#283 Boat Inn, Birdingbury Wharf, Warwickshire : 1998 to 2020

In these dark days of a winter lockdown it is hard to remain optimistic and upbeat about pubs in the knowledge/expectation that many will not survive into the post apocalyptic pandemic future.

However, I still have a few new pubs left to report on, so I'll start off the new year with the Boat Inn on the Grand Union Canal. It is a pub we'd passed on many occasions until lunchtime on Thursday 25th June 1998.

I have little recollection about the interior except that I vaguely remember it being quite cosy and having part of a narrowboat hull as the bar counter.

Our next stop was almost two years later on the evening of Sunday 28th May 2000.

Although it was only a couple of years, the Bass sign had disappeared, no doubt as part of the exterior redecoration.

Another nine years had gone by before I took this photo of the Boat Inn as we cruised by on the afternoon of Sunday 24th May 2009 on our way to Braunston for our evening stop.

This was post the 2007 Smoking Ban so there were many more tables outside. Also the pub name had reappeared on the signage.

Another couple of years drifted by and we passed the Boat Inn, again, on the afternoon of Sunday 29th May 2011, headed for Napton (having lunched at the Two Boats in Long Itchington!)

Fewer outdoor tables and the pub sign had changed to just The Boat in a style evocative of the Bass sign that was previously there.

Along this stretch of the Grand Union Canal, our preferred stop is at the Two Boats in Long Itchington, leaving both the Blue Lias and Boat Inn as under visited establishments.

Our next cruise by was on the morning of Wednesday 12th June 2019 being too early to stop for lunch having left Wigrams Turn Marina only 90 minutes earlier.

Yet again the main sign has changed, reverting back to the Boat Inn and there are now gazebos above the outdoor seating.

Our final vist was, in fact, an actual stop at the pub at lunchtime on Saturday 22nd August 2020. This time we'd been a little later leaving the marina!

The signage was unaltered and we had a pleasant lunch despite not having booked in advance, they managed to squeeze us in after other customers had finished.

 

As a pub with little natural footfall, it will be interesting to see whether it survives the pandemic.