Corby - Pub Town

The Stewarts & Lloyds Tube Works statue. A 'Pub Man' for sure.

It's a well known fact that people who blog about pubs (let's call them... Pub Bloggers) absolutely abhor a vacuum. The dry empty vacuum of a pub unvisited, a pint un-supped, a county uncompleted. It's a vacuum that simply must be filled, explored, highlighted in fluorescent marker pen, and subsequently journaled in florid glowing terms with the odd spelling mistake or typo. There's a pub blogger for every kind of pub and every part of the country. Estate Pub Bloggers, Good Beer Guide Pub Bloggers, Heritage Pub Bloggers, Football Away-Game Pub Bloggers, even Closed and Boarded-up, Never to Reopen Again In Our Lifetime Pub Bloggers. All bases covered, all highways and byways explored, all counties rigorously 'ticked'. All except Corby!...

Beautiful, vibrant Corby Town is a vacuum awaiting a pub blogger it seems.

It's not for the want of pubs that Pub Bloggers have neglected Corby. At the last count there were around 20 of them, as well as a handful of social clubs open and trading in what we might regard as the Greater Borough of Corby (which for the purposes of this blog will include Great Oakley, probably not Weldon, though it may do yet!). This includes two very solid Wetherspoon establishments, the favoured breakfast stop of countless pub blogging champions.

And Corby has never been easier to get to with its shiny new station, itself a 21st century 'moderne-ish' masterpiece and notable tourist attraction on a recently electrified branch of the Midland Mainline. No longer do we hear the nasal bark of "Kettering for Corby" over the train tannoy, we can go straight to Corby if we wish... Yay!

Corby is also an important stop on the mighty X4 bus route as it meanders across country from Northampton to Peterborough (Narrowboat Pub Bloggers change at Northampton for Grand Union Canal). No, there's something else keeping the pub bloggers away, and I think I know what it is!

Corby Clock Tower. Even a stopped clock can tell you when The Candle's open (it's always open!)

Corby is of course located in Scotland. A thoroughly 'north of the border' town in all meaningful ways other than the actual geography. A cartographical anomoly which places it in the even more wild and unpopulated highlands of rural Northamptonshire, but Northants it ain't! This is perhaps confusing for us middle-aged middle-Englanders, perhaps even a bit scary for some! It's a bit 'different' you see, a little bit of exotic 'foreign' Tartan on the tip of one of Englands most Tweedy-English counties. In fact it's brazen Scottishness is something of a boon for us low-wage local Sassenachs, culturally and financially grounded as we are in the impoverished Mid-Lands. Who! in all truth can afford a trip to the 'actual' Scotland, wherever that might be. Whilst Corby has certainly changed a lot in recent years, becoming ever more chic and cosmopolitan on the back of rampant housing growth, it remains as authentically and reassuringly Scottish as most of us will ever need or want.

Perhaps more pertinent in the context of Pub Blogging is that Corby has a reputation as one of the countrys great 'Real Ale-Free Zones', and there's some truth in this. Though in its favour the town remains a solid stronghold for what beer enthusiasts now regard as 'Culturally Important Heritage Keg Ales', as well as international lager brands and Irn-Bru of course. The blight of Craft Beer that's ruining so many of Englands finest towns and fridges has yet to reach Corby, praise-be!...

So Corby remains a quiet, rural backwater at heart, largely unconcerned with modern beer trends and the kind of fine dining that London and its northern suburbs of Manchester and Sheffield are famous for. I think it's this solid traditionalism that's putting all but the most hardened pubbers off Corby. They talk a good talk on their fancy 'Wordpress' blogs of flat-roof pubs and Sunday meat raffles, but in truth, 8 out of 10 pub bloggers (who express a preference) choose Craft Beer and Korean Street Food over a proper Scotch Pie & Tartan Bitter in a local boozer, and that's probably a fact!

It therefore falls to me as a 'near-local' to fill this abhorant pub blogging vacuum, as by chance I'm barely a Caber-throw away from the edge of town, and a mere bus ride to the magical glittering Cube that marks Corby town centre. And not before time too. Whilst Corby remains reasonably well-pubbed, some of its classic neighbourhood boozers, substantial multi-room pubs built to serve the needs of thirsty Steel workers in the 1930's, have sadly closed for good. Possibly a reflection of the improved nightime offering in the centre of town with it's plush cinema, international restaurants and stylish bar(s).

I aim to start my adventure in the very centre of town, orientate myself with a swift pint or three in the internationally famous Corby Candle pub, before moving out to the leafy suburbs and industrial estates that Corby is rightly famous for. There may be humour ahead, though not the kind you're likely to laugh at. But please bear in mind that whilst the value of a pub experience can go down as well as up, and not every pub will be to everyones taste, I aim to present the good side of Corby and its pubs on here. Licensees and their customers are struggling enough these days without me talking them down, if you want to know all the facts, warts'n'all, you'll have to go yourself!...