There used to be a pub called the "Spread Eagle" in Hollingworth (it has since changed its name); the artwork on its sign featured a Romanov (Czarist Russian) double-headed eagle.

It attracted several local names during its chequered history: "The Skipping Chicken"; "The Tandoori Chicken"; "The KFC"; "The Squashed Budgie"; "The Roadkill Eagle" (or just "The Roadkill"); "The Flat-chested Bird"; etc.



The "Trap" (which was at one time a rather notorious den of iniquity) was known as the "Pony and Trap", in an odd piece of reverse rhyming slang (you can work out for yourselves what that phrase rhymes with). It was not entirely myth that the carpets there were so filthy with spilled drink that your shoes stuck to them. [It has since been redecorated, and has cleaned up its act].


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Note to US and other non-British 'Catters: Public houses in Britain are represented in tourist books and Hollywood genre Sherlock Holmes films as being all tradition and olde tyme musick (sic). In fact there is not nearly as much continuity as one might think. If the pub is a "tied" house i.e. is owned or controlled by a brewery, the brewers will change tenants usually at the rate of every two years. Breweries often will force name changes and new decor and other gimmicks on the place, with each change of tenant.

"Free" houses are obviousy less vulnerable to the whims of a brewing interest, but the drawback here is that they may change their suppliers at little notice, and the beer [NOT the lager] may swing from being nectar to being poisonous with worrying rapidity. Still, they are often the best places to drink.