ALE Autumn 2000 No. 299

Pub News - Cambridge

Out to the east, the Tram Depot (Everards, Dover Street) has expanded massively by incorporating its two shop units. Unfortunately that's destroyed much of the personality and it's just a big shed now. Nearby the Ancient Druids (Charles Wells, Napier St.) has been refurbished - an attempt to end to the airport lounge feeling perhaps? It's now called Bar Citrus though still with handpumps and reopens on 29th September.

On Mitcham's Corner, the Fresher & Firkin (Bass, Chesterton Road) closed in August [it was a wild night - I was there! Ed.] and is due to open as an It's A Scream student bar called The Graduate around 1st October.

New bars planning to open around now: the "Galleried Bar" at Q.ton on the Science Park and "Bar 8", the ground floor of the new nightclub in Corn Exchange St.

Three pubs have reverted to their more familiar names:

• the Mill (Enterprise Inns) - Tap & Spile
• the Royal Standard (Pubmaster) - Kitty Dunphys (the story made The Sun)
• the Man on the Moon (Pubmaster) - the Office

The new couple, Martin & Donna Thornton, moved into the Free Press in early May when Chris and Debbie Lloyd left. Unusually, Greene King advertised for a couple who'd keep the pub no-smoking. Planning permission for the extension of the pub has been given. (See also the article elsewhere in this issue.)

GK completely refurbished the Castle (next door to the Regal) to compete with the surrounding beer barns, reopening it in September.

Plans to revamp the White Swan (Mill Road) seem to be more extensive than previously reported: apparently it's to become a cheap-lager venue guarded by bouncers (sorry: "door supervisors"). They have also replaced some of the etched glass windows of the Champion of the Thames (King Street) by plain glass, spoiling one of the features which made it such a snug place.

The Bird In Hand (Newmarket Road) now has GK's full guest beer portfolio: regulars, seasonals plus interesting beers from around the country.

The Portland Arms, our Branch Pub of the Year, has changed its Public Bar into a room of Internet PCs and it's proving popular.

Neville Lindsey, the owner/landlord of the Durham Ox (Mill Road) for nearly 30 years, is selling it to the owner of the student flats next door, who plans to turn it into a cybercafe. It's been a fine survivor from a different era and it'll be much missed! (See No Frills Drill Still in Mill Road.)