Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Leicester

  • Leicester – The Ale Wagon

    Leicester – The Ale Wagon

    Continuing the meander around the Good Beer Guide pubs of Leicester, this is the Ale Wagon on Rutland Street which has been listed in the book for several years. I’ll use the history from CAMRA as they’re an authoritative source:

    “As part of the scheme to widen Charles Street, this corner pub was built in 1931 to replace a Victorian hotel on the adjacent corner. It has drainpipes with hop decoration. From the 1950s, it was owned by Ansells, then after several years of neglect and deterioration, was acquired by Hoskins & Oldfield as their first tied house, opening as the Ale Wagon in September 1999.”

    The widening of Charles Street is more evident in this 100 year map against a recent one from OpenStreetMap, they’ve doubled the width of the road.

    I accept that this isn’t the most glorious photo of a pub interior, but the bar was busy and so this will have to do. This has the feel of a pub that no-one ever quite modernised, but now it would be a shame to break the character by trying to renovate it. I quite like the whole arrangement, although it feels tired in places, especially the toilets.

    The service at the bar was prompt and I felt genuinely friendly, with the staff member telling me that there were two dark beers on. She was happy to explain the options, although I decided that I’d just get a half pint of each rather than just pick one.

    The Darkroom oatmeal stout from Anstey Ale Brewery, which was very drinkable.

    It’s this one that I was most confused about, the Smoked Porter from Hoskins Brothers brewery. This is the first beer that I’ve had which I haven’t been able to add on Untappd, and it seems reading some of the other ratings at https://untappd.com/w/hoskins-brothers-ales/9223 that others are having difficulties. There’s a message that:

    “Hoskins Brothers Ales do not brew. All beers are brewed by Tower Brewery. The brothers own the Ale Wagon pub in Leicester and this is the base for a brewery that is brewing both Hoskins ales and ales from the former Oldfield Brewery.”

    But I don’t really understand this, the pump clip is named as Hoskins Brothers Ales and so I don’t much care whether it’s brewed at the pub or off-site. Anyway, the beer was excellent, one of the best examples of a smoked porter that I’ve had. It might be though that this situation has arisen as one of the Hoskins brothers who ran the pub died last year.

    This was a traditional pub with some interesting beers and I’m glad that it’s in the Good Beer Guide, as it would perhaps be easy to miss. I got the impression that nearly every other customer was a local, but it wasn’t any less friendly for that.

  • Leicester – Grave of Thomas Wolsey

    Leicester – Grave of Thomas Wolsey

    I admit that the title of this blog post is a little misleading, as the grave of Ipswich born Thomas Wolsey has been a bit lost, but they sort of know where it is. A few years ago, the bones of King Richard III was found in a car park in the city, which gave renewed impetus to find Wolsey. Wolsey will be more challenging to identify even if they find a skeleton, there aren’t any heirs to check DNA and it’s not clear in what clothes and with what items he was buried with.

    Incidentally, I’m not sure that this statue does Wolsey complete credit.

    This is where Leicester Abbey once stood, with these stones being added in the 1920s which mark out the lines of the former walls. It’s known from contemporary writers that Wolsey was buried in the abbey’s Lady Chapel.

    To one side of the abbey complex is this grave slab commemorating Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey had been a loyal adjutant to King Henry VIII and had enjoyed a considerable wealth and status between 1515 and 1529. Then there was a bit of a falling out, which wasn’t ideal for Wolsey. Failing to secure a divorce for the Monarch, he was ordered by Henry Percy to return to London to face trial. Wolsey didn’t make it, he fell ill whilst staying at Leicester Abbey and he died on 29 November 1530.

    He’s not under there, but perhaps one of the most important and influential crown servants will one day be found again, despite the previous failed attempts. This state of affairs isn’t what Wolsey had expected, he had even hired Benedetto da Rovezzano and Giovanni da Maiano to design his tomb. This big grand black tomb didn’t go to waste though, it now holds the remains of Horatio Nelson. But, there’s still a high level of confidence that Wolsey is in this field somewhere, so that was enough to intrigue me (I accept that I need to get out more).

