Corby Village Life

Corby Steelworks, Michael Westmoreland

Lifelong Townies like myself occasionally hanker after the wide open spaces of the English countryside. Village life may be a bit alien and scary to us but we’re happy enough if it's just a day trip. A layby sandwich and a flask of Bovril on the way, a bit of white sliced for the friendly Geese on the village pond, maybe push the boat out with an artisan Ginsters Pasty from the village shop in the afternoon.

It’s village pubs we crave the most though. Horse brasses and head-cracking beams, beer gardens with real grass, maybe a brace of illicit swans from the local poacher. A chance to connect with our ‘old’ selves, and rediscover beer as it was before the icy chill and fizz of urban craft ruined it for everyone.

Corby Village has all this and more, particularly on a Wednesday lunchtime when the pubs are authentically 'rural-empty'. Besides, I'd heard a rumour that North Northamptonshire arts and culture advocates Made With Many had been biggin'-up the local pubs with fabulous new information boards like the one shown here. Take that Sheffield/Norwich/Nuneaton etc!...

...also besides, I needed a Lorne Sausage and Potato Scone top-up from Haddon Butchers, literally the hub of Corby Village life.

After a long layoff from the beer I was keen to check on the health of our local village locals. I found the White Hart (above) 'steady' if not busy, with a handful of hardy locals chewing the fat and largely ignoring the 1.40 at Wincanton, a three horse race that the ambulance looked like winning at one point given the heavy Somerset going.

Solid as a rock the White Hart, though there's some worrying uncertainty around its status as Corby's Capital of Craft Beer. No draught Jute! Yikes! Apparently they've struggled to get any of late, and I do worry about rising costs squeezing this fine beer off the bar. But praise be there's cans in the fridge at a wallet-settling £2.10 a pop, and served in a classy craft glass too. Phew!

One craft's enough of course, so round the corner to the newly be-boarded Cardigan Arms, home of the original English craft beer, Doom Bar. The Cardigan has now been fully assimilated into the Craft Union stable, gone the quirky football flags from the bar, nicely refurbished but otherwise reassuringly much the same. Same locals, same cosy front bar, same beer range, same attractive wooden flooring under the fancy new carpet I'd imagine.

The bar was, it must be said, rather empty on arrival. Just me actually. I'm used to it... But by the time Mrs EPIC had arrived the customer count had swelled to an impressive twenty-ish, solid afternoon boozers every one of them, except the mums and after-school children of course. The Cardigan does soft drinks, who knew!

The view to the bar

The view from the bar

We like the Cardi', so much so that we stayed for a couple of the splendid Doom Bar's, and a brace of tasty Toasties from the wonderful KC's Cafe in the car park (cake also available). Village life nattered on around us and everything in the world was rosy and a little bit malty. The Doom Bar is of course the star of the bar. The worlds most mediocre Irish stout has had its day in the sun recently, it's high time beer aficionados moved on to something with a bit of flavour, and that you can see through. The chap below is clearly well ahead of the game, probably a beer blogger, and entirely on-trend by ordering two pints of the amber nectar and methodically drinking them both himself. Then ordering another. Class!

There can only be one!