Priceless tradition safe here

Jan 18 2008 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

DESPITE what social commentators believe, the gap between North-East tradition and the culture of celebrity remains poles apart.

Questionnaires in the weekend glossies grill soap stars and pop idols on their first kiss; what keeps them awake at night; have they ever said I love you and not meant it... and so on. In Durham they do things differently. Seated along the bench at the window end of the Half Moon Inn on New Elvet, three gentlemen in cloth caps sit, arms folded, side-by-side-by-side, conversing perfectly happily but looking straight ahead in the curious configuration that signals great friendships and utter trust.

No first kisses or insomnia secrets here. The statement being considered is: “You always remember the name of your first pit pony.”

“Mine was Mick,” says one. “Mine was Bert,” says another, before swigging contentedly from his pint, little finger pointing skywards to show he may have been a miner but he knows posh. It’s a perfect example that the fundamental will be with us long after vacuous questions are forgotten.

The Half Moon is the second stop on our four-berth Durham City Ale Trail. We could have made it longer and taken more time, but there are detours aplenty to individualise it.

Silver Street and Market Square are ever-crowded, so the Shakespeare on Saddler Street is a haven. Built in 1109, records show that in 1468 it was an inn called the Ostler and Groom. It is reputed to be one of the most haunted pubs in England.

Unfortunately, the bar, door and radiators are decked out in a particularly horrific shade of purple – the fittings that are left, that is, as several “improvements” over recent years have removed seating and partitions. The colour could be something to do with attracting students, but it’s a bit like trying too hard to please. Certainly, there’s an argument for introducing touches of modernity and self-expression into a traditional, almost time-warped, atmosphere, but using garish palettes is the equivalent of shuddering at your dad dancing to Status Quo.

Nevertheless, the Shakespeare is a great little pub, a cracking boozer. There aren’t many left like it and we really should treasure those oases that remain and cloak them in preservation orders before they’re transformed into Johnny Ringo’s Sports Bar or some-such.

Well-worn natural floorboards echoing a wooden-slatted painted ceiling add to the charm, as does the high-backed pew-style benching and ancient stained-glass windows. But the real sonnets in the Shakespeare are the two rooms at the rear. One is barely large enough for a table and a couple of stools, but the other is a wood-drenched glory which throbs with animated conversation at busy times but can appear quite library-like on damp Monday lunchtimes.

Beer-wise, it’s Deuchars IPA from Edinburgh, Old Speckled Hen from East Anglia, Fullers London Pride and Holts Upright (Manchester). These are fine enough beers, but nationally available. On our shift, more than half of the customers were visitors rather than regulars (gawps and gasps and indecision are the giveaway).

Surely we should be offering something from Durham to satisfy them (Hill Island Brewery operates two minutes’ walk away on the river bank and the long-established, award-winning Durham Brewery is so highly-regarded that you’d be confident tourists would take their leave with positive images). The short-sighted attitude of some pub companies is dispiriting in its similarity to that of the supermarket sector where there is loads to choose from, but no freedom of choice.

Perhaps it’s the reason Will Shakespeare looks so miserable on the pub’s swinging sign.

The Half Moon on New Elvet is brightly lit, sparkling and cheerful. It’s a century old this year but is obviously well cared for with the atmosphere and tidiness that only long-established, old-fashioned publicans can muster (the current management has apparently been in charge for more than 25 years). Its L-shaped front bar opens out into a lounge which doubles as a restaurant and trebles as a televised sports venue. It features an unusual mahogany bar counter and high-set glazed cupboards. A beer garden to the rear in the shadow of Elvet Bridge overlooks the river. The pub is big enough to be airy but small enough to be comfortable, a difficult trick to pull off. The bar, happily, seems to be content as a bar and conducive enough to initiate conversation of the pitmatic tongue. Draught Bass and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord are immediate beer choices, but again a little local selection wouldn’t go amiss.

