Berkshire - Pubs and Inns with a literary connection

The middle section of the Stag and Hounds dates from the 14th century and was a Royal hunting lodge used by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The latter is said to have watched maypole dancing on the triangular green outside whilst sitting at one of the inn windows. The inn stands at the centre of what was the old Windsor forest and was said to be the headquarters of the Royal gamekeepers. An eight hundred year old tree - the ‘Centre Elm’ - once stood outside. This was ravaged by Dutch Elm Disease in the 1970s and the sad hollow trunk remained for many years until inexplicably removed in 2003.
The lodge became a coaching inn in 1727 and, nearly a century later, on November 9th 1822, William Cobbet passed this way on one of his Rural Rides. He recorded: "When you get through the park you come to Winkfield, and then (bound for Reading) you go through Binfield, which is ten miles from Egham and as many from Reading. At Binfield I stopped to breakfast, at a very nice country inn called the Stag and Hounds".
Sir Terence Rattigan was one of Britain’s most successful dramatists whose works include: ‘The Winslow Boy’ (1946), ‘The Browning Version’ (1948), ‘The Deep Blue Sea' (1952), and ‘Separate Tables’ (1954). ‘The Deep Blue Sea’ opens with the failed suicide of Hester Collyer, who has deserted her husband for the raffish charms of an alcoholic ex-fighter pilot. The inspiration for the play actually came from the successful suicide of one of the author’s numerous homosexual lovers. Rattigan completed a third draft in early 1951, in an upstairs room here at the Stag & Hounds – provided for him by the landlords, Mr and Mrs Newport, to whom he eventually dedicated the work. A sign board in the bar states that he also worked here on his much acclaimed ‘Separate Tables’.
To the left inside the front door is a spacious Georgian drawing room/library. But, unless you are less than 5’ 6" tall, you will have to be very careful exploring the wonderful low-beamed interconnecting rooms that lead off from the main bar on the right. The beer is first class and the food is good enough to pack the pub to the rafters most evenings of the week.

The Bear at Hungerford is an 18th century coaching inn with 19th century additions but it is built on much earlier foundations dating back to the 13th century. Standing on what has been called "the Crossroads of England" the original inn witnessed many famous and infamous events. At one point the estate was owned by the crown and visited by more Kings and Queens than you could shake a sceptre at.
The two most famous diarists of the 17th Century, John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys both stayed here and were impressed by the quality of the fish. In 1688 Pepys undertook a mini-tour of the west country and his diary entry for 10th june records:
"So forth towards Hungerford, led this good way by our landlord, one Heart, an old but very civil and well-spoken man, more than I ever heard, of his quality. He gone, we forward; and I vexed at my people's not minding the way. So come to Hungerford, where very good trouts, eels, and crayfish".
In more modern times Evelyn Waugh and Dennis Wheatley were among the regulars. In Wheatley’s 1930’s novel The Devil Rides Out his principal characters race out of London in the fastest and most expensive cars of the period and roar through the night to darkest Wiltshire in an attempt to disrupt a ceremony on Salisbury Plain in which Satan himself appears.
Passing through Hungerford we see his hero Rex van Ryn: "…scanning the houses of the market town for its most prosperous-looking inn and mentally registering The Bear", which soon afterwards becomes the communication link and rendezvous point with his friend the Duc de Richleau. "At 8.22. Rex had sunk his second tankard of good Berkshire ale and took up his position in the doorway of The Bear to watch for the Duke". "At 8.37. De Richleau's Hidivo roared into Hungerford, and Rex, who had resumed his position in the doorway of The Bear, ran out to meet it. 'Any messages?' the Duke asked as he scrambled in".
The Bear has a decorous period atmosphere. The beer is good and the food is varied, plentiful and reasonably priced. In the garden there is a tiny green island, surrounded by streams, reached by a wooden bridge. A large weeping willow stands beside the briskly flowing little River Dunn which supplied Pepys’s trout, eel and crayfish.

To the left in the photograph, standing next door to The Swan, you can see the flank wall and chimney of a former labourer's cottage. A plaque on the front of this cottage reads: ‘Mary Russell Mitford, Dramatist, Poet, Essayist lived here 1820 – 1851 and wrote most of her works including Our Village.
For most of her life, Mary Russell Mitford, Berkshire's greatest author, lived here with her parents. She had been reduced to these cramped conditions after her father had gambled away all their money. Her most famous work ‘Our Village’, is a sympathetic and intimate book based on rural life during the mid 1800s.’ Three Mile Cross’ becomes ‘Cranford’ and the ‘Swan’ features as the ‘Rose’. The opening passage offers a tempting invitation: "Will you walk with me through our village, courteous reader? The journey is not long…"
The villagers, their homes and businesses are all described in loving detail and, as we proceed along the: "long, straggling, winding street… always abounding in carts, horsemen, and carriages” We arrive at: “the Rose Inn: a white-washed building, retired from the road behind its fine swinging sign, with a little bow-window room coming out on one side, and forming, with our stable on the other, a sort of open square, which is the constant resort of carts, wagons, and return chaises. There are two carts there now, and mine host is serving them with beer in his eternal red waistcoat. He is a thriving man and a portly, as his waistcoat attests, which has been twice let out within this twelvemonth". Today the Swan is a friendly, well run, good value traditional pub. The cosy, beamed interior is divided into comfortable pubby dining areas decorated with a pleasing jumble of artifacts and prints. Now incorporated as part of the pub is the "little bow-window room coming out on one side" seen in the photograph which was once the blacksmith’s forge. There is a striking marble profile of a Victorian lady on the front of the pub which the present landlord bought at auction because he thought it seemed appropriate. To the rear is an extensive car park, garden and barbeque area with cabin-like open fronted kennels where enormous Irish Wolfhounds lounge on sofas and easy chairs.

Copyright T.W. Townsend - the opinions expressed herein are those of the author and any observations were correct at the time of the review.