The first time I visited the Fleur-de-Lys was sometime in the 1980's and made occasional visits subsequently by car as it was a very good country pub. It is also the original home of the Fleur-de-Lys pie, but the rights were sold on many years ago. Once we had moved our boat back down to the Midlands the Fleur-de-Lys became a regular stop on our annual canal trip to Stratford. The first of these was on the evening of Thursday 4th April 1996.
As we've visited almost every year since it would be fair to say that externally, little has changed, but it has gone from being a country pub that did good meals to become, essentially a restaurant that serves beer!
Here it is at lunchtime on Easter Sunday 23rd April 2000.
Below is from 2002. This year I do remember! We visited at lunchtime on Easter Monday 1st April 2002 and they'd run out of bread, so we couldn't get a sandwich! We caught a taxi to Henley-in-Arden instead! It was also around this time that it became a completely non-smoking establishment, long before the nationwide ban came into force.
This shows the view of the pub garden from the canal.
Next we move on to lunchtime on Easter Monday 17th April 2006. Not much has changed apart from the exotic plantation at the front!
We visit every year on our trip to Stratford and back, not because we love the place (far from it) but because there are only a limited number of pubs along the way and the food is good, if a bit pricey!
Here it is at lunchtime on Monday 2nd May 2011. (This year we travelled a little later to take advantage of the Royal Wedding Bank Holiday!), both as the original photo I took and as converted into 'art'!
It is interesting to note that the exotic plantation is looking a bit threadbare with only the mini palm tree surviving.
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