The Victoria on Hallgarth Street hasn’t changed much since architect Joseph Oswald designed it in 1899. The pub is rightly on the Campaign For Real Ale (Camra) National Inventory of pubs to be protected. But words such as gem, unique, sublime and exceptional would be verbal wallpaper were it not for its superbly-kept beer and fine range of spirits – Irish whiskey a speciality.

A well-banked blaze tattoos corned-beef legs on those who settle too close to the black-leaded, tiled fireplace. The ancient till registering pounds, shillings and pence shimmers with Brasso bravado. Her Majesty herself surveys the scene through countless prints, porcelain figurines and Toby jugs dedicated to our longest-reigning monarch and her beloved Prince Albert.

On a shelf, a herd of ornamental elephants march trunk-to-tail on Serengeti duty. Fading photographs of pub regulars animate the walls along with the Miners’ Gala, highland cattle, stags and swooping eagles wherever V&A have abdicated space.

Mordue Five Bridge Bitter, Durham White Wopper, Big Lamp Bitter and Big Lamp Old Arthur – “light and fruity” – represent the North-East as they should. Off the bar are the lounge, the sitting room (known to staff as the front room and the back room) and a tiny family department which served as an off-sales counter and a snug where women could slip in and sit unnoticed and incognito behind a cut-glass partition and timber wainscot.

The Victoria’s owner Michael Webster is fond of describing it as a village pub but part of the city which attracts a good mixture of people from all walks of life. This and the Shakespeare are outstanding examples of the priceless tradition that is the great British pub. Camra is constantly concerned that valuable assets are being compromised by being gutted, sometimes to be replaced with reproduction “historic” interiors. While recognising that pubs have to survive in a commercially-pressured world, change for change’s sake and short-sighted gimmickry aren’t the way forward.

Perhaps the “youngest” part of our ale trail is Kingsgate Bridge, the sweeping, 1963 concrete structure spanning the Wear. It was designed by architect Ove Arup, the engineering designer on the Sydney Opera House. His ashes were scattered from the bridge in 1988. A peaceful stroll along North Bailey follows, then it’s down a wooded path and over Prebends Bridge to the opposite river bank and along the tree-canopied walk to soak up that classic view of Durham Cathedral rising mightily above the weir on the Wear.

No traffic sounds, only birdsong and rushing water. Joggers hirple by, dog walkers pad past, a cyclist claims right of way, a cormorant hangs out its wings to dry and a couple hug and peck on a damp bench. On the grassy bank an abandoned silver-coloured sandal confirms our theory that wherever you walk in this country – beach, moorland, fell, forest, field or farm track – you’ll invariably find a single shoe.

The Colpitts Hotel is a brilliant, basic, unsophisticated, two to three-roomed street corner pub. The fireplace in the bar tinkles in front of the bonny, curved and panelled 1890 bar which runs into the attractive next-door lounge, past the tiled entrance lobby. The beer choice is a touch restricted and offers not much more than Sam Smith’s Old Brewery Bitter (and is it always £1.28 a pint?). But that doesn’t detract one jot from the pleasure of sitting on a firmly upholstered bench, relaxing and letting Sam Smith do some lip-loosening. A regular reminisces about the local pubs he believes are still worthwhile patronising.

“The Half Moon was so popular in the 1970s and 80s you had to pay to get in,” he says. His conversation is directed at landlady Carol Brown who replies that she can remember having to lock the Colpitts door at 9.30pm because there were so many in. “You don’t even see anybody in the street at 9.30 now,” she sighs.

The Colpitts’ purples and browns are more muted than those at the Shakespeare and the combination seems entirely justified here. Decoration is minimal, restricted to one or two prints of local scenes, though the gantry behind the bar crammed with optics and objets d’art creates an interesting focal point. Its bare floorboards shine with TLC; the Gents is immaculate, and a tiny pool room lies at rest along the passage.

A party of half-a-dozen troops in; its “leader” waits for the stragglers to reform before he takes a deep breath to announce: “Best pub in the world”.

He probably says “I love you” and means it, too.

alastair.gilmour@ncjmedia.co.uk