The Harrow at Little Bedwyn

A Top Class B&B and a Michelin Starred Dinner

The Mayfield at West Grafton

Wiltshire

Leaving the White Horse and Uffington Castle we drove to our B&B, Mayfield at West Grafton, a fifteen minute taxi ride from the main object of our day. I don't usually write much, or indeed anything, about the various B&Bs we stay in, but the Mayfield was a little bit different. Every village in North Wiltshire has a selection of thatched houses of the sort that once adorned chocolate boxes, and Mayfield is a fine example. The rambling old house – different parts look to have been built at different times - stands in extensive and beautifully maintained grounds. Angela and Chris Orssich are well-suited to the business, chatting easily with their guests and making everyone feel welcome – would that were true of everyone running a B&B. For the quality of the breakfast, skip to the very last paragraph.

Lynne outside Mayfield, West Grafton

The Harrow at Little Bedwyn

The Harrow at Little Bedwyn may once have been a country pub, and the tiny village is certainly buried deep in the north Wiltshire countryside, but it became a serious restaurant in 1998 when it was bought by Roger and Sue Jones. A Michelin star followed in 2006 and now the world beats a path to its door. Two of the four couples staying at Mayfield had come mainly (or entirely) to make the pilgrimage to Little Bedwyn, and that is not unusual. 'That place has brought a lot of trade to the area,' our taxi driver told us as he piloted us through the narrow lanes.[Unfortunately the Harow lost its Michelin star in 2019, it still has 3 AA Rosettes and one of the finest (and longest) wine lists in the country.]



Mayfield, West Grafton

The service was as slick and professional as you would expect at this level and although it was easy to see how the layout had once been that of a country pub, it has now evolved so far there is no longer bar space for a pre-dinner drink, which is offered at the table. The sound of ice in a cocktail shaker heralded a good dry martini (though I am still looking to match the perfection of the Hong Kong Sheraton), but Lynne's G&T was drowned; Tanqueray becomes indistinguishable from a supermarket’s own brand at this level of dilution.

As we pondered this shaky start we also pondered the menu. The seven course 'gastronomic menu' is too much food, I am no longer young and I can't eat the way I used to. I chose the four course tasting menu – which has five courses if you include the cheese option. Lynne picked three courses from the à la carte, and decided to share my cheese. Having taken the orders we were asked what time we had booked our return taxi so they could time the proceedings appropriately. It was a nice touch.

The award-winning wine list is huge – Dickens wrote shorter novels - but the menu suggests a wine to partner each course, mostly at a reasonable £6-£9 for a 125ml glass. Not wishing to reinvent the wheel, we went with their suggestions.

The amuse-bouche, self-deprecatingly described as 'Langoustine Soup', had so much rich Langoustine flavour, so intensely concentrated, that it brought a look of wonder to Lynne’s face. It was only four sips, but each caressed the palate and lingered lushly. Faced with a whole bowl it would have been overwhelming, but as an amuse-bouche in a tiny quantity it was perfect.

Lynne started with seared scallops, chorizo and pea purée with tiny peas. In Lynne's slightly idiosyncratic view a fresh scallop cooked with masterful restraint is perfect on its own and nothing can be gained by the addition of other flavours, so she ate this as two very small separate dishes and pronounced both excellent. I tasted them together and thought the accompaniment brought an extra dimension to the scallop. Each to his own.

My first course was described as ‘seared tuna - pickled watermelon, vine tomatoes and quails egg’ (yes, that should be quail's). The seared tuna was like the tuna that comes round the track at Yo Sushi, good enough but not memorable. The tiny egg was cool, but I cut into it and, miraculously, the yolk ran. I smeared it over the tuna and that was good. The selection of tomato halves looked like the cherry tomatoes you can buy anywhere, but there the resemblance ended. The sheer tomato-y intensity of the first was hard to believe, but there were more of them, each a different variety of tomato with its own individual flavor and all as wonderful as the first. There was also a sundried tomato. For a moment I considered sending it to the chef of our hotel in Dublin last month with the message, 'this is a sun dried tomato, my friend, not the slimy thing in your vegetarian pasta.' I thought about that but decided to eat it, instead. That leaves the cube of pickled watermelon. In a hot climate there is little pleasanter or more thirst quenching than fresh watermelon, but what does pickling add to it? And why was it on this plate? Beats me.