  • Leicester – Real Ale Classroom

    Leicester – Real Ale Classroom

    This micro-pub was recommended to me by the helpful barman at the Two-Tailed Lion. It’s a bit of a walk out of the city centre, but such is the sacrifice that I must make to find quality.

    And that blackboard oozed quality, there were seven beers on there that I wanted to try and hadn’t had before, although I limited myself to just three. I can’t see any beer that I would consider as being average or generic on there, some really decent options and most beer styles are covered as well.

    We sat in the Headmaster’s Study room at the rear, with the pub having an education theme as the owners worked as secondary school teachers before deciding this pub thing seemed to be a better idea.

    The pub is small as it’s a conversion from a shop (it was a computer shop and then a clothes shop), with one front room, one rear room (the study one) and until recently that was it other than for some seats outside. They’ve now though expanded into the garden at the rear to give them some more seating options. As a micro-pub, it was the first in Leicester.

    This is the Somewhere Within from Cloudwater, that’s about as good as an IPA as I can imagine getting. Smooth, full of tropical fruit flavour and with a slightly orangey aftertaste. Really rather lovely, and perhaps quite decadent even.

    The Too Many Steves from Shiny Brewing, a small micro-brewery in Little Eaton in Derbyshire. More tropical fruit flavours here, to the point where I wonder whether I’m being a little too healthy.

    I felt the need to have a dark beer as well, and there were several options on the menu which surprised and delighted me. This is the very decent Post Impact Porter from Staggeringly Good brewery who are based in Portsmouth.

    As for the service, it was friendly, engaging and conversational. The pub was spotlessly clean, it felt on-trend without trying to be and there was clear enthusiasm from the staff about the beers that were being offered.

    The pub also notes on their web-site that:

    “Prior to buying we also check all of our beers via Untappd; to guarantee we offer the best available beer to you, our drinkers.”

    I genuinely slightly despair at pubs who don’t do this, although I understand that some pubs are tied or restricted in their options. It might prevent some of the average dross getting through and I won’t mention any brewers in particular, although I obviously include Greene King in that.

    Passionate, authentic and absolutely as good as a micro-pub could realistically get, all really rather lovely. It’s also listed in the Good Beer Guide, and it would be a travesty if it wasn’t.

  • Leicester – Sir Robert Peel

    Leicester – Sir Robert Peel

    Working through the Good Beer Guide, CAMRA note that this pub has been operated by Everard’s since 1901. It’s an interesting survivor on Jarrom Street, as there was once a row of houses here, but only the pub has survived.

    http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p15407coll5/id/969/

    This photo is from Jarrom Street in the 1960s (taken by a forward-thinking photographer named Dennis Calow who recorded Leicester housing before it was pulled down), so I’m guessing that there was some slum clearance going on.

    There was a friendly welcome at the bar from the staff member and it was evident that there was plenty of character in the pub. Interesting and quirky decor, there felt like some heritage here. There was an element of it feeling like a locals’ pub, but in a positive sense and the atmosphere was laid-back. There’s one large room at the front, that was once divided, with a courtyard area to the rear.

    They don’t tend to name pubs after Prime Ministers any more, but here’s Robert Peel.

    This was the Harvest Pale from Castle Rock Brewery, which in my opinion was a bloody dreadful beer and I struggled to get any flavour of anything out of it. The nearest taste I could claim this had was to water. Completely pointless as far as I was concerned, although it seemed to be well-kept. For me this was an appalling beer, although I’m sure others might have a very different experience of it. I thought back to the decadent and exciting choices that I’d had at the Real Ale Classroom a few hours before, a more joyous list of beer options.

    I felt the need to have a beer from Titanic to balance things up a bit, and the stout tasted as it should. This is one of the few beers that I’d rather not have as a keg version, which was what was available here, the cask to me has a richer flavour. This was a happier experience.

