The Blue Boar Inn, Maldon

During my recent trip to Essex, my brother insisted that we pay a visit to the Blue Boar Inn, a really old pub in Maldon.  It is about 20 minutes away from the village of Boreham where he lives.

Although I rarely drink these days, I went along purely out of historical interest.  The Blue Boar Inn is indeed historic.  The oldest parts date back to the 1450s and it is said to have been a watering hole of Will Shakespeare. (They found authenticated copies of his credit card charges in the old inn records).

Even if Will did not sleep there, he certainly caroused there according to local legend.  And so did many river men, seafarers, smugglers, pirates, highwaymen and many generations of the local townspeople, proud descendants of Angles, Saxons, Vikings and a few random Normans.

The Blue Boar fronts onto Silver Street and that part of the structure actually dates back to Georgian times.

However, when you enter the old coach gate, you see the more ancient part of the Inn and can imagine horse drawn carriages and carts disgorging weary travelers who are thinking of a soft bed and some good ale.

According to the Trip Advisor website, you can definitely find excellent ale here (brewed on site by Farmer's Ales) but even in these modern times the beds in the hotel part of the structure are a bit old and lumpy.

The pub is in the oldest part of the building.

It boasts a low ceiling with roof beams taken from an old shipwreck.  Scattered around is a random collection of all things local from stuffed foxes and stoats to wildfowl guns and old paintings, faded photographs and a stag's head over the fireplace.

A roaring fire was burning in the fireplace.  The publican threw on an old kitchen cabinet for good measure.  As it was cold and wet outside, the fire was very welcome.  The pub was packed--a good testament to this hardy English institution and plenty of tasty Farmer's Ales.

We got talking to one of the locals.  He was called Jim.  He had lived in Maldon all his life and had been a long distance truck driver.  He told us that he had only been coming to the Blue Boar for about 10 years.  He had left his old pub of 30 years because the new owner was "not an agreeable person".

Jim was well settled in his corner of the bar.  He evidently sat there every day consuming about 10 pints or so in a relatively sober fashion.  He informed us that he had a girlfriend who lived in Cambridge and that he had visited her every Friday afternoon for tea for the last 15 years.  Jim later let slip that they also had a 15 year-old daughter--but they had never got married. One of the drawbacks of his long distance driving?  My sister-in-law, Maureen, was teasing him that he probably had a girl in every town but he only gave her a wan smile.

The owner of the pub was a very well spoken chap who told us he was a local farmer and that the pub was his hobby.  Jim told us that the "guv" had bought the Blue Boar about 5 years earlier for 1.5 million quid.  That's an expensive hobby.  He told us he owned five farms and had a sea-going yacht that took him off to the South of France, Turkey and other parts of the world.  Not a bad life being a farmer.  Our farmer-cum-publican told us that the secret of farming was to "keep it simple"--just one crop (wheat) and some cattle.  He seemed very knowledgeable about wheat futures and probably knows more about hedging than Jamie Dimon.  He certainly hasn't lost $2 billion recently.

Anyway, we enjoyed our visit to the Blue Boar so much that Mike and I came back the next day, Saturday, for a few more pints of Puck's Folly and Farmer's Ale.  Jim was still there in his corner but told us he had not made it to Cambridge the day before.  I wonder why?

The picture on the left is of an old guy whose name I now forget.  But he was the last person to make his living as a "wildfowler"on the marshes and rills that surround this area.  Mike sails in and around the coast where he had his house and made his living shooting the local birds of the marshes.  The guv brought out his photo when my brother was talking to him about punting through the narrow channels (rills) of the Blackwater marshes.  His photo has now been placed on the mantlepiece over the roaring fire.  He will be keeping Jim company each day for evermore!