Both starters were accompanied by Jordan's Outlier, Sauvignon Blanc from Stellenbosch. The nose was fabulous, herbal and grassy like Sancerre rather than the tropical fruit of New Zealand. It was not quite so outstanding on the palate, being just a little short of acidity.

Jordan Outlier Sauvignon Blanc

My ‘extra’ course was, ‘grilled turbot, curried lobster’. The turbot, a small rectangle of fish, was, I thought, a tad overcooked and, like the tuna, all right but nothing more. The curried lobster underneath was a revelation, the sauce having an intense coconut flavour which lingered and deepened until the chilli kicked in. I have not encountered such concentrated coconut since the 'finger chutney' at Palakkad, but this was much more elegant and subtle. The lobster was reduced to being a vehicle for the sauce, but then I have always thought that lobster is overrated. Apart from its good looks and size, what does it have that a prawn hasn’t?

The accompanying 'Hen and Chickens' Chardonnay from Pemberton in Western Australia was, I am sorry to say, a little nondescript.

Lynne's main course was beef, a small slab of filet cooked rare as requested and in every way wonderful, surmounted by ring of pink foie gras. This morally dodgy delight was as delightful - and morally dodgy – as ever. Below the filet was a piece of slow cooked beef cheek. Very much the ‘odd meat of the moment’, it is apparently compulsory to include it somewhere on a Michelin star menu. Both of us will be happy when the fashion changes. To me it comes from the wrong end of the animal; ox tail, while similar, has better texture and a more delicate flavour.

Accompanying the beef was the most expensive wine of the evening. At £16 a glass the 2001 Glenmore, Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon had to be good and it was, being deep, dark and with a hint of liquorice. 

After my extra courses, my lamb was more a meat course than a main. The nicely pink Welsh lamb made up in flavour for what it lacked in quantity. It was served with minted couscous (how do you get so much mintiness into a simple couscous?) and a couple of sprigs of sea asparagus - or samphire as I would normally call it.

The unfiltered South African merlot is top of the Fleur du Cap range and offered as much fruit as you could want, elegant tannin and a good weight in the mouth, it almost edged out the more the expensive cabernet.

Fleur du Cap Unfiltered Merlot

We shared the cheese course; five small slices allegedly arranged from mildest to strongest, but the goat cheese in the 'mildest' position packed a solid goaty punch. We could have quibbled about the order of the others, but why bother? One resembled a top quality brie, another had a washed rind, there was an excellent soft sheep's cheese and finally Royal Bassett Blue, surmounted by a slice of quince cheese. Remarkably, all these pungently mature, well-made cheeses are produced relatively locally. Such a line up would have been impossible only a few years ago. A nice glass of tawny port matched them perfectly.

Royal Basset Blue, made in Wiltshire

A pre-dessert called 'cherry trifle' and served in a sherry glass was a nice idea and looked good. I had watched others go by and was looking forward to it, but it was disappointingly dry, as though it had been sitting too long waiting for us.

My dessert was just described as 'chocolate' and Lynne chose the equivalent from the à la carte. It had many of the same elements, but had a fruit sorbet where mine had the tiniest blob of ice cream. I like chocolate (who doesn't?), but I know people who claim to love it and this may have suited them, but for both of us this was chocolate overkill. Some of the elements were exquisite, particularly the lozenge of tempered chocolate round a rich chocolate cream, but the white chocolate did not do much for me and the large cube of chocolate truffle was just too dense.

Lehman Botrytis Semillon was the wine selected to accompany this. With a honeyed nose and intense sweetness it may not be the subtlest of wines, but it stands up to the chocolate as few wines could.

And so our meal ended. We had seen ten different dishes, all exquisitely presented and all – the cherry trifle excepted – were sublime, or had elements that were sublime. Portions were small, but I ate four and a half courses, amuse-bouche and pre-dessert and that was certainly enough, maybe a little too much, which is just as it should be on these occasions.

We had also drunk enough, but that did not stop us crowning the evening with an espresso and a digestif. Lynne wisely selected an old favourite, a cognac from Ragnaud-Sabourin, while I went for Alchemy 15 yr old Somerset Brandy. I enjoy a good Calvados but had yet to try the British equivalent. It was £8 for 25ml and £10 for a double, so I thought 'Oh goodie, a bargain.' I should have thought  'why they were trying to get rid of it?'. Somerset brandy does not, I am sorry to say, have much apple flavour and it was rather like a bottom of the range Armagnac, which is not a bad thing, but nor is it great. [Update: I have drunk other Somerset Apple Brandies since, and some can be very good indeed - and very apple-y.]

