Part 2 - Battle to Hastings via Bexhill

Having walked from Hastings to Battle we believed we deserved refreshments, especially as the day was pretty warm and, also, in-between our birthdays (a week apart), so a dual celebration and well deserved indeed! Consequently, we wandered along the High Street, a short distance from Battle Abbey to, built in the 17th century with stone from the Battle Abbey kitchen, The Bull Inn, 27 High Street, TN33 0EA, where I met someone I always seem to meet here, and sometimes in Hastings hostelries too, so not a surprise. We had a pint of ale each of course (sorry I forgot to make a note of it, but certain to either be from Sussex or Kent, so local), and a meal each too; I shall not tell you what it was, at risk of someone who knows what I shouldn't eat reading this, but good value tasty meals both, well enjoyed, cheers!

We followed the same root back southwards to Crowhurst and stopped in at the early 19th century The Plough Inn, 1 Plough Lane, TN33 9AW (facebook). Here we drank a pint each of Sussex brewer Weltons (website) American Graffiti (4.5%), a pale golden US style pale ale with hints of citrus and marmalade, dry and bitter, very refreshing!

We continued back along the 1066 Country Walk - Behill Link, this time not heading towards the Combe Valley Country Park once we'd walked under the new road, but following the newly built pathway that incorporates the old disused railway line all the way to Bexhill, where we enjoyed a coffee at the iconic De La Warr Pavilion (website).

Our final walk was towards the east, back along the seafront to Hastings where, early evening Friday (we'd had a short walk to Bexhill and back on Friday) and Saturday, we passed the Goat Ledge cafe (website) with a thriving clientele, whereas the Pier in the back ground was closed/near empty, sad, but glad for Goat Ledge, nice one!

A review of Goat Ledge is well overdue...

A Weekend Walk from Hastings...

Filsham Reedbed Entrance

We undertook this (roughly) 20 mile walk at the weekend, first heading westwards along the seafront from Hastings & St Leonards, then we crossed the railway line via the footbridge at Bulverhythe. We had to cope with a few hundred yards walking back along the A259 before turning onto the public footpath that took us up Combe Haven valley where, after passing the holiday park, we soon found Sussex Wildlife Trust's Filsham Reedbed Nature Reserve entrance to the right (website).

As a member of/donor to Sussex Wildlife Trust, I regularly visit Filsham Reedbed, a haven of peace and tranquility, with the call of birds the only noise we heard, and we saw 20 or 30 martins swooping in the sky. During our time in the Combe Valley Countryside Park (website) we saw many different birds, including martins, egrets and plovers, as we continued on our way...

We were going to stop at Crowhurst for a drink, after walking further along the footpath, and under the new road, but were too early, so we continued on to Battle. On leaving Crowhurst from St George's church and its famous 4,000 year-old Yew Tree, we rejoined the footpath, walking through Fore Wood Nature Reserve, and northwards to Battle, where there was a famous battle apparently (Battle Abbey Gatehouse above).

Anyway, we definitely required a drink, having run out of water, so we popped into the pub we always use when visiting Battle, though usually at the end of a walk before catching a bus or train back to Hastings, that is The Bull Inn (website). This is a 17th century coaching inn, built with stones from the original Battle Abbey, whose ales tend to include quite locally produced beers, we had a pint each of an Old Dairy ale, brewed in Kent, and the kind young woman behind the bar refilled our water bottle, cheers! 

We walked back the way we came to Crowhurst, and sat outside the Norman St George's church (website) to eat a sandwich, admire the yew trees and read the stones of the 2 Commonwealth war graves...

... before we returned to the now open Plough Inn in Crowhurst, and drank a pint each of Sussex brewer Long Man Best Bitter, cheers! This pub opens at 12.00 noon at weekends, we had been about 40 minutes early when we passed it in the morning.

