- by Anthony Walton

This is the story of our village pub. You might complain that it is not a very interesting story but in England, where there is a pub for every seven hundred and fifty inhabitants, every drinking man has “his pub” and when he extols its virtues and takes you reverently to see it you often wonder why.

The Bull stands in the centre of the village of Arborfield, at the cross roads, on the Reading/Farnborough road where the traffic rushes by. It hasn’t any particular significance, but then neither has Arborfield. No battles were fought there, none of the really great was born there, and big events have passed it by but people have lived there, mostly happily and contentedly, since it was an Iron age settlement.

People have been brewing beer from 6,000 B.C., and more people have been drinking it. Caesar’s men found us brewing when they landed and remarked that Britons used vines only for arbours and preferred “to drink a high and mighty liquor different from that of any other nation, made of barley and water which leaves space enough for the performance of any great actions before the spirits are quite vanquished.” Well, I expect they were brewing away at Arborfield too, but not in the present building of the Bull, which is seventeenth century, and it is unlikely that they would have had such a pleasant and comfortable place in which to refresh their spirits.

It is an attractive cream-washed building with some of its timber frame showing. With its red tiled roof it stands out pleasantly against the bright green background. The sign, a large and placid looking bull, hangs over the door to remind us of the days when people couldn’t read and such a pictorial indication of an inn was necessary. Near it is a larger blue sign announcing that it is a “Courage” pub. Most pubs today are owned by one or another of what is sometimes called “The Beerage”.

It was never a famous hostelry, with a court yard that rang to the stamp of horses’ hoofs and the cries of ostlers and post-boys, only a little pub where the people of the village went to diminish their sorrows or tell of their joys. Possibly under the fresh new paint there are splashes of beer to celebrate Waterloo, the relief of Mafeking, the end of the Great War and the defeat of Hitler.

As far as we know Queen Elizabeth never slept there but Queen Victoria did call in to change horses on her way to see the Duke of Wellington at Strathfield Saye. There is no mention of her having supped the ale, but that need not be taken as a reflection on The Bull or its beer as, unlike Queen Elizabeth I, whose “own beer was so strong as there was no man able to drink it” Queen Victoria was not renowned for her fondness for drink.

King George III on the other hand is said to have refreshed himself at Arborfield when chasing a stag through the parish in 1780. It is also said that somewhere near there is a bridle path used by Highwaymen on their way to Southampton, so perhaps they too drank at The Bull.

The Garth Hunt used to meet outside until a few years ago, but now the traffic has become too heavy and the place of hearty red-faced huntsmen has been taken by paler quieter motorists.

In the last century the arrival of the railways, and Victorian snobbery, meant the decline of the public house, though I expect even then the village inn held its own as a local meeting place. In this century the return of road traffic has given country inns a new lease of life and an entirely different aspect. No longer the place where villagers get “drunk for a penny and dead drunk for twopence” they offer good food and company in pleasant surroundings.

The Bull offers a real fire in winter, no plastic electric logs. There are no fancy fittings, it is not done up like “Ye Olde English Tavern” with plastic lanthorns and barmaids in print aprons, and there is no canned music. The proprietor’s wife however makes very good pates and pies and business men call in from distant places at lunchtime to eat them.

Part of the large garden has been turned into a car park - publicans no longer have time to grow vegetables - but there is still some grass for tables and chairs for children to take their coca-cola and crisps and where those that prefer fresh air and a view of the little lambs in the field opposite can drink their beer. Sometimes on a summer evening the local troupe of Morris dancers trip and jingle in the car park in aid of charity, they are folk dance enthusiasts from Reading University.

At the time of the Christmas draw the beer runs fast and free sausages and hot potatoes are served to one and all. The fire burns brightly and the atmosphere gets thick with smoke and joviality, so that it doesn’t really matter if once again you haven’t won a bottle of scotch or a Christmas hamper.

At all times it is a pleasant place to visit after a morning’s gardening - to lean on the bar and view through the little old windows the village green with the war memorial where the old market cross used to stand, Victorian labourers’ cottages on their way up the social scale, and Georgian Gentlemen’s houses going down a bit now that their land has been sold, half-timbered cottages that have stood for 400 years and little modern “town” houses - a microcosm of the changing scene in South East England today. Then if you get tired of the view there is bar-billiards, darts or just talking.

The public house has through the years reflected the changing scene. The Church, whose monks brought the first wine to England, gave us our first inns, for pilgrims to rest in and replenish themselves. Then in the 17th Century the thin ale of the middle ages gave place to strong beer, and England’s Inns became renowned as unique in the world. The inhabitants appreciated them too. England was reported to be full of “maultworms”, the term at the time for the modern “bar-fly”.

A successful inn is one that grows into the times, patched and altered and added to over the centuries. It is a commercial undertaking so it always reflects the tastes of the day, and if it is to survive it must be the way people want it.

The Bull has changed with the years - but not too much. There is no juke-box or one armed bandits, only a fire, good food, conversation, darts and bar billiards, just the way the people want it. In many ways it reflects the changes in our lives. The old “public” “saloon” and “lounge” is now one big bar where all meet and talk on equal terms, and there are no squires or country bumpkins.

The front door, on a busy road, is bricked up and the entrance is at the back through the car park. This would have been frowned on in the last century as it was thought to encourage women and children and the criminal riff-raff to have a door at the back of a pub, so in many ways the changes it reflects are for the good.

About tomorrow we can only guess. Perhaps there will be no village communities and all will be one vast urban area. Or maybe the high-rise flats and modern houses will fall and the old timber-frame buildings will remain. Could traffic leave the roads and take to the air so that, apart from an overhead buzz, the British countryside would be peaceful again and The Bull could once more open its front door?

Personally I rather hope that everything will stay just as it is, but that I fear is hardly possible and perhaps not even desirable.

- written by Anthony Walton May/June 1975

With acknowledgements to:

Berkshire Media ('Reading Mercury' and 'Berkshire Mercury').

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Memories - Anthony Walton on the 'Bull'

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