Lynne leaves the Harrow at Little Bedwyn

The timing had been perfect and we were all finished at exactly the time the taxi came to fetch us.

And now back to Mayfield B&B. Having praised them at the start I shall finish by mentioning their breakfast. As at the Harrow, the menu tells you the source of everything and the food-miles are minimal 'the bacon and sausages come from two fields away'. I had smoked salmon (the salmon could not be local, but the smokehouse is) and scrambled eggs. The eggs were light and creamy, the fish gently smoked. Angela makes her own bread (from flour grown and ground locally) and all her own jams and marmalade. As a B&B it is a touch more expensive than most (though not by much) but - and the same is true of the Harrow - you have to pay for a bit of quality.
 

'Fine Dining' posts

Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)
The Cross, Kenilworth (& Kenilworth Castle) 2024

Wantage and an Ancient While Horse

The Birthplace of Alfred the Great and Several Much Older Relics

After visiting Yorkshire in 2012 and 2013, this year’s wedding anniversary foray into the world of fine dining took us south to The Harrow at Little Bedwyn in Wiltshire, but we paused on the way in the Vale of the White Horse.

Wantage

Oxfordshire

Vale of the White Horse

On the way we paused for lunch in Wantage. Now in Oxfordshire (it was Berkshire until 1974) Wantage sits at the base of the Berkshire Downs in the slightly pretentiously named Vale of the White Horse.

The centre is off the main road and finding it is a challenge, our first attempt ended in Waitrose car park our second in a retail park where Argos, New Look, Sainsbury's and the rest of the usual suspects hang out.

Opposite the car park a pedestrian sign pointed left, informing us the town centre was 560 yards away. We had come that way and encountered no centre, but we could see a church tower in the opposite direction, so we turned right and two hundred yards later, there was ‘downtown’ Wantage.

Wantage town centre is actually 200 yards to the right

Cocooned in a blanket of the last decade’s bland 'could be anywhere' architecture, the old town is not a hidden gem, but at least it’s still there. There is even a market square – with a market - though they were packing up as we arrived. No market looks its best when half the stalls are empty and the other half are being disassembled. The square is dominated by a statue of Alfred the Great who was born here in the Royal Palace in 849, though the site of the palace has long been lost. Although we were unaware of his local connection, we both recognised the statue as being King Alfred before we saw the plaque. As nobody could possibly know what he looked like, I thought this odd. Lester Piggott was born here, too - the Berkshire Downs are prime race horse territory - and everybody knows what he looks like, even if he does not have a statue (yet).

King Alfred, Market Square, Wantage

We shared a huge ham sandwich, and enjoyed a half of Arkell's excellent 3B in The Bear on the market square, which claims to have been serving travellers and locals for 500 years (though I am happy to report the facilities have been updated).

The Bear, Market Square, Wantage

The church of St Peter and St Paul sits in a quiet, almost delightful, corner. King Alfred was baptised in an earlier church on this site, but the oldest part of the current building is 13th century. It is squat and solid apparently intent on surviving whatever seven centuries of weather could throw at it, although on this balmy summer's day it looked seriously unthreatened. We could have looked inside but for our reluctance to gatecrash a wedding.

St Peter and St Paul, Wantage

The old centre is small but pleasing enough - it obviously pleased John Betjeman, who lived here from 1972 to 1984. What he would have made of the new retail development I can only imagine: 'Come friendly bombs and drop on Wantage'?

Wantage, part of the old centre

From the retail park the A338 took us through areas of nineteenth century and 1990s housing. There is nothing wrong with any of the town’s many districts, but they appear to have been dropped down with no reference to each other or any attempt to think about the whole. Wantage is a town of many parts, and the whole is less than the sum of those parts. This, I should point out, is a judgement on the architecture, not the community of Wantage about which I know nothing bad.

Leaving behind the King Alfred’s Arms, the King Alfred Academy and the King Alfred Dog Grooming Parlour (I made one of those up) we headed down the Vale of the White Horse to sites which were old when King Alfred was new.

