A Study of the Tamar Valley's Public Transport and Public House Connectability

We couldn’t leave England without partaking in a pub crawl. Ours was a modest affair – we visited seven Tamar Valley pubs and we did it in an afternoon and early evening. Here is a map of the pubs that we visited.

A rural pub crawl takes a bit of effort, which is probably a good thing because it takes quite a while to get from place to place. Roland is legendary in his department at the University of Plymouth for his ability to put together an urban pub crawl. He and his colleague, John, visited every pub in Plymouth over a four-year period. In the process they rated all of the pubs. If you ever visit Plymouth, Roland is the guy to tell you which pubs to visit – he has an opinion on all of them. When my colleagues heard that we were undertaking a Tamar Valley pub crawl, they rolled their eyes: to them, a pub crawl with Roland means looking at your watch the whole evening so that you don’t miss a bus to the next destination. This becomes a bit easier in Greater Harrowbarrow, because the buses only come every 30 minutes to hour or so. Roland scanned the bus schedules and put together an admirable crawl. This one also involved some hiking as our first pub was not going to cooperate with the bus schedules.

Christine and I walked to Metherell to meet Roland,

and we proceeded on some public footpaths to St. Dominick and our first pub, the Who’d Have Thought It Inn. On the way we had some glimpses in the distance of Roland’s Edwardian house, Roseleigh, in Norris Green,

and our cottage in Harrowbarrow, Rose Cottages.

The Who’d Have Thought It Inn was open when we arrived, although we had to walk around to find an unlocked door. We were thirsty after our three mile and hilly walk!

This was going to be a day for Cornish ales including one of my favorites, St. Austell Brewery’s Tribute Ale.

After about an hour at this pub, we went outside and hopped on Bus 79A. I always ride Bus 79, but this was an even more rural route that went through the tiny hamlet of Bohetherick, past Cotehele Quay, back through Harrowbarrow, and then in a long roundabout way finally arrived in Calstock, our second destination. Here we are on the bus.

There was some excitement in Harrowbarrow – our road was blocked by a fire engine. We have no idea why it was there, no one in the village seemed to know when we asked later on – so the driver, one of the regulars, had to make a detour to get through.

We eventually made it to Calstock and our second pub – The Tamar Inn. Here it is sporting its new sign.

We’ve been to this pub many times, but it was as good as ever. We particularly like the food here and we were happy that it was lunchtime. We were joined here by John Shaw, an expert in public transportation and Roland’s pub-exploring colleague of many years. John actually spent some time in Boone in April 2010. The girls and I were able to take him on some hikes, and he was able to join us at one of our favorite restaurants, Bistro Roca in Blowing Rock. The girls love to count the number of times that he says 'splendid' - it is quite often. It was nice to see him every so often on campus wearing an ASU t-shirt. He’s also a big cricket fan – here he is wearing his England kit.

Christine, unfortunately, was the responsible one and took a bus to Harrowbarrow in order to be able to pick up the girls from school.

Roland, John and I jumped on Bus 79 for our next destination, the Rising Sun Inn in the outskirts of Gunnislake. This pub is rural and required a bit of walking. We got off of Bus 79 at the train station and had about a mile downhill hike to get to the pub.

We had a good time sitting in their nice beer garden enjoying the sunshine.

The view from the garden even looks a bit like North Carolina. At least, there are a lot of trees and the hill in the distance is steep.

We thought of trying to fit in an extra pub or two, but the bus schedules wouldn’t work out

so we proceeded to pub number four, The Tavistock Arms in Gunnislake, just a bit of a walk down the road. This is the pub that Bill Lail lived in for ten days during his visit. It was fairly quiet when we were there – no jam session this time. There are two other pubs in Gunnislake, but we didn't go to those. We were opting for quality, not quantity.

The next pub, the Queen’s Head,

was just up the road in Albaston, but it is quite a climb so we waited for yet another Bus 79 to take us there. While riding the bus we counted all of the pubs along the Bus 79 route and realized that there are 25 pubs that the bus either passes or goes near. This could be a marketing tool for DAC Coaches – the Bus Ale Trail. This doesn’t have the same ring as the trails that have been set up by the train lines. The Tamar Valley Line that I ride has put together the rail equivalent – the Rail Ale Trail. For this tour, you pick up a passport and get stamps of the pubs that you visit. When you collect ten stamps, you get a t-shirt. They have Rail Ale Trails like this for all of the spur lines that link to the smaller towns. Roland, of course, has done them all.

The Queen’s Head had Roland and John all excited. John, I think, is excited because this pub usually shows Indian Premier League cricket on the telly in the afternoon. Unfortunately for John, they were showing Wimbledon. I don’t know why Roland is excited. Perhaps it’s because he knows that they serve a favorite Devon ale, the Otter Ale, at this pub?

One more bus ride and we arrived at the penultimate pub, our local Carpenter’s Arms.

We had the same driver for the third time and he just laughed and shook his head as we got aboard. The weather was still good – no rain like we had to hike through to get to the first pub of the day – and we were able to sit outside.

John said goodbye to us so that he could catch the train back to Plymouth, while Roland and I walked to the other local pub, the Cross House Inn, for some dinner. I must have four or five pictures of Roland in this stance outside of this pub. They should get him to be their mascot.

We had a good time. Mark, a young bartender who is quite funny, was working and he gave me another bar towel for my collection. We also looked closely at the commemorative plate of Rose Cottages that they have hanging on a beam. There are six plates commemorating Harrowbarrow in the pub with landmarks such as the Village Hall, the shoppe, Harrowbarrow Primary, the Cross House, a street scene down in Harrowbarrow Square (not really a square at all, but that is what DAC Coaches calls it!) and for some reason, our cottage, Rose Cottages. I have never lived in a house that has been commemorated on a plate. Steven, our landlord, didn’t even know about it. Here it is. I would love a copy but was unsuccessful in an internet search.

We had a good meal, a final ale – the Hancock’s HB for me, a so-called session ale –

and then went our separate ways. It was a successful first-ever Tamar Valley Pub Crawl – five miles of hiking, four buses, and seven pubs.