De La Warr Pavilion

Anyway, we carried on walking along the 1066 Country Walk - Bexhill Link under the new road, and following the newly built pathway to Bexhill, where we stopped outside the iconic modernism meets art deco De La Warr Pavilion (website), opened in 1935, to enjoy our last snack of the walk. We then headed home to Hastings, followed by a wind from south of west bringing with it rain, still, it had been dry all day before that, so we couldn't complain, indeed, it was a grand day out, thank you very much.

Shepherd Neame in Hastings

By Steve the Beermeister

There seem to be Shepherd Neame pubs all over Hastings, so I've carried out a tad more research, with this being another updated and rewritten article of mine, whose earlier version was published in the Hastings Independent last year. 

Shepherd Neame Beers at The Bull Inn

Shepherd Neame are situated in Britain’s oldest brewery, based in Faversham, Kent, recently still thought to be since 1698, but new evidence supports a brewery being established on the site by 1573, and historian, John Owen, believes it may go back many more years, at the latest since 1507. So beer at their site in Faversham will have been brewed for over 500 years, though not what is on offer in their pubs now, obviously!  

The Anchor and Pumphouse (just) George Street

Their pubs in Hastings are quite prolific, and who doesn't pass one, or three, of their pubs in the town every day, certainly if you walk down George Street. George Barnes, the company Property & Service Director, told me that the brewery has been trading in Hastings since the 1920s, their first 'tied house' in Hastings was the Freemasons Tavern in Wellington Place (now Jempson's Café), from 1928-1958. 

Jempson's Cafe, once The Freemasons

More recently, they bought a number of pubs in the town following the Government's 1989 "Beer Orders", which restricted the number of 'tied' pubs that could be owned by single large brewery groups. These include the Fountain in Queens Road, and the Anchor Inn and Hastings Arms in the old town, indeed, 7 of their pubs are situated in the central Hastings area.  

You may have noticed that I keep going back to the "oldest pub in Hastings" question, and most of the pubs I've been looking at are in the Shepherd Neame portfolio, eg the Stag, Anchor and Bull Inn at Bulverhythe. Still more of to come quite soon...  

The Stag, All Saints Street

Shepherd Neame beers are brewed using spring water drawn from their own artesian well, in brewer's terms 'liquor', purified and filtered in the chalk strata deep beneath the brewery. They use barley for malting grown in Kent or East Anglia, and yeast strains cultured by their own microbiologists, ensuring they remain as locally sourced as possible. 

East Kent Goldings Hops

The brewery now proudly asserts that it is "a guardian of the nation's hop-growing heritage, preserving the lifeblood of rare varieties more than a century old. We have put aside an acre of land at Queen Court Farm, near Faversham, to house part of the National Hop Collection." They certainly like to remain traditional, indeed, still using a rare oak mash tun that has been operational since 1914!

The Shepherds married into the brewing industry in 1731, when Samuel Shepherd, who, it is believed had no previous knowledge of brewing, wed Mary, the widow of the previous owner of the brewery, Richard Marsh. Whereas the Neames, well-known hop growers at the time, were relative latecomers to the brewing business in the 1860s. 

The Bishops Finger, Smithfield

Shepherd Neame brew a broad range of regular and seasonal cask ales, my favourite from their regulars is their 5% Bishops Finger, a strong full-flavoured ale. The first time I ever tasted this was in my youth at a pub called "The Bishops Finger" at Smithfield Market in London, which used to be open from the early hours to quench the thirst of market workers, and others who may fancy an early drink; thereby hangs another tale!  

Blonde Ambition

They also have a smaller 'pilot brewery' called the Faversham Steam Brewery, which was installed in 2007 to produce 'speciality' ales, notably the Whitstable Bay range. They sometimes brew in collaboration with others, eg Samuel Adams of Boston, USA (eg the excellent Blonde Ambition), and, consequently, more styles of beer are brewed... Of course, I'm always on the look out for them, cheers! 

Hastings Oldest Pub Part IV

By Steve the Beermeister 

Very soon after passing the sign welcoming you to Hastings & St Leonards you reach The Bull Inn, 530 Bexhill Road, Hastings, East Sussex TN38 8AY (website). Some may argue this is really in Bexhill, but The Bull falls within Hastings Borough Council's boundary and is licensed by Hastings, and is on the Hastings' side of this sign... 

