Focused on old, historic, characterful pubs. Mostly in London, but including some country pubs, and eventually will cover pubs in other towns and cities. I like pubby pubs. Pubs where you can feel a sense of history and continuity. Unspoilt pubs. Pubs where you can have a pint of traditional English ale (which doesn't taste of grapefuit). I'm not into modern pubs and I can't stand gastropubs with their horrible Farrow and Ball paint jobs.
Regarding The Case is Altered, legend has it that the car park was notorious for hosting various 'activities'. Think digging but using a different vowel. I believe also that the reason Wetherspoons flourished in North West London in its early days was because that part of London had become a literal real ale desert.
What a wonderful, informative and charming vid. Thank you Mr Tweedy for your hard work creating these vids. The weald stone looks more like an erratic nobody could be bothered to cart away, but I prefer your more informed version of such.
I much enjoyed this. History is much more important than we think. History gives us guidance. Not only about who we are but also about who we are supposed to be. As always - keep up your excellent work. I'm glad to see the number of subscribers is ticking up.
Tweedy I know I harassed u over Wimbledon which was brilliant by the way!! Could u consider Amersham old town. Great cluster of old skool pubs that u would do justice sir!
£7.65 a pint?? What is the world coming to? I'm of an age when I can remember the outcry when a pint moved above the £1 threshold. Thankfully I can still enjoy a Guinness at my local for £3.40.
Tweedy - thanks for going off piste! This was a very enjoyable video - you took us to WS Gilbert's home with terrific archtitecture - well worth the diversion!
A fantastic video. I’m obsessed with antiquities surviving in urban sprawl so this was right up my street! I had no idea the stone in Wealdstone was still there. And such a wonderfully mundane setting. Fabulous! Many years ago I actually filmed a video in the Grim’s Dyke Hotel. It has long been deleted and most certainly would get me cancelled nowadays. Mine was about the use of the hotel in the filming of Evil of the Daleks, which was filmed in 1967. A young chap working there got involved and let me up onto the balcony overlooking that banqueting hall - enabling me to capture a shot as per the Doctor Who story. It is a magnificent building and I’m so glad to see that it’s still there. Tragic situation with the Case is Altered - looks like it might have been the best of the bunch. The cause of the closure is emblematic of what’s wrong with our local councils nowadays. Absolutely clueless. This was a really interesting diversion from the normal format on the channel and it looked like you had a lot of fun making it!
Thanks Mr WC21! Yes I completely agree on the fascination with antiquities "hidden" in urban sprawl like this. I had a lot of quizzical looks from passers by as I was filming here, suggesting most of them presumably had no idea of the stone's significance. An interesting coincidence there that we have both filmed in the Grim's Dyke Hotel! It is a fantastic find, and I think I'm developing a bit of an obsession with chimneypieces! I was berated by Mr Allotment Fox in the comments here for not investigating the actual ditch while I was there (and he was quite right to do so!), but alas I ran out of time. I also wasn't quite sure how I'd explain that bit away in a video on a channel which is meant to be about pubs! I had already stretched the point a bit using up several precious minutes of the audience's attention span talking about sarsen stones in front of pubs, but an old earthwork behind a hotel really felt like a ditch too far! I agree, The Case is Altered would almost certainly have been the star of the show had it still been open! I did a bit of reading around and apparently the council blamed anti-social behaviour in the car park. I suspect given the timing that might have actually been a short term problem. I'm sure a solution could have been found. I wasn't really sure when I set out to make this video whether it was going to be a Tweedy Pubs or a Tweedy Outdoors video - it sort of sits half way between the two. So it's good to hear that most people didn't mind the slight deviation from the usual subject matter.
@@TweedyPubs A Tramp in the Hills just did an interesting video where he checked out 30 pubs from a 25 year old pubs walk book. 25 were still trading, which I thought wasn’t bad, all things considered. One of the five that had been closed had been demolished, the others converted to residential. I wonder what fate awaits the Case is Altered as a building. That’s the other tragedy about losing pubs, sometimes closure seems to provide an excuse for demolition. It’s all when and good the government talking about building all these houses, but we really mustn’t overlook the huge number of empty historic buildings that desperately need to be given a new life. That’s my rant over for a Sunday morning!
So the local council owns a useless parking lot for nobody to go nowhere??? Council members need to have 25 years of private enterprise or job before they can be a candidate....so you don't get the super-ambitious idiots who fancy themselves a future PM and go directly into a local election for a position without any sense or experience on how the world works outside of a lecture hall.
Another enjoyable video! Thanks! You mention in your video that the "heritage tomato salad" is not exactly a ploughman's lunch. Where can you even get a ploughman's lunch these days? It's been a long time since I've seen it on any pub menu . . . which is very sad.
Thank for this video. We locals get quite annoyed when certain RU-vidrs refer to Wealdstone as "Wealdst'n". I keep telling them "there IS an actual stone - it's not a contraction of the word town. 😄
Two years ago I visited the palace of Quelez in Lisbon. In the large gardens is an early tennis court. It's a long and narrow stretch of grass. Twice the length of a modern court but half the width.