A B-road took us round the north edge of the downs winding past camp sites and tea rooms, while to our right the plain stretched all the way to the River Thames and beyond.

The Uffington White Horse

A tiny road into the hills took us up to the National Trust car park that gives access to the downs. With the temperature nudging 30 we walked the half mile to the top of White Horse Hill across gently rising chalk grasslands, alive with fluttering butterflies. I wish I could identify more butterflies with confidence, but perhaps we saw Duke of Burgundy and Brown Argus, among others. The white horse (sometimes called the Uffington White Horse), for which the area is named, lies just below the top of the hill.

The head of the Uffington White Horse

The stylised horse was linked with King Alfred in the middle ages, but is actually much older. Formed from trenches packed with crushed chalk it has been securely dated to the late Bronze Age, which ended in these parts around 700BC. The same stylised horse - assuming it is a horse - appears on pre-Roman Celtic coinage, though whether that image is of this white horse, or they are both copies of some other prototype is unknown. It is by far the oldest of the assorted white horses on the chalk hills of southern England.

The Uffington White Horse - aerial view
(Thank you Wikipedia and NASA)

The horse is 110m long, so from close up it is impossible to make sense of it. In fact, there is nowhere from where it can be seen as a whole and the best view, like the photograph I have borrowed from Wikipedia, is from the air. We detoured to the National Trust's suggested viewpoint, and this is all we could see; wherever you go the head is hidden by a fold in the land. The villages of Great Coxwell, Longcot and Fernham reputedly have a better views, but from a distance of 5km or more.

The White Horse - the best view from the ground

Uffington Castle

A hundred metres away, beside the highest point of the hill....

Lynne at the highest point of White Horse Hill

...is Uffington Castle, an earthwork consisting of ramparts either side of a roughly circular ditch enclosing 32,000m² of grassland. Built in the 7th or 8th century BC, it was occupied throughout the Iron Age. There are two entrances, one facing the White Horse, and it is conjectured that the inhabitants of the castle made and maintained the Horse - it would grow over in a year or two left to its own devices (signs encouraging volunteers for this year's 'scouring' were posted at various strategic points). This makes sense up to point, but I cannot quite understand how the inhabitants of the castle knew what they were doing, when there was nowhere they could stand to view their work in its entirety. I find this perplexing.

Uffington Castle - just a ditch and two ramparts

Tall Stories of St George, a Dragon and a Manger

Below the hill is a grassy tump with an artificially flattened summit. Nobody knows why or when it was flattened but medieval minds looking for an explanation decided this must be where St George slew the Dragon. This story may be true if (a) St George existed (b) dragons existed (c) St George slew a dragon and (d) he performed that act in Oxfordshire.

Dragon Hill below the Uffington White Horse

Of these, (a) is a runner. St George was born in 280 in Lydda, outside modern Tel Aviv, and was martyred in 303 at Nicodemia near Istanbul. Despite his being patron saint of such diverse places as England, Ukraine, Portugal and Lithuania there is no evidence he travelled beyond the Palestine/Asia Minor area. Make what you wish of (b), (c) and (d) but I have seen the place where St George actually killed the Dragon; it is on a river bank outside the Corsican village of Quenza. And that is a fact. Or not.

The dry valley next to the tump is known as The Manger - where else would a chalk horse find his fodder. The unusual markings along the sides and base of the valley were made by retreating glaciers at the end of the ice age. I am not aware of any more fanciful explanation for these.

The Manger below the Uffington White Horse

Having walked a couple of miles up and down the hillside in distinctly unEnglish temperatures we were tired and sweaty, and as time was getting on we decided to make the forty minute drive to our B&B rather than take the 2.5km walk to Wayland's Smithy. But we returned the following morning…

27-Jul-2014

Weyland's Smithy

On a cooler morning when the day’s maximum was not forecast to exceed the mid-twenties, we set off from the same car park along the Ridgeway. Although it is a modern long distance footpath running 87 miles from Ivinghoe Beacon in the Chilterns to Overton Hill near Avebury the Ridgeway is based on a 5000 year old trail.

Setting off towards Wayland's Smithy

We started on the grassland, but soon found ourselves following chalky lanes between wheat fields, some already harvested and the others looking ripe and ready. Along the narrow path we seemed in constant danger of being run over by one of the countless mountain bikers taking advantage of a sunny Sunday morning, but they all thanked us pleasantly when we moved aside to let them pass.

