BS: The Trip to Jerusalem (English pub)

Subject: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: CET
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 02:02 PM

My father was a student at Nottingham University before the war, and he used to talk about a pub he liked to frequent, called the Trip to Jerusalem, which is apparently one of the oldest pubs in England. I mentioned to a friend the other day that I wanted to visit this pub, and he said, "No you don't, it's been taken over by bikers and stinks of urine and stale beer" (or words to that effect). My friend hasn't been to Nottingham for a year or two, so I would like to think his description isn't accurate. Are there any friendly native guides who can set me straight?

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 02:11 PM

Here's the pub's website - as for "stinks of urine and stale beer", if so, that's hardly too unusual for pubs.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: GUEST,Geoff the Duck
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 02:54 PM

Ed - it is probably irrelevant who frequents it now. The reason for visiting is that it has history, both in terms of its physical presence and family connection.
Quack!
Geoff.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 03:02 PM

It didn't stink of urine and beer when I had lunch there recently on a work trip to Nottingham.

The Robin Hood series that has just finished on BBC1 set a scene in the Trip.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 03:26 PM

Fantastic pub...built over a cave under Nottingham Castle..and well worth the visit.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 05:29 PM

Something wrong with bikers? One of the best beer pubs in Rochester, teh Man of Kent, was long a biker pub. No hassles. You want hassles, go to a chav lager-swillery.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: CET
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 06:39 PM

Well, as Charmion pointed out, if it did stink of urine and stale beer, it would probably be getting closer to its medieval roots. I will have to visit and drink a pint for my father.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 07:01 PM

There's a beer on tap that's brewed specially and called after the pub. The loos are in a separate building outside in the yard...

If you do visit Nottingham, CAMRA have produced a Good Beer leaflet that you can get on the trams, with info about the pubs reached from the different tram stops.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 07:02 PM

As long as you can tell the difference between the two what does it matter?

:D

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 08:43 PM

Wow, what a wonderful looking place. I've love to visit sometime!

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: TheSnail
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 11:57 AM

This is an extract from this article in the Guardian.

What has happened in Lewes has come as no surprise to regulars at pubs in Nottingham, where Greene King took over the 170-year-old Hardys and Hansons Kimberley brewery in June last year, plus 268 pubs, including the medieval Olde Trip to Jerusalem, built into the walls of Nottingham Castle. Within months it had closed the brewery, made 80 workers redundant, and moved production to Bury St Edmunds, despite a petition signed by thousands. Camra's Nottingham branch has complained to the city's trading standards department. " It is still selling 'Kimberley' ale in Nottingham pubs, with a picture of the old brewery on the pump," says local spokesman Andrew Ludlow. "How can it be the same product if it is brewed elsewhere with different ingredients? Someone going into a pub in Nottingham may have a choice of Ruddles, Kimberley, Old Speckled Hen and Greene King IPA. But they are all brewed at the same giant plant in Suffolk." He points to the folly, at a time of worry about carbon emissions, of closing local breweries and trucking in faux "local" ales from hundreds of "beer miles" away.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 12:35 PM

Yes, I thought to revisit Shipstones Beers and Home Ales when my daughter went up to Nottingham Trent Uni - but much too late, they vanished years ago.

I do think that the old pub names ought to be "listed" as planning matters, and also the old pub signs.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 03:46 PM

I did a gig there as part of Tales at the Trip eight years or so back; nice pub, somewhere between the old Canny Mans in Edinburgh (where everything's covered in inches of dust...) & the Marsden Grotto near South Shields (also hewn out of the solid rock of a cliff face...), though as I remember it a few bikers might not have gone amiss to lively things up a bit...

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: bradfordian
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 04:52 PM

The "Trip" is atmospheric enough to warrant a visit, after all it is genuine old, but things have gone downhill somewhat since the disasterous takeover. A tour of the caves underneath would make the visit more interesting. CET, as I live near Nottingham, why not send me a PM when you are ready to pop round & I'll stand you a pint of GUEST ale (NOT Greene King!)
brad.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 06:11 PM

The Trip is hardly one the glories of the western world. The stale beer and piss smell could have been Nottingham itself.

Theres actually a stale beer and piss air freshener for Nottingham people who are feeling homesick - having moved somewhere nicer.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 07:12 PM

Gosh, you mean West Bridford, or Mapperley Park?

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 08:29 PM

Well virtually anywhere actually Richard!

Happy New Year!

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 03:20 AM

If it's become a biker bar, they must be a fairly short-statured band of hellions since the ceiling, as I remember it, was about six feet high.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 03:51 AM

Ah yes... at 5'2", I was in the rare position of actually having to duck through one bit of the 'Trip'... although there is that shaft that allows mutant tall people to stand erect. I was also served a giant Yorkshire pudding and sausages in what appeared to be a ceramic representation of a flat cap. But that was several years ago.

