The ancient inn now had electricity and mains water…facilities you might well have thought standard in the 1970s (it was hardly the Dark Ages after all) but, in fact, the power supply at that time came from a bank of car batteries and the water came straight out of the river and through a primitive filter of sand-buckets.
Back then, we’d booked a room at the inn for the weekend, arriving Friday evening by train and then a taxi to deepest, darkest Oxfordshire. It came as something of a surprise to discover just how rural and dark it was for we’d had little experience of this area, Buckland, some fifteen miles west of the City. The Trout Inn was, then, a veritable sanctuary in the pitch-black of the Oxfordshire countryside. When the taxi pulled away, leaving us in the road with our luggage, we understood the elation of the old-time traveller on glimpsing the glow of an oil lamp in the night.
We were warmly greeted and quickly transported back to the eighteenth century by our hosts. The bar was dimly lit and the beer came from barrels; an air of antiquity prevailed and even Mr and Mrs Stevens looked the part, the former’s greying beard rooted in his neck rather than the chin. Mrs Stevens pulled the pints while Barry and I took it all in…this was the real thing: no pretentious horse brasses and weathered artefacts; no job-lots of olde books and galvanized stuff around the fireplace, this place hadn’t changed in centuries – not preserved you understand, but merely allowed to be what it always was.
We chatted and supped for a couple of hours, polishing the bar with our elbows and playing our part in the ongoing history of The Trout Inn. Faded and dated, the point-of-sale Babycham ad’s subtly brought the old and the new together but the shock of colour from the bar-top crisp packets told us of our time in no uncertain manner. Only these and one or two less obvious tokens of modernity diminished the authenticity of our setting and when conversation waned, our ears filled with a warm silence broken by nothing more than the crackle of burning logs…a time to unwind and reflect indeed.
At length it was bed-time. Mrs Stevens dropped out of sight behind the bar and re-surfaced with a pair of candle-holders, the Wee Willie Winkie type with the thumb-hole and wax receptacle! She placed them on the bar and lit them without ceremony or humour, advising on the best way to tackle the narrow zig-zag of stairs up to our room.
We bade her and Mr Stevens goodnight and pushed through the door to the stairs with our small but weighty cases in one hand and our flickering candle in the other. The ascent was very nearly vertical! One careful step at a time we delighted in the sheer genuineness of it all as timber creaked and stark, hesitant shadows distorted on the walls of the stairwell.
In our room was a small double-bed, a single chair and a wardrobe, all of early Victorian vintage we decided. Opening the robe liberated a fug of staleness and a pair of bewildered red admirals that fluttered aimlessly in search of their disturbed sleep. They eventually settled within the folds of the floral curtains allowing me and my brother to prepare for our own hibernation.
With very little space for manoeuvre, our pre-bed ablutions in the tiny bathroom across the landing were nothing less than hilarious with much candle-lit dodging, reversing and 3-point turning going on, but we did eventually get to bed and sleep like logs until morning.
The trip to deepest Oxfordshire would have been worthwhile if only for the breakfast! We sat, Barry and I, in the small morning room, surrounded by the stuff of a countryman: a couple of cane rods stood upright in one corner and a fine, engraved shotgun in another. Pheasant in all their stark, bright gloriousness looked down at us from fine, white china plates bordered in gold and eau de nil; there were roach and perch forever swimming in their bow-fronted tanks; a glass-eyed stoat on hind legs and, behind the door, a pair of old chest waders hanging like a slaughtered beast. Breakfast was magnificent and served on a giant platter with room for no more than a glob of HP.
Saturday’s fishing was almost an afterthought following such excellence, though we did manage a few fish including a surprise winter barbel of 8lb 1oz from a particularly slack section a hundred yards downstream of the bridge. Barry caught a medium-sized chub.
Back in The Trout Inn, dinner was every bit as good as you might expect me to report here: home-made Kate and Sydney pudding, creamy mashed potatoes, carrots and sprouts – then a huge section of jam roly-poly and custard!
Now what (you might just be asking) might all this have cost us? Well…Sunday’s breakfast was the twin of the previous day’s and the packed lunches had been very substantial. Mr Stevens gave us a lift back to Oxford in the late afternoon (no charge) and settled-up with us as we sat in the station car park. Each of us had enjoyed two night’s accommodation; two huge breakfasts; two huge dinners; two hefty packed lunches and a ‘taxi-ride’ back to the City. Ok, so the pound bought you more then but, like I said, this wasn’t the Dark Ages so…. would you believe £6.00? Six quid! Unbelievable!! And what lovely memories of a super weekend in the company of splendid people.
