The Oak & Ivy is a back street pub in Burton that breaks my main rule - I've never been inside it!
We occasionally visit Burton and, as the canal is a way from the centre we pass quite a few pubs before we get into town. Before going digital I was quite frugal and, generally, only took pictures of the pubs we went in.
I'm not 100% sure what happened at lunchtime on Monday 1st September 1997, though. I suspect that we were going to go in, but found that they didn't do food and so moved on...after I taken the photo! It was the day after Princess Diana died, so everything that week was strange!
Although we'd been back to Burton in the meantime, my next picture of The Oak & Ivy was taken on the evening of Friday 3rd April 2015 (Good Friday)
On this occasion, we'd moored at Shobnall Basin giving us a different route into the town and quite a few pubs to pass by. Sadly, it's a sign of advancing years that we can't stop off for several beers and still manage to eat afterwards - it is something of an either/or situation with food always winning!
Unsurprisingly, The Oak & Ivy had been completely refurbished externally over the passing 18 years. Back in 1997 it looked to be a typical Marston's pub of that era. Namely, a basic boozer with no frills; I seem to recall that, back then, all Marston's pubs were bog-standard boozers!
I'm not sure when, but Marston's seemed to have something of a corporate epiphany and, in more recent years, they have tended to go a bit more up market in their refurbishments.
I did the Oak & Ivy with the wife on the 31st May 1986 while doing one of many pub crawls in the town.
ReplyDeleteLoads of proper pubs in the town but it was better when there was Marstons,Bass and Ind Coope to give a bit of choice.
With us it is always beer over food,we used to have a meal in Nottingham on our wedding anniversary but gave up after not being able to drink afterwards.