Though I can think of something else!

The main building, bar area and kitchen of The Bull Inn is a Grade II listed property, mostly built in the late 18th century, with an early 19th century extension added to the eastern side, ie to the right as you look at my photograph of the pub. According to licensing records, this building was first licensed to James Kenward in 1795, though records show a license was given as early as 1622, with only the kitchen area at the back apparently surviving from the 17th century.  

The Bull Inn

A couple of hundred years ago, the sea came up much closer to the pub and the port of Bulverhythe, but nothing now remains of that port except the ruins of the Church of St. Mary, which is close to the back garden of The Bull Inn. There is evidence to suggest that stone used in the construction of the pub is very likely to have come from the ruins of the church; church cornerstones, windowsills and window tracery are all in evidence, and much old stone work can be seen in the rear walls of the building. 

Stories of tunnels going 'to and fro' the pub and smugglers abound and, almost certainly, the earlier Bull Inn played host to the investigators of the wreck of the Amsterdam, the Dutch East Indiaman that was beached the other side of the railway bridge (which was built much later of course) in 1749, and which can still be seen when the tide is out, notably at Spring and Autumn tides. Though the last time I walked out to it, the deck was virtually full of silt and sand. 

The Amsterdam

The Shepherd Neame website mentions this premise, and also says that "in the eastern part of the old pub, John Keats sat and did his writing while looking out to sea. Part of the pub was used as a court house and in the basement under the bar were the cells where condemned prisoners were held before hanging at Gallows Hill." 

You can take it from this that The Bull is a Shepherd Neame pub, though with an interesting alternative ownership and brewery linkage over the years. Indeed, Thomas Breeds bought The Bull Inn a few years before establishing the Hastings Brewery in 1828; The Bull becoming one of the first pubs to trade under the Breeds’ name, as was the Duke of Wellington in the High Street. 

Warmth coming from the older end of the pub

The Bull was much later sold to George Beer and Rigden of Faversham in 1931, then Beer and Rigden was taken over by Fremlins of Maidstone in 1949. In 1967 Fremlins became part of the Whitbread group, before Lord Young's Beer Orders from 1989 restricted the number of 'tied' pubs that could be owned by individual breweries to 2,000. Shepherd Neame since bought many of the Whitbread pubs in the Hastings area, including The Bull Inn.  

A year ago, The Bull Inn was faltering, but the return of the present tenant, Dawn, and her 2 daughters, Jo and Lisa, has brought life back to the pub and its restaurant trade. When I walked into the pub yesterday, I felt very much welcomed into the bar, and I immediately noticed the beer handpumps, (well I am the "Beermeister") which I imagine are Victorian, art nouveau methinks! 

The handpumps caught my eye

Anyway, The Bull is now a Shepherd Neame tenancy, and 3 of their beers are served from the 4 handpumps. The pub is open all day every day, except on Mondays during this winter season, when it closes at 3pm and for the rest of the day. Food is served between 12 and 2pm every day, and from 6.30 to 9pm Tuesday to Saturday, with an impressive looking choice of 3 roast dinners every Sunday lunchtime. 

To the ales! I tried 2 of the 3 on offer, the Spitfire and the very good Kent's Best, which was nice and bitter, and both were in very good form, and well served by the affable chap behind the bar, yet another 'Steve'; as was the rather eatable BLT with salad on the side I enjoyed. The other ale was their Masterbrew, and they have plans to replace the Kent's Best with Shep's 3.9% Whitstable Bay Pale Ale, a very pleasant session bitter. 

Welcome back!

I also had a nice chat with Dawn, and I wish her well, my only suggestion would be to have a 'guest ale' from a more local Sussex brewer, but what do I know? Dawn's the person making a success of The Bull Inn, not me!   

Also, my thanks to John Hodges for suggesting I investigate The Bull Inn, and for sharing historical information that helped me to write this, cheers!