    The choice of beers here wasn’t really what I was looking for, there was a nod towards the generic and bland as far as my taste is concerned. I think that is evident when looking at the Untappd ratings for the pub, there are a relatively low number. There’s nothing wrong with the pub though, it was clean, the staff were welcoming and there was a choice of different real ales, so I can see why it’s been listed in the Good Beer Guide.

  • Leicester – The Two-Tailed Lion

    Leicester – The Two-Tailed Lion

    I may have mentioned (several times) how good the Hop & Vine pub is in Hull nd nowhere has yet exceeded that for me, although Goose Island in London comes very close. This pub in central Leicester was though really quite marvellous and certainly one of the best that I’ve been in.

    It’s a micropub in size, although they don’t refer to it as such. There’s a very on-trend feel to the whole arrangement, but it doesn’t seem to be formulaic and nothing is forced. That’s a screen with the live menu on at the end of the bar, they’re using UnTappd to power that (which also meant that I got to see my photo at the bottom of the screen when I rated a beer using UnTappd, a reminder that I need to get out more….).

    They have cask and keg options, the first photo is the Gatekeeper beer from Buxton Brewery and the second photo is of Julie beer from the GlassHouse Beer Company. I thought that the latter was particularly refreshing, a fruit beer with raspberry running through it which gave it an equal mix of sourness and fruitiness.

    They’ve got a room to the rear of the bar which is all quite airy and there’s an upstairs which I didn’t visit. Everything was clean, tidy and organised, with the beer selection covering most styles and there were some interesting options. However, it was the service which lifted the pub even further, with the barman being friendly, engaging and personable. I asked for recommendations for other pubs and he was keen to help, giving some excellent suggestions and helpful information. I will be trying out the recommendations that he offered, even though a few of the pubs are a little bit of a walk.

    It’s not exactly difficult to do, but I also liked how he acknowledged customers when entering, even if he was serving others and some pubs fail to do that. I was also interested to hear about what happened to the Head of Steam in Leicester, something that had intrigued me, but ultimately it seems they were too ambitious with their plans and lasted months rather than years.

    As for why I though this pub tipped towards exceptional, it’s just the element of friendliness which many locations can’t get right. They’ll be polite, but my measure is to imagine someone new to the area who tentatively goes in a pub to hope to find a local and meet friends. I feel that anyone in such a position would feel genuinely welcome here, very much the Hop & Vine approach. Maybe a little intangible, but there’s something all very competent and fun about this place.

    There were no negatives here for me, it was a well-run, comfortable pub which had excellent customer service at its heart. Quite rightly listed in the Good Beer Guide, it’ll be hard for any other pub in Leicester to beat this for me.

  • Leicester – Leicester Municipal Central Library

    Leicester – Leicester Municipal Central Library

    I thought that I’d have a little pop into Leicester Central Library to see what their collection of local studies books were like. It doesn’t open until midday on Wednesdays, which doesn’t feel an entirely ideal arrangement for the local denizens.

    The ground floor is mostly fiction and computers. Leicester had a free library on Wellington Street by the late nineteenth century, but it was the formidable and brilliant Andrew Carnegie who gave £12,000 towards the cost of a bigger and more spacious building. Carnegie’s only requirement of note was that the library was funded by the rates and the council willingly accepted his offer. The philanthropist also turned up at the opening of the library in 1905 where a large formal gathering turned out and it’s somewhere that still feels a fit for purpose well-designed building.

    There’s a one-way system through the fiction section with one person only at a time. It feels a little excessive, but I appreciate the efforts of the library to keep people safe. When the library opened, the local newspaper said that it was far better that “the average shoe operative, factory worker or shop assistant should spend his leisure hours with Dickens, Thackeray, Scott or George Elliot rather than soak in a pub or hang around street corners.”