I've never understood why the England rugby motif is only the red rose of the House of Lancaster. Why not the Tudor red and white rose combining the Houses of Lancaster and York ?
Casa Alta may be a reference to the siege of Badajoz during the Peninsular War. After the siege the British troops got drunk on substantial amounts of alcohol found in the city.
I once read that a popular hobby in Victorian times was chimney pot spotting. Being so reliant on coal, there would have been a wide variety of chimney pots manufactured. Some would have been merely decorative, others may have been designed to extract the fumes more effectively.
Up in the Pennines, the millstones can be found lying around everywhere, used for sharpening knives. I often wonder if the ancient stones were used for a similar purpose to sharpen bronze and iron age swords.
Hi John, Excellent, very enjoyable!! I liked the way the stone is just there and you can touch it or even stand on it, maybe a favourite for the dogs too? Golly, no wonder visitors are welcomed in the Grims Ditch, £7.65 for a pint of Guinness, mind you I think you got your money's worth with that chimney place. Great shame the Case Altered had to close due to the car park, it looked the best of all of them. Interesting its possible connections to the Peninsular war. As an aside, just a short distance down the motorway from us at Illora, you will find the mansion given to the Duke of Wellington by the Spanish state following his help in the war, which is still in the family to this day (er .... his family not mine) All the best!!
Yes that was a definite oversight! I had originally intended to go for a walk around the wider hotel grounds to see if there was anything to see of Grim's Ditch but I ran out of time. I wasn't sure what I'd have said about it even if I had got there though!
Very interesting stuff, TP. Still amazed at the level of research involved - can't imagine how you find time to dig it all out. Great shame about the Case is Altered pub, which looks like a nice pub building. As you say, Gilbert's home very impressive all round. Great suit, by the way. Thanks once again. Tom (from France - supposed to be working, but in fact watching you on RU-vid).
Thanks Tom! I am currently taking a career break - or something like that - so I'm in the fortunate position of having lots of free time to make these videos. This one involved a day or two's research, but I ended up leaving some bits out of the video because it strayed a bit too far off the main theme (I had dug into the history of the Smith family who owned the Red Lion in the 1800s, and also looked at the history of nearby Wealdstone House a bit). Yes I agree, a great shame about the Case is Altered! The suit is from a company called Walker Slater, where most of my tweed suits come from. It's not really appropriate for wearing in the city of course, but on those old maps at least this area looked lke it was in the countryside!
Good afternoon, Tweedy I have read several articles about Grim's Dyke over the years. I did not realise you could walk into the hotel now and grab a beer. It is an interesting Norman Shaw building and looks worth a visit. I'm glad you managed to find a pint of Landlord 😁👍
Thanks Lee - I wish I had explored the actual dyke/ditch at Grim's Dyke Hotel while I was there, but I ran out of time. I think most hotel bars in the UK are open to non-residents aren't they? Certainly at bigger hotels at least. Of course prices are typically higher than a pub, and they're less likely to serve any real ales, but i looked at the price of that pint as an admission fee to a museum and gardens and on that basis it seemed well worth it.
I think linking pubs to an interesting location to visit is a great idea for videos. Its useful to understand a bit about an area and some local history when visiting a place......and then have a few pints in some nice pubs!!
Thank you! In this case the history of the stone (and therefore the area) was very intertwined with the pub - so much so it had been part of the foundations for a time!
Excellent thanks 🍺it was a shame the 2nd to last pub was closed as it looked interesting 🧐 but the Gilbert old house hotel looked nice 👌 and funny because I have been listening too Gilbert and Sullivan this week 😂😂have a great weekend 👏👏
I wonder how many folk from Wealdstone have tripped over the Weald Stone in their drunken state without realising the object of their downfall gave the name to where they reside 😂
While I was standing there taking footage of the pub a young woman came up and asked me why I was doing that. I could have been wrong but I got the sense she was quite drunk. It was just gone midday.
Hi Tweedy. Whilst you did go slightly “off piste” you still provided us with an eminently interesting video. I was brought up in Middlesex and had no idea that the Weald Stone actually existed. Middlesex contains numerous “villages” within the suburban sprawl. In the 1970’s and early 80’s these contained some fabulous pubs. My fear is that these have largely disappeared and now live only in my distant memories. “The Case is Altered” looks like a prime and sad example. ☹️😔😢
Thank you! I think I may have actually got that fact slightly wrong - William Gilbert definitely lived there, but I think it had another owner immediately prior to him. Either way he's certainly the house's most famous resident!
Very kind of you to say so! This video was just a topic which piqued my interest rather than a deliberate attempt to "go viral". I'm sure the algorithm will treat this with the same disdain it has shown to my last couple of videos!
Well, Mr Tweedy. I did mention I'd be doing a bit of binge watching this wonderful channel. It's absolutely marvelous, sincere gratitude for your highly informative, joy filled hard work.