Along chalky lanes to Wayland's Smithy

Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow. If King Alfred is ancient to us, Uffington Castle and the White Horse were ancient to him, and Wayland's Smithy was ancient when the first spadeful of earth was dug from the ditch at Uffington.

Wayland's Smithy

The ‘long barrow’ lives up to its name being 56m long by 13m wide. It was constructed in two phases, an original timbered-chamber oval barrow, built around 3500BC, was converted into a stone-chambered long barrow about a hundred years later.

Wayland's Smithy

Wayland (or Wolund) was the Germanic smith-god and his name is has been associated with many prehistoric sites. According to myth, if a horse throws a shoe and is left overnight at the Smithy, with a silver coin on the cap stone, in the morning the horse will be shod and the coin will be gone. Did no one notice this is exactly the same arrangement you would have with an earthly smith - except they don’t work overnight and unseen?

Lynne at Wayland's Smithy

We walked the two and a half kilometers back to the car park and set off towards our daughter's home, which, coincidently, is within sight of Ivinghoe Beacon at the far end of the Ridgeway.

Dublin (3) From the Great Famine to the Guinness Storehouse

The Famine Memorial, the Jeanie Johnston and the More Comforting Surroundings of the Guinness Storehouse

Past James Joyce and Down to the Liffey

Ireland

Dublin

Tuesday had been sunny and warm, Wednesday looked less promising but we set off, undaunted, towards the Liffey, pausing for Lynne to pose with James Joyce (The Prick with the Stick - see also 'The Tart with the Cart' and 'The Queer with the Lear' (yesterday) and 'The Floozie in the Jacuzzi' (the day before). As I write, I have every intention of reading Ulysses, and soon [Update Jun 2021: my intention has not changed.] And so the path to hell is paved.

Lynne and James Joyce, Earl Street, Dublin

Reaching the river we turned east, towards the sea, passing the handsome 18th century customs house which now houses the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

The Custom's House, Dublin

The Famine Memorial

Near the customs house is the Famine Memorial. Between 1845 and 1852 one million Irish people died, and a further million emigrated. The immediate cause was potato blight – about a third of the population were wholly dependent on this one crop – but throughout this time Ireland was producing sufficient food to feed itself. Grain was exported in bulk as ruthless landlords (many of them absentee landlords, many of them English) saw an opportunity to clear the land of the rural poor. The British government was criminally uncaring, if not worse, and stood by watching as Ireland lost around a quarter of its population.

The memorial is the work of Dublin sculptor Rowan Gillespie. The group of ragged people and their equally thin dog stand on the quay, almost staggering to the point of embarkation. Dublin has much public art, some of it good (though I have serious doubts about The Spire) but this is something else. You can almost feel these people's misery as they embark on a journey they may well not survive. For some it will be the gateway to a new and better life, but as they stand here, on the very edge of Ireland, they have few dreams and little hope.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

I also photographed them from behind - I felt the sculptor wants us to see them this way, too. They stand facing the sea with their backs to their old lives knowing there can be no return as the cringing dog realises that he will be left behind

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

The Jeanie Johnston

A little further down the quay is the Jeanie Johnston, a replica of one of the emigrant ships. We arrived for the 10 o'clock tour, but it was booked by a school party so we had an hour to fill. We strolled along the south side of the Liffey in search of monuments that were either not there - like Molly Malone, the Viking Steyne Stone has given way to the burgeoning tramway - or were hardly worth seeing. I did, though, like the blue lamp outside Pearse Street Garda Station. Everybody knows British policing was better when George Dixon stood beneath a reassuring blue lamp.

Blue lamp, Pearse Street Garda Station

After an early coffee we returned to the Jeanie Johnston. It would be misleading to describe our visit as a guided tour, you can hardly ‘tour’ something so small. We stood on deck and listened to the guide and then we went below and listened to the guide. That said, Paul's tales of life on board, description of his researches into the fate of the migrants, and the stories of their descendants returning to see the ship made an hour slip quickly by. It was his second tour of the morning and would give the same talk six times during the day, but it still sounded fresh.

The Jeanie Johnston, North Wall Quay, Dublin

The original Jeanie Johnston was built in 1847 in Quebec and bought by John Donovan & Sons of Tralee. She carried timber to Ireland and emigrants to North America, making 16 such voyages, sailing to Quebec, Baltimore and New York.

