Decline and Rise

Evelyn Waugh did not have an overly happy time when he first went down from university. Funds were not overly available, and there were a succession of half hearted attempts to find a direction in life which culminated with a period as a schoolmaster in Wales which culminated in an attempted suicide.

His personal life was also far from secure. After Richard Pares had been spirited away by those who saw clearly his academic potential (and the threat posed to his reaching it by the company he kept), Waugh had fallen into company with Alastair Graham. Somewhat indulged by Graham's mother, the friendship/relationship/affair prospered for a while, and included a period where they shared a caravan on the fringe of Otmoor.....

....which brings us onto the Abingdon Arms, in Beckley. It was in the grounds of this pub, with its commanding views over Otmoor, that the caravan stood. Even after the affair with Graham broke up it continued to be a place that Waugh returned to - he spent the honeymoon of his first marriage to Evelyn Gardner here, and, in much the same way as he would do later in life with Chagford, adopted the pub as a literary retreat. It is believed that he wrote parts of Decline and Fall here, along with elements of other works of the period.

I've always had a soft spot for the Abingdon Arms - tucked away down a narrow lane it is one of those places where time feels like it has been standing still for a few decades. The food and beer hasn't been bad either. However, it has changed hands with alarming frequency over the years - possibly because being so tucked away means it has struggled for passing trade or impulse visitors. Recently it closed completely, and there were fears that it was going to become just another former pub (Oxford has depressingly many of these), whose attractive building will make a fine house for someone with the requisite amount of money.

To their credit, the local community organised themselves to fight this possibility and now we read in the Oxford Mail that their proposals (and more importantly money) have been accepted. The Abingdon Arms is moving into community ownership, and so this little piece of the literary landscape is saved for another wave of people to draw inspiration from its beautiful surroundings.

The caravan's long gone though.

The King's Arms, Oxford

Very few people that actually live in Oxford will be unaware of this place - it sorts of squats broodingly on the corner of Holywell Street,  with the crowds thronging the pavement benches either side of the main door. When I was a student I spent far too much time in the place (I'm sure between us we must have paid the landlord's wages several times over), but then, after graduation, it rather fell back down the list of priorities.

Back in the late 2000s, I suppose what it did well was to jam in as many students as possible and fleece them very effectively. It was also the pub most tolerant in the city centre to the blowing of hunting horns, throwing of paper aeroplanes, and the general cavorting of the Oxford student at his most obnoxious.

The other day I went in there and discovered that it has had something of a refit - the worst of the wall stains have gone, and the mirror over the fireplace in the office has finally been replaced, getting on for 10 years after the Bullingdon managed to break it. But the refurb has been pretty tastefully done (to the usual pub-refit-by-numbers template), all slate coloured wall paint and exposed brickwork behind the bar. I must admit that when I heard the builders were coming in a couple of weeks ago I was most worried about the future of the back bar and office but, apart from the removal of several layers of grime, and the collected tobacco residue of a couple of centuries from the ceiling, it's actually emerged relatively unscathed as a cleaner brighter version of its old self. Worth a look.

The beer is Young's, so it's about as good as can be expected. Tribute remains on as a permanent guest (which it has been since I started going in there in 2006) which is good as there's only so much Special you would want to drink in your life. The menu is much smaller than it used to be, but seems to be a bit tighter. Although no stranger to the tourist dollar the kitchen seems to have raised its sights a little higher than the bowls of chili which were the staple in former years. I had a pretty decent venison and chestnut suet pudding, which actually appeared to contain some meat and wasn't quite the level of ping food I'd been expecting.

There's a wave of gentrification sweeping through Oxford's pubs at the moment. The Goose at Gloucester Green, which used to be an utter dive, has been reincarnated as the much more upmarket Red Lion, the Gloucester Arms as the White Rabbit is doing excellent food, and the regenerated St Aldates Tavern is a small-plate revelation. The knock on from this is that some of the more established pubs (whether gastro or drinker) are really having to raise their game, and it looks like Youngs are at long last getting wise to it.

The KA is what it is, it's just now a much better version of what it is. I don't think I'll leave it another couple of years before I go again.