#287 The Boat Inn, Thrupp, Oxfordshire : 1998 to 2021

 We're back on the Oxford Canal and another pub that has hardly seems to have changed over the years, but look a little closer and you'll find the differences!

The Boat in Thrupp has appeared in "Inspector Morse" and there is a 'Morse Room' with pictures from the episode on the walls. Our first visit was at lunchtime on Friday 4th September 1998.

Back in 1998 it was still a quite upmarket dining pub, but still a pub nonetheless. It was a Morrell's pub, but research indicates that 1998 was the year that the brewery closed (after a family dispute) and the tied houses were bought by an American entrepreneur.

We didn't return until the evening of Sunday 28th July 2019 - on the surface it was largely unchanged.

However, on closer inspection you can see that it is now The Boat Inn and is a Greene King pub! After 19 years, I don't recall how much it had changed inside (not a lot probably), but it was definitely more of a restaurant than a pub.

Our most recent visit was another evening session on Saturday 22nd May 2021.

This picture better shows the changes from 1998 which, apart from the signage, are quite minimal. We were lucky to get a mooring close to the pub as, on the way down to Oxford there was no room at all, but on our return we managed to get a spot close enough that even I couldn't moan about the walk to the pub!

Yes, that's our vessel...the good ship Peggy Ellen...moored as close as you can get to The Boat Inn!

It will be a good number of years before we're back here as Peggy Ellen is moving back to Kings Bromley Marina in a few weeks time making journeys down the Oxford Canal less likely!

#226 Hare & Hounds, Minworth, West Midlands : 1986 to 2016

Our first visit to the Hare & Hounds at Minworth was on the evening of Wednesday 30th July 1986...the first year that I took a picture of every pub we visited.

As I recall it was a fairly large Ansell's pub split into a Lounge and a Bar - a common enough arrangement in those days.

With our boat, Emma Jane, being moored 'Up North' and the 'Darn Sarf' for a few years, we didn't return to the Hare & Hounds until the evening of Tuesday 5th September 1995 as part of her return journey to the Midlands.

And what a change it had undergone in the passing 9 years - it was now a Mr Q's Pool Lounge! Inside there were a large number of pool tables of varying sizes and shapes! It was still an Ansell's pub.

This experience put us off returning until the evening of Sunday 14th June 2015 - a gap of almost 20 years!

In all honesty, if The Boat (#180) had done food on a Sunday evening, we wouldn't have needed to leave and visit the Hare & Hounds at all. I'm glad we did because the Hare & Hounds was now a pub restaurant which caters for both drinkers and diners and, most importantly, they were still serving food for us!

It was no longer an Ansell's pub and the Wacky Warehouse is now Fuzzy Ed's Fun House (not that we went to either!)

We returned just 12 months later on the evening of Sunday 12th June 2016.

This time we were even later getting there, but the staff were great and we got food even though they had, technically finished serving. Excellent service, which is all too infrequent as we travel the canals.

As I was doing a bit of research to see who owns the pub, I discovered that it has changed again into a Sizzling Pub & Grill which is one of the brands of Mitchell's & Butler's. Hopefully they will maintain the excellent service levels.

 

#207 The Boat, Penkridge, Staffordshire : 1991 to 2016

Our first experience of The Boat was back in 1981 on my second ever narrowboat journey. This turned into an epic trip because the lock flight at Audlem was closed and we had to travel for at least 12 hours per day for three days to get to Birmingham for our scheduled rendezvous. Our normal day would have been 8 hours max.

At lunchtime on Friday 14th August 1981 on this trip we were passing through the lock adjacent to the pub and it was my job to get a pint for each crew member as we didn't have time to actually stop. These were consumed as we passed through the lock and the glasses returned before we were on our way again.

We didn't pass this way again for many years and the location of this event became somewhat of a mystery until the evening of Sunday 28th July 1991 when we once again passed through the lock and moored up at Penkridge.

Sadly not my best photo. I don't really remember much about it inside, probably not unrelated to the fact that it was our last port of call for the evening!

Emma Jane then spent a few years on the Southern Grand Union Canal, but we were back at The Boat at lunchtime on Wednesday 29th May 1996.

I took this picture to give the view from the lock, but it doesn't give any idea of changes that may (or may not) have taken place.

The next visit was on the evening of Monday 25th August 2003 and again, it is a poor picture as it was our last stop of the night having gone into the village first.

The exterior signage had changed over the seven years we'd been away.