In all those journeys the Jeanie Johnston had the remarkable record of not losing a single life among passengers or crew. Most newcomers landed in Grosse Isle in the St Lawrence at Quebec, where 5,000 who did not make it are buried.

Aboard the Jeanie Johnston, Dublin

Ship owners were businessmen and many cared little for their human cargo, packing them in tightly and often scrimping on food. Jeanie Johnston's owners were relatively enlightened, as was the master James Attridge, and the ship carried a doctor, Richard Blennerhasset, who was not only fully qualified but also competent. Even so Jeanie Johnston carried 17 crew and around 200 migrants on each journey which lasted, on averaged, 47 days. The modern (full-sized) replica is licensed to carry 40, including the crew.

Captain Attridge on the Jeanie Johnston, Dublin

Trans-Atlantic passage cost about £4, half the annual pay of an agricultural labourer, so many would-be migrants waited until relatives who had made the journey earlier were well enough established to send money back. Others had been forced off their land by the famine or by avaricious landlords and were reliant on the workhouse. For workhouse guardians it made sense to move their inmates on, funding migrants whether they wanted to go or not.

By 1855 the flood of migrants was abating and the Jeanie Johnston was sold on. In 1858 en route to Hull with a cargo of timber she foundered. After nine days clinging to the rigging of their sinking ship, the crew was picked up by a passing vessel. Again, all survived.

Dr Blennerhasset on the Jeanie Johnston, Dublin

The replica Jeanie Johnston was built in Tralee in 2000. She made a trans-Atlantic tour crewed by trainees and regular trips round Britain and Ireland and to Spain, but is now a full-time museum ship. Unlike the original Jeanie Johnston her lower deck is filled by an engine, she has watertight steel bulkheads, firefighting equipment and an emergency generator. Without these she would never have been allowed to sail. Times have changed

Lunch near the Remnants of the City Wall

Moving on, we walked west down the south bank, through Temple Bar and on to the Medieval/Viking district where we lunched on soup and Guinness in a café bar opposite Christ Church cathedral. As we ate we noticed passers-by carrying raised umbrellas. By the time we emerged there was a light drizzle, but we continued walking, diverting slightly to pass the longest remaining section of Dublin's old city wall,....

What remains of Dublin's city wall

... followed by the rather strange sight of an 18th century windmill in the city's 'Digital Hub'. The drizzle was becoming steady by the time a sign to the Guinness Storehouse directed us up a cobbled alley.

Windmill in the digital age

The Guinness Storehouse, St James's Gate

The whole St James's Gate area is the domain of Guinness. The Guinness Storehouse was constructed in 1902 as a fermentation plant but is now a seven storey beer museum where a full price ticket costs a hefty €16, though the seniors’ ticket were better value considering both include a 'free' pint of Guinness at the end. The consolations of age!

The 9,000 Year Lease

It is a slick operation and whereas most museum visits finish in the gift shop, this one started there as well. In 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year lease on the brewery site and a copy of this lease is set in the floor at the side of the gift shop. At the bottom is the signature of Arthur Guinness, the same signature that appears on every bottle and can.

9000 year lease, Guinness brewery, Dublin

Liffey Wicklow Mountains Water

The exhibition starts with the basic ingredients of Guinness, or any other beer, the malt, hops and water. I have done my share of brewery tours over the years, though mostly in smaller breweries where they are keen to tell you the variety of barley, the degree of roasting and the specific hops. Guinness is a big brewery doing large scale tours for a general audience and skips these details. They do, though, make a point of their water, which is not, as legend has it, from the Liffey, but is piped in from the Wicklow Mountains. Having seen and smelled the Liffey I found this reassuring.

The water for Guinness - from the Wicklow Hills, not the Liffey

William Gosset and the Student's t-test

The next floor or two take you through the brewing process, the head brewer popping up on screens to demonstrate the equipment which is made to work by audio-visual trickery. It is all rather well done. One commemorative plaque that interested me particularly (though possibly few others) was to William Gosset, who was employed in 1908 to apply his statistical expertise to Guinness’ processes. He developed Student’s t-test, one of the basic tests for statistical significance, and a technique I taught many times in my previous incarnation. Guinness would not let him publish under his own name so he used the name Student, as he considered himself a student of statistics.

