We’re fortunate to have some excellent gastro pubs in the area, and this week we discovered one of the best.
The Jolly Cricketers is located in the affluent village of Seer Green, near Beaconsfield and Chalfont St Giles.
It’s a good looking historic pub on the outside, but it’s on the inside that it reveals its secret – serving up some truly fabulous food, and recently voted the best gastro pub in the South East.
WWII aircraft at RAF Halton's Charity Flying Weekend
The Queen’s official birthday is celebrated by trooping the colour and a flypast by the RAF in central London. If the idea of the tourists crowds don’t appeal, it’s happily possible to watch the flypast from the comfort and attractive surrounds of Buckinghamshire.
RAF Halton holds a Charity Flying Weekend each year to coincide with the trooping the colour flypast, and welcomes visitors to what is normally a military aerodrome.
The 2011 event was held in conjunction with the Chilterns MS Centre, who held their Summer Fete, and the Berkhamsted-based De Havilland Moth Club, who had arranged various flying displays.
We arrived shortly after midday, so in good time for the flypast at around 1pm. We were struck by just how popular it was, given that we’d only heard about it through having come across photos of the previous year’s events and looked up the 2011 dates. The parking area was filling up quickly with hundreds of cars, although still had room enough for us.
Spectactors at RAF Halton watch Battle of Britain Memorial Flight approach
We had no idea what to expect, however there was a good selection of stalls – many in military green tents that were rather in keeping with the event. Arts and crafts, traditional fete games (Tara won a coconut from the coconut shy), and the usual food and drink were all there, so everything you’d need. Many visitors had also come well prepared though with some impressive picnics, table and chairs in evidence. Well prepared to enjoy the day.
Turning towards the aircraft, the inter-war De Havilland Moths were much in evidence, with much to-ing and fro-ing. A nice selection of WWII aircraft were also on the ground. The main event was the flypast – which included most but not all of the formations seen flying down the Mall a few minutes earlier. While the Red Arrows went elsewhere, we saw the fast jets, transporters, hawker jets and the always superb Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which gave us three fabulous passes.
We first visited the Artichoke restaurant in Amersham a year ago, when we were struck by the very high quality of the cuisine and service. On something of a whim, we decided this half-term that it was high time to try it out again. In particular, we had heard that the Artichoke had recently expanded its premises into the adjacent building, and we were keen to see how this had changed the restaurant.
The Artichoke’s website offers three dining areas within the newly expanded restaurant: The Kitchen Dining Room with views of the restaurant’s kitchen, the Garden Dining Room with a kitchen garden theme and a Wine Room, upstairs. Having recently been engaged by recent Masterchef and Great British Menu TV series, we were keen to see the chefs at work, and requested a table in the Kitchen Dining Room.
On entering the Artichoke, you’re immediately aware that you’re not in any old restaurant. The service is elegant while being extremely slick. To our delight we’d be given the table right in front of the kitchen area, so prime views of the chefs were on hand. Within moments the chef himself arrived and greeted us personally – a lovely additional touch.
A week’s holiday over Easter combined with some fabulous summer-like weather was all the encouragment we needed to go on some fine day trips into the Chilterns. We made some excellent discoveries along the way – here are a few highlights:
We’ve tried a few of the dining options in Old Amersham over the past year or two. We were bowled over by the standard of cuisine in the Artichoke restaurant and have some good experiences in some of the pubs and the deli. This was the turn of another pub, the Swan, located further away from most of the shops and eateries, down the western end of the high street. Read the rest of this entry »
The South Oxfordshire market town of Wallingford was the destination of one of our February half-term days trips. Visually appealing, set by the river Thames, the town oozes history, from iron age earthworks to castle ruins and the huge number of attractive historic buildings. The style of the town immediately reminded us of Thame, a larger Oxfordshire market town located 16 miles away, which we visited in 2010. Both feature a distinctive market place with a town hall at its centre, and flanked by the main shopping streets.
We arrived in Wallingford late in the day, too late to visit sights such as the castle gardens that close at 3pm, although we glimpsed some of the castle ruins from the Thames path. The riverside area is quiet and largely undeveloped, unlike in larger towns, and following the path takes you quickly into countryside. The Thames Path also offers fine views of the Wallingford’s bridge. A stroll over the bridge itself gives some idea of the size of the Thames at this point, which while much narrower than in London, remains impressive. Read the rest of this entry »
The recent absence of blogposts might have been making you think that married life has put an end to our usual weekend trips out and pub exploration. Not so. In fact we’ve no less than three recent discoveries to bring you.
