The Fishpool at Cotebrook – what lies beneath?
Listening to my old CB radio tuned into transmissions from the Shire, all the talk during Feb was of the newly-reopened Fishpool Inn. After being practically demolished and rebuilt again to the tune of nearly three million Cheshire poooonds, the Delamere pub was finally ready to reopen. The chattering classes of Cheshire love nothing better than the opening of a new gastro pub, much to Lumpman Joe’s disgust, especially by the folk who run the vaunted Pheasant at Burwardsley. Indeed, according to reports from the Francis family they’ve been attending in droves. When my sister tried to secure a table on a Wednesday night, she was told the 140 capacity venue was already fully booked for the evening. My dad fared somewhat better and managed to get a table on a Monday night. But while he admitted the Beef and Weetwood ale was delectable, he did feel some regret that the old Fishpool’s warren of small rooms had been gutted to maximise the number of gourmands through the door. On the Weetwood front there were three pumps with Weetwood clips (naturally Cat, Bitter and Eastgate), only the Cat (or Lady Weetwood as it is known) was on though, while the rest of the ales came from Congleton-based Beartown brewery.
I haven’t been to the Fishpool in years but apparently according to our old neighbour Mrs Mills, Old Farrell the farm labourer who once lived in our house, used to cycle to the Fishpool most nights cross country through Primrose Wood. He sounds like a kind of proto-Fran and I’ll have to see if the route still exists.
The panopticon that is facebook tells me that comrades Nehrman and Baldwin managed to book a table on a Friday night. I presume they did a full review complete with ratings and it’ll be shortly winging its way in the post to me.
T’House – T’refurb
As one pub re-opens another one is set to close for refurbishment...but this is no ordinary Cheshire boozer but the legendary home of C4Lf – the Farmer’s aka T’House at Top. You can imagine the dread that filled my heart when this news was reported to me by Bobby D, who’s always good for a bit of reconnaissance. So without further ado, I high-tailed it back to Cheshire, putting my attempts to end London-rule from the inside on hold for a while, to pay a visit to T’House and the find out the truth behind these rumoured refurbishments.
As I entered through the back door on a Friday night, past the Tiki-Smoking hut installed during the Craig and Debbie years, my mind was filled with monstrous visions of the like experienced by legendary Cheshire Prophet Robert Nixon. What would the newly refurbed T’House become? An Alpine ski lodge theme (with Little Switzerland so close it seems appropriate), a Chicago pizza joint themed around the 1930s gargantuan gangster Colossomo, a white cube expunged of all atmosphere (aka the Crown in Tarporley) – the horror, the horror!
My fears were not allayed by the beer selection. When I asked “What Weetwood have you got on?” the young chap behind the bar replied, “The Best!” And he didn’t mean it in a Keith and Linda 2001, ‘the Best means Old Dog and the Second Best means Eastgate’, kinda way. He meant that the Best in a, ‘you’ll be drinking 3.8% bitter for the rest of the evening’ sense. If Tone had been there she’d have punched me in the face for putting her in such a predicament.
I then asked the youthful gent, who I presumed to be the landlord (it’s the T’House anything is possible), what the plans for the fabled renovation were. He said the best person to answer that was the silver-haired gent who had just come into view at the other end of the bar – Pete the new landlord.
After being joined by Ben, Amy and a tardy El Presidente, who’d been out earlier in the day getting his BCG redone, and after several pints of Best (which despite being 3.8% was starting to have an effect), I ambled over to Pete and asked him what his plans were. Turns out Pete has worked around the Chester Pub circuit for many a year and is most famed for the Cherry Orchard near the Peacock in Chester, which according to my dad was renowned for its hearty home-cooked food.
From what I could gather Pete plans to brick up the bar in the backroom and serve beer through a hatch. The pool table will then be moved into the backroom and a real fire will be installed in the snug. They’ll also be new carpets and curtains. Although this will almost certainly getting rid of some of T’House dank (“You ain’t thinking of getting rid of the dank are you Mo?” “What if I am?” “Oh but Mo – the dank! The dank!”), it doesn’t sound too bad.
In some ways restoring T’House to how it was originally built, and not thankfully whacking in a load of pineflooring and gastrophying the place like the Oak or the Binning could be a good thing. To fill Pete in on the Farmer’s noble past I give him a copy of Weaver’s completely factually accurate article on the history of the T’House, which he seemed generally interested in. Of course he hadn’t read it at the time and probably as I write this a list of barred names including – D. Hodcarrier, Breechies Wherries and the Iron Giant is pinned up beside the bar.
However, the more immediate change that Pete has brought about, which I’m pleased to report, was that on Friday 23.02.2013 the Farmers was the busiest I’ve seen it in years. And it wasn’t just filled with scooter-riding hoodlems high on goof balls and dog bombs (although they of course have their place in T’House’s rich ecosystem). The bar area was two rows deep with a crowd of good old Cheshire boys, who have seemingly returned to T’House in droves now that a fellow silverback is in charge. And it made for quite an atmosphere, just look at those ratings:
Ben
|
Amy
|
Fran
|
Weave
|
Mean
| |
Decor
|
4
|
2
|
5
|
5
|
4.0
|
Atmos
|
4
|
4.5
|
5
|
5
|
4.6
|
Booze
|
2.5
|
1
|
2.5
|
5
|
2.8
|
Clientelle
|
3.5
|
3.5
|
5
|
5
|
4.3
|
COB
|
2
|
2
|
3
|
5
|
3.0
|
Overall
|
3.7
|
Even the ever cynical eye of pedantic Ben giving the atmosphere a mighty four. And why not as it was quiz night at the T’House. For those keeping track, once again C4Lf lost to the deceptively named Village Idiots by 33 to 35. One day we will beat them (shakes fist at the sky), one day!
Anyway, here’s to the New T’House hopefully same as the Old T’House when it re-opens at the end of March.
Also according to my book, note to pass onto Smit and Weave ‘definitely avoid Hep C, but Hep B can be tolerated’ [shrugs].
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