Such a nice little pub

Tandleman writes here about his very positive experience of drinking in the Mill Road area of Cambridge. This is an area of densely-packed Victorian terraced housing that has now been largely taken-over by middle-class residents, but has retained its corner pubs, although they have very much changed in character. He suggests that a large proportion of the population is students, but I would guess that many residents are professional people working in the University and the city’s booming science-based industries.

Areas – and pubs – like this can be found in many of the cathedral cities and university towns across the South and East of England. I was recently in St Albans where the Sopwell district just across the road from the Cathedral is very much like this, with pubs like the Garibaldi and White Hart Tap (pictured). They’re essentially locals, not destination ale shrines, but will offer a variety of beers and are likely to be doing good business even on evenings early in the week. They’ll serve evening meals, provide newspapers and magazines for customers to read, and host a variety of activities such as pub quizzes, folk music and themed food nights.

You don’t really find that kind of thing around here, as the historic pattern of development is different and pubs tend to cluster in local centres rather than in the back streets. Where extensive areas of Victorian terraces do survive, they’re often now largely devoid of pubs. Probably the nearest thing I can think of locally is the Olde Vic in Edgeley, which isn’t really the same, but does have a very different atmosphere from the Castle Street pubs and attracts some of Edgeley’s growing number of middle-class residents.

When done well, this can to my taste provide a very congenial style of pub. But, to those who are used to drinking in that kind of area, it would be a mistake to imagine it is representative of much of the rest of the country.