decided not to restore the memorial when the Monarchy was restored, although there is a drawing in existence of what the memorial used to look like.
I had a heap of Turtles, which is the loyalty scheme of the Caribbean restaurant Turtle Bay, so I thought that I’d visit their Peterborough outlet for the first time. It’s one of my favourite chains as I like the food and service and it’s centrally located in the city.
A nice bright interior, although it was quieter at lunch-time that I had expected. I had rather thought they might have some Christmas lunch parties going on, but that didn’t seem to be the case. The service was though friendly and prompt, and the team member did make an effort to make conversation.
This is the mango, lemon juice and grapefruit crush, which had the irritating attribute of a straw which didn’t reach to the bottom of the drink. The drink was quite refreshing, but it lacked any depth of flavour until I got to the bottom and I hit an almost syrup of mango. Now that did taste good, but it was quite hard to extract it with the straw not being long enough and with the risk of all the ice falling out if I tipped the bottle back too far. The choice of drinking vessel really is stupid in that regard, a glass would have made this much better.
The Trini curry chicken at the front is part of the chain’s one pot options. The chicken looked excellent in terms of the presentation, but the meat was entirely tasteless and seemed to have been cooked from frozen as it was too watery. The chicken hadn’t taken in any of the sauce and so it appeared to have just been dumped in rather than having been allowed to at least have some pretence of a marinade. The dish was lacking in any spice, which was an attribute that was listed on the menu, although the rice had a pleasant flavour. There wasn’t enough sauce and what there was simply didn’t have any depth of taste. The roti bread served with it was adequate, but nothing beyond that.
At the back of the above photo are the dirty curry fries, with this dish also being adequate at best. The chips were limp, there wasn’t much curry sauce on top of them, the chips at the base were mushy and it lacked flavour or texture.
Service in the restaurant was though efficient and polite, and technically it was perfect in terms of the check back, prompt delivery and engagement. Although the meal being served after just a few minutes of ordering had worried me, I’m not sure that Turtle Bay need to try and replicate JD Wetherspoon in that regard.
Overall, this was a pretty unimpressive meal and I do wonder whether chains can risk this sort of blandness given how competitive the market is. On the bright side, this was effectively an entirely free meal so I didn’t lose out, but it doesn’t encourage me to return.
This pub reminds me of the Drayman’s Son in Ely as both are micro-pubs which have opened in former shops over the last couple of years. It’s easy to miss and I only went to find it because it is listed in the Good Beer Guide.
And here’s evidence of their entry in the Good Beer Guide 2019.
I opted for a seat near to the window watching the people of Peterborough meandering by, and I noticed three separate people thinking it was fine to throw rubbish on the floor. I also opted for this seat as it was near to a plug socket and my phone needed a little boost. Like me really with the beer.
The pub is only small and so it was inevitable that the list of beers is also small, but there’s a decent variety. I opted for half a pint of the Saltaire New Ground, costing £1.95, which was well kept and at the appropriate temperature. I’m not sure that I’ve had many beers with a stronger flavour of coffee, but I very much liked the taste. Although I’d order it again, I probably wouldn’t opt for a pint as it is just a bit too strong, but the flavour is still sufficiently rounded.
I didn’t get any photos of the pub interior as it isn’t that large and I’d have looked a bit obvious given that every table was full. However, there are around six tables in the pub, plus some seats at the window, and the welcome was immediate and warm. The customers mostly seemed to be locals and there was a friendly feel to the pub so that I didn’t feel like some dubious intruder into the pub’s proceedings. Or at least, no more than usual.
I very much like Carnegie libraries and I’ve visited many across the UK and the United States. The state of this one is quite sad, with the recent tenants Bo Shoh having recently left the building. The last tenants operated the building as an all-you-can-eat restaurant, although it had been used as some form of nightclub before that.
The plaque above is the only real reminder on the building as to its former use. To be fair the new library is over the road so there isn’t a loss to the city in library provision, but nonetheless, I hope that the building can come back into use. The library originally opened in 1906 and was funded by the wealthy businessman Andrew Carnegie who donated £6,000 to the project.