We were back again at lunchtime on Tuesday 1st June 2010 and, as you can guess, it was a World Cup year...just before England's dismal failure in South Africa!

It was during this visit that I remember finding the interior somewhat sparse and not particularly welcoming, not helped by the lack of clientele.

We were back again just over a year later on the evening of Sunday 4th September 2011.

Not sure whether we actually went inside, but I made it a point to take the picture before setting off for the village! It looks so much better without the England flags!

Our next foray into Penkridge came on the evening of Wednesday 10th June 2015.

Again we used it as our last port of call, but now I have a digital camera (and more technical proficiency!) so I can manage to get much better night time shots. Enough to be able to see that the exterior signage had again changed.

Finally, our most recent visit to Penkridge was on the afternoon of Saturday 6th August 2016 and we were just passing through so I took this shot as I was working the lock.

It is good to see that The Boat continues to survive. It has the perfect location for warm summer days and must generate enough trade during the rest of the year to keep going. For more details their website is here. 

#180 The Boat, Minworth, West Midlands : 1986 to 2015

In the early 1980's The Boat was, technically, my local pub as I lived just around the corner in Minworth for a few months. It sits at the side of the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal and is the last, reasonably safe, overnight mooring before the centre of Birmingham. Over the years, we have been intermittent visitors having passed by more times than we've stopped.

Our first ever boating visit to The Boat was on the evening of Sunday 22nd August 1982, but sadly there's no pictorial record of the visit. I do, however, have a photo taken the next day as we made our way down the windswept Curdworth Locks.

Our next visit to The Boat was in the year that I'd decided to start taking a picture of each pub we visited. This was on the evening of Wednesday 30th July 1986.

Back in those days it had a cosy lounge and a fairly standard bar with pool table and dart board, but (as I recall) didn't do food.

Our boat, Emma Jane, moved away from the Midlands for a number of years and so we didn't stop there again until the evening of Tuesday 5th September 1995, close to the end of the journey bringing Emma Jane back to the Midlands.

On the outside, a complete transformation from a fairly standard Ansells pub into a 'Big Steak' pub!

We returned less than a year later, on the lunchtime of Friday 31st May 1996. This was a pit-stop on an 'epic' journey that took us from Fazeley Junction to Catherine-de-Barnes on the Grand Union Canal in a day (10 hours 20 minutes travelling time!).

Even in just 9 months, part of the exterior signage had disappeared and the paint was starting to peel!

It took us another 10 years before we came back to The Boat. This was mainly because we'd worked out that we could travel from Birmingham city centre to The Kingsley or Curdworth in a day's boating so we sailed on by The Boat on many occasions.

This was at lunchtime on Thursday 8th June 2006 and we still made it into the centre of Birmingham by evening - a 5 hour journey! Another complete transformation of the outside of the pub including a small extension at the front.

We returned at lunchtime on Thursday 6th June 2010 as part of what was, essentially, a repeat of our 2006 journey - this time it took us 5 hours 20 minutes to get into Birmingham!

Not too much of a change apart from the sheltered smoking area that has been added.

This next picture was taken on the afternoon of Sunday 11th May 2014 as I happened to be in the area following a Craft Fair at the Brook Marston Hotel. (There seemed to be little likelihood of us stopping here in the near future, so I thought I'd add a photo to the collection.)

Yet another external transformation. The smoking area remained, but the new extension has been radically altered.

Having predicted that we wouldn't be stopping here in the near future, our next visit was on the evening of Sunday 14th June 2015.

 Little change in a year. The internal layout of The Boat has hardly changed over the years, but it has been refurbished several times. The Boat has its own website and will hopefully be able to survive as a proper pub that does some food. 

#072 Newbold Crown, Newbold-on-Avon, Warks : 2005 to 2011

Believe it or not, we've visited Newbold-on-Avon many times on our canal trips (including my first ever trip in 1980!), but it wasn't until 2005 that we ventured beyond the Boat and Barley Mow (#053) and discovered the Newbold Crown!

It is a fairly standard estate/village pub that was quite welcoming on our visits. This first encounter was at lunchtime on Tuesday 31st May 2005 on a trip to take our boat to Nuneaton for repairs.

Our next visit was on the evening of Monday 30th May 2011. As we'd stopped quite early, we decided to have a bit of a pub crawl around Newbold-on-Avon. This meant revisiting the Newbold Crown for the first time in 6 years - and it had hardly changed. It is still a friendly local, but as we were there early in the evening it was fairly quiet (and it was a Monday!)

There's not much more to add, except that it is listed on the local CAMRA website.