Ridgeway – Day 0 (The Beehive)

Second pub was the Beehive, a Greene King pub located on Prospect Hill in Swindon. The welcome was friendly and there were six real ales available, a wide selection for a relatively small pub, although there was nothing which looked particularly interesting for my own preferences. So, it was time for a little cider instead.

There were four rooms in this Victorian pub and a central bar. It had a slightly quirky and interesting interior, and it didn’t feel too mauled about and modernised.

The crisps were three months out of date, but the quality of Monster Munch doesn’t diminish and they tasted fine  🙂  Mind you, we had been tempted to come to this pub by the mention in the Good Beer Guide that they had free crisps, something which wasn’t happening when we got there. If they had been, it is quite possible that we wouldn’t have left….

The cider selection.

Beer notes, which I know Greene King encourage, but many of their pubs don’t provide them so willingly.

Dave and Steve, getting on well with the locals.

Then our quiet was shattered, in marches Bev, complaining that we’re not in the pubs she has gone round looking for us. Before she comes to sit down with us, we discover that she knows half the customers in the bar, reminding us that she used to live down the road.

Actually, this turned into a feature of the whole evening, Bev walking around like she was on a farewell tour of Swindon. Locals fêted her, some confirmed they were related to her and there was a real feel that Bev had made a substantial impact on Swindon during the year which she lived here. If the walls of Swindon could talk, what stories they would tell…

After a second pack of Monster Munch (these ones were in date), it was time to move on to the next pub. Bev had discovered that a former sex shop was now a pub, and that was where she wanted to go.