Monkey House, Cider Pub

That the one near Defford?

If it is, no it doesn't do food.

Yes Ronald John Saunders

No food at all, I would have thought. It's not so much a pub as a licensed lean-to next to a thatched cottage. You buy your cider from a hatch and go and sit either in another outbuilding (a former bakery I'm told), simply furnished with plain tables and chairs or on a nice day you can sit on benches outside and look at the ponies in the paddock at the front of the pub (or at least you coul on my last visit about 4 years ago).

I didn't think much to the cider (it was apaprently a 'house special' from Bulmers but since they don't do this any more, it could have improved) - the experience, though, of visiting and drinking at this unique survivor was superb.

John C

I think there was rumour circulating a while back that they did crisps and peanuts...

And they have a sign emphasising that they don't take euros.

No surprise there.

I went today - locals drinking from china mugs - how many decades do you have to attend to qualify?

Many in an advanced state of decrepitude, presumably brought on by consuming the cider.

Actually, the pint of Dry I had was OK, and at £1.65 fairly economical.

Definitely worth a visit before it is shut down or "improved", but don't expect any creature comforts. Didn't see any crisps or nuts.

Ian

There are few "unimproved"/classic pubs left - for cider I know of the 3 Tuns in Hay-on-Wye. for beer - there's the Dyffryn Arms Gwaun Valley, Dyfed., and I've heard the Red Lion Llandovery (though I've not been there yet)

- there's more to a pubs "unspoilt" ambiance, than.just a heritage interior, though that is of course still worth preserving.

see "Quest for the Perfect Pub" (1987?) by the Hurt brothers for an already diminishing list of contenders;

- and there's the original list - which sadly seems no longer available on the internet; the author rated the Sun at Clungunford as the top pub.

do folk here have any recommendations?

Is it not the Sun at Leintwardine? (which AFAIK is still trading)

--

It must be, I would have thought. The Sun is perhaps the ultimate unpoilt country pub. The landlady is ancient and it must be surely doomed to extinction when she gives up.

John C

Worth checking these postings from 1997...

In message , IanR writes

Or maybe its just the extreme age cider lets them survive to ;)

Sorry, you're right. Does anyone have the list?

I did get to the Hop Pole (Bert's) before his demise.

Nah. Dead already - it's just the bugs won't go near the cider so they don't rot :-)

Hmmm. I wonder if MH is reading this...

See the link I posted earlier.

Oh, I remember the Hop Pole - mostly derelict with just one room operating and that furnished with old bus seats. Beer was terrible but what a pub!

Anyone remember the Cupids Hill Inn - luxury compared to the Hop Pole but still pretty basic. The landlord was the local undertaker and when he died he was buried in his hand made steel (yup, steel) coffin!

John C

While we're on the subject of strange pubs, the C18th Limeburner's Arms in Nether Kellet near Carnforth in Lancahire is well worth a detour. The opening hours are haphazard but if it's open there's one room, almost entirely unaltered since it was someone's living room, and a tiny serving hatch through which you are attended by the elderly owner. Bitter, and a couple of whiskies, and that's your lot.

If you're heading up to the Lake District from the south it's only a mile or two off the motorway.

Pictures of the Hop Pole and Bert here...

Interestingly, it was in the Good Beer Guide at the time. A case of sentiment getting the better of rational judgment?

A single unisex WC accessed via the garden, too :-)

--

found it!

and a view, one summer's eve ooh the nostalgia! - this was after he'd been ill and the pub only opened Friday eve & the beer wasbrought up from Hereford by an (ex?) Bulmers rep!

Sadly I missed this unique setting!