It seems to be the trend that historical pubs are taken over, run into the ground and then left to rot, quietly. There doesn't seem to be any public outcry over this until it is too late, simply because we are no longer a pub culture.

I know you'll all be hopping up and down saying 'I go to the pub every week', but what happens in that pub the rest of the week?

They're no longer seen as community meeting places - particularly in areas where alcohol is prohibited to a large section of the community. Pubs these days are seen as a place to eat during the day and get monumentally pissed in during the hours of darkness. Very few that I go in these days have quiet areas with comfy chairs and space to relax. There is always a big screen TV somewhere, a sound system blasting out some mindless pap in the guise of music and so many hard chairs and tables that it's impossible to steer a straight line back to your seat. If there are comfy seats, they're usually in the form of a padded pew that runs around the wall of the pub like some bus shelter.

I'm sure that there'll be several posts now telling me that there are pubs just like that, that there are quiet little oasis in secluded streets and villages - but that's not much good in the cities.

Pubs in cities - particularly cities and towns with a university, like Nottingham - are there purely to get people pissed and get a profit. Students do not want to sit down and discuss literature like they did in the Eagle and Child (there are exceptions but they tend to be universities with towns in them like Oxford and Cambridge). They don't want to eat there - that would waste beer money. People standing up with nowhere to put their drinks down, drink faster than people sitting comfortably. With loud background noise, people talk louder and faster, when they talk faster, they get dry mouths...

As long as the big main congolmorates own the majority of breweries and have the capital funds to buy out any pub building at all, then the "village pub" or the pub as a community centre is doomed. And unfortunately, it looks like the 'Trip' could be headed down that path.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 07:12 AM

Have to agree with you there Liz. There was always an element of the 'get pissed' fraternity but it now seems to be the 'in thing' to binge drink. I remember the 'Trip' when I lived in Nottingham in the seventies....as a place of historical interest where one could go for a quiet drink and get a great feeling of its' own special atmosphere. Sounds to me like the atmosphere has gone......
There are still a few pubs left which seem to have been unspoiled by what some call progress...but I guess we have to travel miles to get to them and if driving are unable to imbibe too much for fear of being caught over the limit, not that I drink that much these days anyway so I can still enjoy them.
Wonder what the 'Trip' will be like at midnight tonight!
Happy New Year everyone!
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 07:43 AM

Well I wain't be there to find out!

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: danensis
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 07:57 AM

Thinking of sNottingham, what's the pub at the other side of Maid Marian Way that claims to be the oldest Inn in England? They used to give you the key to the caves and let you wander round on your own. Probably not allowed by Elf and Safe Tea these days,

John

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: mouldy
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 08:25 AM

That would be the Salutation Inn. Also a real ale house.

My husband "mislaid" his best man 30 odd years ago at the Trip during the stag night crawl - best man went to the loo (as previously stated, across the yard) and got left behind. He never found them and ended up at Ian's mum's house (the only address he could remember) bleeding from the head, after trying to leap the railings that go down the middle of Maid Marion way.

Glad to hear the dust's back. Years ago I heard somebody cleaned the place, and did something about the old model galleon that used to hang over the bar draped in cobwebs. We always used to stand with beer mats on our pints to keep out the sandstone dust, which dropped from the cave roof.
The first beer my son ever drank (via me, at one week old) was their draught Bass in 1979. It was also after a lunchtime session there that my brother in law got me into a bookies for the one and only time in my life. And don't go buying wedding rings when you've been there, either, especially with the best man and one of the ushers!

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: CET
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 05:54 PM

Thanks for the invitation, Brad. I don't know when I'll be in Nottingham - it's a long way from Ottawa, but one day!

Edmund

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 06:03 AM

If you're in Nottingham, PM me. I'll at least send you the directions out of there. Seriously there are some quite nice places (and pubs). Nottingham City Centre is okay for the shops, the theatres, and the cinema. I think its fairly general in all big city centres in England, the staff of pubs and many of the restaurants know they probably won't see you again and it tends not to be a great service.

Subject: RE: BS: The Trip to Jerusalem
From: s&r
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 06:25 AM

The trip used to be my local in the days of Ada Etherington Ward the then owner ca 1970. The caves were a wonder, but not often accessed apart from the ones just below the pub. They did connect to a network of caves extending under the city: these were not available on normal tours.

One interesting feature was Mortimer's speaking tube. This was a tunnel of some 2" diameter which went winding through the castle rock from Mortimer's dungeon to the queen's bedchamber in the old castle. No-one knew how this was made.

Mortimer's hole was a staircase also through the rock for nocturnal visits

Stu