Carnegie came to the city on 29 May 1906 to formally open the library which he paid for, and he was rewarded for his generosity by being awarded the Freedom of the City of Peterborough. We could do with another wave of generosity today to improve the provision of public libraries….
One of the city’s two JD Wetherspoon pubs, this is the one which isn’t in the Good Beer Guide and so I just popped in for a coffee. Well, I say a coffee, but I had four to get my money’s worth.
Service was friendly, the pub is clean and the environment is comfortable. There seemed to be quite a few regulars that the staff knew, with everything being organised and well managed.
I’m in my periodic mood about JD Wetherspoon’s obsessing over Brexit, so I decided not to eat at the pub, limiting myself instead to just the unlimited hot drinks which cost just £1.10. As it was before 9am I didn’t pay much attention to the real ale selection, but they usually have around five or six to choose from.
The pub’s grand name and the modern frontage, if you ignore the smashed glass on the internal door, give a positive first impression. It’s actually though a Stonegate pub and it looks to be in competition with the Wetherspoons which is located over the road.
The beer selection is a bit lacking in excitement for me, with the only vaguely dark option being the Abbot Ale. One thing that it’s hard to complain about is the price, with half a pint costing just £1.25.
It’s a large and comfortable pub which was surprisingly busy, so they’re clearly doing something right. The food options are pretty similar to Wetherspoons and I noticed that they were serving a decent amount of food, so again, something is being done right.
An interesting table number, painted on to a 2 pence coin.
My half pint of Abbot and it tasted fine, well-kept and at the appropriate temperature. The service in the pub was friendly and engaging, with the staff looking like they actually cared for the customer experience. This seems to be standard for Stonegate, they do employ some good people. There are a lot of television screens around the pub, so for those people who like to watch sports, they’re certainly well catered for.
Overall, it’s not going to win the CAMRA branch pub of the year, but it’s affordable, sufficiently clean and the service was friendly. But some more interesting real ales would perhaps be to their benefit…..
Since I have a flight from Heathrow which leaves relatively early in the day (well, afternoon, but I need to sit in the lounge for six hours) I thought I’d get a nearby hotel for the night before. It transpired that the rail fares were expensive to do that, and Accor had a “buy two nights get one free” offer, so I went for three nights at this Ibis Hotel on the Bath Road which also worked with my £10 rail fare.
One thing I hadn’t realised until reading the reviews of this hotel is that Heathrow Airport offer a free bus service to the hotels on Bath Road. It was introduced to limit traffic between the airport and the limited surrounding area, but that meant I could get to the Ibis for free. Very handy, as I really don’t like the National Express Hoppa bus, it’s unnecessarily expensive and price gouges, a dreadful image for the company in my view.
There’s a large dining area, all was clean and organised.
One of the more generous vouchers that I’ve seen, and actually one of the clearest in what customers could order.
I went for a free pint of London Pride, very lovely.
And there is the London Pride. I very much liked the big chairs, gave a feeling of privacy for those customers wanting a private chat. I was on my own though, so didn’t need the privacy, but I liked the chairs anyway as they looked exciting. I don’t get out much…..
The room was clean and had everything that I realistically needed for the stay. Well, other than a Greggs chicken bake, that would have been nice.
The plug for the kettle was about two inches long as it had been cut back. However, there was no nearby socket to plug it into, so the set-up wasn’t entirely practical.
I’ve heard about this, but never seen it. The hotel will probably claim it’s to do with tracking their towels during the cleaning process, but realistically, it’s to stop customers pinching them. I’ve never stolen a towel from a hotel (bar once at a hostel in the US where I left with it by mistake), namely because it’s theft, but I approve of efforts to stop people doing it.
Anyway, the stay was all fine, no noise problems either internally or externally and the staff were all friendly. The member of staff at the bar was particularly engaging, and for an airport hotel it met all my expectations.
