Tag: St Neots

  • St. Neots – Weeping Ash (JD Wetherspoon)

    St. Neots – Weeping Ash (JD Wetherspoon)

    Richard and I stopped off at the Weeping Ash in St Neots following the LDWA Local Groups’ weekend. It had been a successful few days, although it was fair to say that I was now getting quite tired.

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    Here he is enjoying his coffee. The pub was relatively quiet, but everything felt clean and organised.

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    I went for a pint of the Moose River from Hop Union Brewery, a hoppy, light, fluffy and bouncy beer. Eagle eyed viewers will note that Richard hid his ginger biscuits when he went to explore the pub, he was nervous that someone would scoop them up when they were walking past.

    As for the pub itself, for the rest of this post, I’m going to copy and paste some text from a previous visit, which Liam and I made after I was brave going zip-lining in Wales.

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    The pub’s own text about the venue’s history:

    “This former post office stands on part of what was once a much-admired Victorian garden belonging to the house across the road – the home of William Medland, an important man in St Neots. Bank manager and town commissioner, Medland died in 1872 in his late 60s. His widow lived in the house until the 1890s, when it was bought for the Conservative Club, which is still there. Medland’s garden was well known for its many fine trees and shrubs, particularly for its ‘magnificent weeping ash’.”

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    I have no complaints about the pub, it was clean, well managed and sizeable. The reviews on-line are a little less impressive, with the usual sneering type:

    “It’s full of lads in white trainers and white socks that are really excited but have no idea what their excited about and badly dressed girls”

    Fortunately, we didn’t have white trainers or white socks to avoid clearly offending this customer.

    “They gave me a empty coffee cup without saying I needed to go and fill it up myself like I’m supposed to know this”

    I do see this occasionally, often when the empty coffee cup is traipsed half way across the pub by a staff member, and then the confused customer has to traipse the same distance back to get their drink.

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    I find simple things entertaining, so was very excited to see a new type of coffee machine at a JD Wetherspoons. Now, I accept that I should get out more rather than spend time writing drivel like this, but it pleased me. For £1.20 for unlimited hot drinks, a complete bargain as far as I’m concerned. [I’d add that it’s now £1.81 since I wrote this with the coffee machine no longer being new]

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    It was a little early, but I did get a quick half with my hot drink, just so I could comment on the beer quality. I’m very dedicated to ensuring beer quality, but I do it for very selfless reasons of course. I went for the Jemima’s Pitchfork from the Glamorgan Brewing Co, a not particularly interesting beer, but at least well-kept.

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    The very keenly priced avocado muffin, my new go to breakfast option since the recent price hikes on the traditional breakfast. [I wrote that a couple of years ago As an aside, this menu item isn’t available in many JD Wetherspoons which is sub-optimal from my perspective.]

    Anyway, I’ve visited here a few times, not least my latest visit with Richard this week, along with the food visit with Liam a couple of years ago. It’s towards the lower end of the online reviews for JD Wetherpoon outlets, but it’s always felt well managed when I’ve been before.

  • Sunday : Returning from Daventry via St. Neots

    Sunday : Returning from Daventry via St. Neots

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    Leaving the Mercure in Daventry, which had provided us with a quiet and restful night after the bravery of the previous day. Wetherspoons makes another appearance here, we (technically Liam did most of this) drove to St. Neots to visit the Weeping Ash, which means that I’ve now visited every one of the chain’s outlets in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. Getting to these pubs is often quite challenging for me on public transport and Liam provides an excellent chauffeur for such adventures, I think I will use his car driving services again.

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    Safely arriving into St Neots, a war memorial at Tan Yard, a road named after a tanning yard where cattle hides were made into leather.

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    This piece of land was used as a baptist church, since demolished but some of the graves remain. They’ve made a nice little park area from the site, but it feels sad that the church has been lost, it would have been so important to many people in the nineteenth century.

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    The pub we had come to see, the Weeping Ash. Pinching the text from the company’s web-site about the pub’s history:

    “This former post office stands on part of what was once a much-admired Victorian garden belonging to the house across the road – the home of William Medland, an important man in St Neots. Bank manager and town commissioner, Medland died in 1872 in his late 60s. His widow lived in the house until the 1890s, when it was bought for the Conservative Club, which is still there. Medland’s garden was well known for its many fine trees and shrubs, particularly for its ‘magnificent weeping ash’.”

    20220529_105628

    I have no complaints about the pub, it was clean, well managed and sizeable. The reviews on-line are a little less impressive, with the usual sneering type:

    “It’s full of lads in white trainers and white socks that are really excited but have no idea what their excited about and badly dressed girls”

    Fortunately, we didn’t have white trainers or white socks to avoid clearly offending this customer.

    “They gave me a empty coffee cup without saying I needed to go and fill it up myself like I’m supposed to know this”

    I do see this occasionally, often when the empty coffee cup is traipsed half way across the pub by a staff member, and then the confused customer has to traipse the same distance back to get their drink.

    20220529_110011

    I find simple things entertaining, so was very excited to see a new type of coffee machine at a JD Wetherspoons. Now, I accept that I should get out more rather than spend time writing drivel like this, but it pleased me. For £1.20 for unlimited hot drinks, a complete bargain as far as I’m concerned.

    20220529_110153

    It was a little early, but I did get a quick half with my hot drink, just so I could comment on the beer quality. I’m very dedicated to ensuring beer quality, but I do it for very selfless reasons of course. I went for the Jemima’s Pitchfork from the Glamorgan Brewing Co, a not particularly interesting beer, but at least well-kept.

    20220529_110426

    The very keenly priced avocado muffin, my new go to breakfast option since the recent price hikes on the traditional breakfast.

    And that is pretty much that, a really fun weekend and I won’t mention my bravery on the zip-lining again as I mentioned it once yesterday. Road trips with exciting things like craft beer (or just beer), adventure and Greggs are one of my favourite things, a rare event as I’m nearly always on public transport which is of course also exciting, but a change is good for the soul.

    Thanks to Liam for marvellous company and I’m already looking forward to the next one (although I’m not sure my one or two blog readers can cope with even more bravery comments, but there we go…..). Although I might make him get Untappd for the next trip.