    The Leicester Daily Post was also very enthusiastic about the opening of the new library, noting that the old building on Wellington Street had 6,000 books in the lending library and 3,000 reference books when it had opened in 1871, but there were now 23,000 books in the lending library and 17,000 reference books. It was expressed with pride that in the new library that the ladies had their own reading room and that “this is practically the last word in free libraries”.

    After going up in the lift (I couldn’t immediately find the stairs), I felt that this was more interesting, the reference and local studies section on the first floor.

    Unusually tables had to be reserved, which seemed completely unideal, but I went over to reserve a table and the staff were helpful. The local studies collection is very good, a decent selection of different titles and they were shelved in a logical manner. It was also quite interesting being seated near to the photocopier as the staff spent a lot of their time dealing with complaints from customers that they photocopier had photocopied something they didn’t want.

    Anyway, a perfectly decent library, although they have given so much space over to the computers that they have relatively little seating space for readers, which definitely isn’t at all ideal. The staff were friendly though and I felt that the book selection was decent enough, so nothing for me to complain about.

  • National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    I’ve had a mixed selection of journeys with National Express, sometimes they can be excellent and other times they’re a bit more challenging. However, the fare to get from London Victoria coach station to Leicester was just £4.20, so I worked on the basis that even if the journey was bloody awful, then it was still cheap. There’s a logic there I think, sort of….

    I was going from Gate 2 and this was clearly indicated an hour before the journey. I like clarity and there was lots of it here, all very organised and there was seating whilst I waited. There’s also a Greggs and Pret nearby for those who like such things, and I popped to Pret for a drink….

    I liked this, an old image at Victoria coach station of how it used to look. Today, the coach station is quite cramped and old fashioned, really needing more space and a renovation. There has been talk of moving the site, but I think it’s staying here for the foreseeable future.

    The driver came and made clear announcements that passengers going to locations on the route that weren’t Leicester should board the National Express branded coach on the left. Those wanting to go to Leicester could get on this service operated by Roberts on behalf of National Express. I was a bit puzzled as to how this worked, as there are multiple stops that the coach was meant to take along the route, but maybe no-one had booked to go from, say Golders Green to Leicester. The driver was helpful though and everything was clear.

    This was a clean and comfortable coach, and I spotted that seat on the left was free. It’s near the toilets, but it also has no-one in front, so it remains my go-to seat. Yes, I accept I need to get out more since I’ve now got a favourite seat on coaches…..

    The service wasn’t very busy. Earlier on in the day I looked to see how many seats were left on the coach by doing a dummy booking, but it was showing as entirely full. That meant that I was expecting a packed coach (which wouldn’t have been ideal from a comfort point of view), but the dual operation meant that there was lots of space. This pleased me greatly.

    As for the driver, Tony, he was exceptional. Warm, personable, engaging and with a sense of humour, I thought his customer service was excellent. He added positively to the journey and his driving was professional throughout. An absolute credit to National Express.

    Safely in Leicester, arriving 50 minutes early which was a bit of a result.

    I assume that National Express are getting new facilities here, unless they’ve moved to a little Portakabin for fun.

    Anyway, this was a first class journey representing excellent value for money. A clean coach, friendly driver, professional driving, a cheap fare and lots of space, absolutely impeccable. I’m back to perhaps trusting National Express again and I would use them a lot more if I could expect this sort of service every time.

  • Leicester – Naked Attraction Bus

    Leicester – Naked Attraction Bus

    I’m now in Leicester and some of the local buses have this controversial advertising on. I’m amazed any bus operator let this out, although I know some expressed concern this weekend and most are now busy removing them following a deluge of complaints. It’s very clever from Channel 4, as unless they’re idiots, this was a deliberate campaign to get publicity for their new series of Naked Attraction. But why Arriva Bus let that go out is another matter. That it didn’t occur to them that a child might sit there and be photographed and mocked is bizarre, a media backlash was inevitable even if a large minority (or majority) was amused by it.

    Anyway, at least I’m safely in Leicester.