William Gosset, Brewer and Mathematician

Guinness Advertisements

There is, unsurprisingly, a section on Guinness's well-known and distinctive advertising campaigns. Some of the television adverts are minor works of art, and many of the posters are equally memorable - the toucan was always my childhood favourite.

Lynne and that Toucan, Guinness Brewery, Dublin

I am unsure that the slogan ‘Guinness is good for you’ would pass the advertising standards current guidelines, but we all remember it. I also took the opportunity to make a guest appearance in one of their best known posters.

I'm really in the poster, Guinness Brewery, Dublin

A 'Free' Pint of Guinness

The gravity bar on the seventh floor is the best place to claim your 'free' pint. The circular room gives a panoramic view of the city, while the stout is dispensed from a circular bar in the centre. It was noisy and crowded, but the youthful barmaids had the ready charm of all Dublin bar staff. We found somewhere to sit and drink and observe those around us. Every tourist who ever came to Dublin has visited the Guinness Storehouse - the guest photos include Bill Clinton, Barak Obama, David Cameron and Mrs Elizabeth Windsor - and not all of them are regular beer drinkers. I enjoyed watching well-dressed elderly ladies who looked like they had never held a pint glass before cradling a pint of the black stuff and wondering what to do with it.

In the Gravity Bar, Guinness Brewery, Dublin

Our glasses empty, we walked round to take in the view. Dublin does not have the most memorable of skylines at the best of times, and on a dull overcast day with the rain splattering against the glass this was a far from being the best of times.

Dublin's less than memorable skyline

We descended to the gift shop, made a few purchases and headed out into the rain.

A Long Wet Walk Beside the Liffey

Our hotel was a forty minute walk from the Guinness Storehouse. We would have been better advised to take a tram, but we could not immediately locate the St James's tram stop, and we had no idea how persistent - and eventually, hard - the rain would become. We slogged along beside the Liffey, not the sweetest of rivers, as a curtain of mist with rain in it turned into a steady downpour.

Plodding along in the rain beside the Liffey

We were soaked long before we reached O'Connell Street and turned directly into the rain. The Savoy Cinema was hosting the world premiere of Mrs Brown's Boys: D'Movie that evening. We had thought of going to see the stars arrive, and a few die-hard fans were already leaning against the barriers although it was not yet five and the red carpet arrivals were scheduled for 6.30. They looked wet and could only get wetter. We decided to give it a miss*.

We dropped into Londis as we would not have time for a hotel breakfast in the morning. As we stood by the bakery section deliberating what to buy the bottom dropped out of our soaked Guinness bag and deposited our small collection of gifts on the floor. It summed up the previous hour.

Continuing rain dissuaded us from going out to eat and we broke our usual rule and ate in the hotel. The restaurant decor had upmarket pretensions, but the food was no more expensive than at a pub. My chicken breast, stuffed with Clonakilty black pudding and roasted en croute, was dry. Served with scoops of mashed potato and plain boiled cauliflower and broccoli it was very dry and crying out for a sauce. Having recently discussed Bury black pudding with a native of Datong, Bury's Chinese twin town, Clonakilty's more herbal version may bear further investigation; the rest of the dish is best forgotten. Lynne's vegetarian pasta was the sort of thing you can throw together yourself for a Euro, but in a restaurant costs 12 and is no better, in fact not as good. The sundried tomatoes had been slipped straight out of a jar and were slimy, there were too many olives for the balance of the dish and the 'crumbled goat's cheese' was more slabbed than crumbled. Feeling we had drunk enough Guinness we washed it down with a very poor bottle of Spanish chardonnay which, at an exorbitant €23, was the cheapest wine on the shortish list. The mark-up policy is generous.

When we had finished we stuck our heads outside the door. The rain looked to have stopped and the streets to have dried, but we only walked a few paces before discovering that rain still hung in the breeze. We could not complain, this is, after all, Ireland, and we had enjoyed a day and a half of sunshine before the clouds arrived, and the Welsh, as I had cause to observe yesterday, are not a nation of moaners (pity nobody told my 'Aunty' Edith.)

*We saw the pictures on RTE in the morning. The cast seemed dry enough, but the crowd looked bedraggled. I would not have recognised Brendan O’Carroll wearing trousers.

Dublin (1) First Impressions
Dublin (2) From the Book of Kells to Dublin Castle
Dublin (3) Famine and Plenty (of Guinness)