This pub was recommended a few months ago. We decided to pop over there on the August Bank Holiday, not realising that it’s a time when many villages and towns hold special events. Ley Hill was no exception, with live music and stalls set out around the Swan as part of the Ley Hill Festival 2010. Fortunately we decided to call ahead, so did have a table secured, although were completely bemused by the level of activity greeting us on arrival! Despite being so busy there was good food and service to be had.
The Swan, Ley Hill
A new café has recently opened on Ricky High Street, adding another option to lunching options. We already have Cinnamon Square and Brown Sugar established as firm lunch time favourites on the High Street, with Neros for coffee and snacks and Cafe in the Park at the Aquadrome. So how does this latest contender fare against the existing choices?
The Fat Aubergine makes much of its shakes and smoothies. There’s a bewildering variety, although Brown Sugar already offers a strong selection. As with Brown Sugar there are several menus around which makes it trickier to make a choice than perhaps it should. We both intended to have dairy free options and went for fruit smoothies and shakes, however missing the small print from each menu ended up with yoghurt and a milk shake respectively! They were tasty enough, but you don’t necessarily want to have to spend a good deal of time reading to make a simple choice.
We were more disappointed by the food, which is already prepared and not made to order as in Cinnamon Square or Brown Sugar. This meant that some of the choices were already sold out, and we felt there were relatively few fresh options available; something the competition does well.
On the whole, although it’s nice to see new businesses on the High Street, we didn’t feel Fat Aubergine offered anything that wasn’t already available from other cafés. It’s not the easiest of markets either, as Cinnamon Square uses its award winning homemade breads and is better than ever in its recently expanded form, while Brown Sugar’s deli format offers a superior selection of fresh food. For the moment at least we’re likely to stay with our current regular favourites for weekend lunches.
Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire were the destinations of a series of day-trips during half-term.
Back in February we visited the pleasant town of Berkhamsted. On Bank Holiday morning we pushed a little further north to the area around Tring, as two museums were open. The Pitstone Farm Museum (situated in the village of the same name) and the Ford End Watermill in Ivinghoe are unusual in only being open on a handful of days a year. The reason being is that both are volunteer-run and require a good number of volunteers in place to operate.
Tractor rides at Pitstone Farm Museum
The Pitstone Farm Museum is a real medley of attractions. At its heart is a preserved farm, however farm buildings have been turned into historic shops including a fascinating Smithy. There are also tractor rides, preserved vehicles, model railway and canal, crafts and stalls, and a brilliantly reconstruction of a Lancaster Bomber cockpit, to name but a few. There’s also a pleasant cafe selling home-made food at down to Earth prices.
Neighbouring Pistone is the attractive village of Ivinghoe, probably best known for the nearby Ivinghoe Beacon, one of the highest points in the Chiltern Hills. Also open for the Bank Holiday was the Water End Mill. This watermill is hundreds of years old and sells itself as being one of the only functioning watermills still to use its original machinery. There are friendly volunteers on hand to answer questions and activities for children to play with. The highlight undoubtedly was seeing the mill in full action, rattling away and actually grinding to make flour, which is for sale.
When cycling along the Grand Union Canal to the south from Ricky, the first water-side pub I encounter is the Coy Carp. After many months we finally got around to trying it out for Sunday lunch.
Each of the roads leading to Harefield seem to be quite small and narrow. Although not unusual around these parts, Harefield is larger than some of the other villages we’ve encountered yet seems somewhat tricky to reach. On arrival however, there’s a very good size pub car park, able to cope with even the busiest of Sunday lunchtimes it would seem.
From the car park the pub is accessed over a small pub which crosses a small river, running parallel to the canal. There’s both a sizeable seating area inside the pub and outside, however the weather made the outside off-limits to all put the hardiest of patrons.
The Coy Carp’s interior is fairly standard pub, fairly comfortable without being either modern or historic. Despite some poor comments on beerintheeventing.co.uk we found the service to be fine. It’s primarily ordering at the bar, although waiting staff did take our order directly for dessert.
Tara trying the fish platter at the Coy Carp pub
It’s been quiet on the blog recently but we’ve been continuing to make some great local culinary discoveries.
Few restaurants in the area so regularly feature in top food guides as the Artichoke in Amersham. Being closed on Sundays, we booked in for Saturday lunch a few weekends ago. It quickly becomes apparent that this is the home of fine dining; the service is top notch from the moment you walk in while the menu exudes quality. It’s priced accordingly without being prohibitively expensive. Definitely worth a visit for a special occasion.
Another weekend took us again over the border to Buckinghamshire; this time to Chesham on the Metropolitan Line. Curiously, Chesham is the largest town on the Amersham branch of the Met Line, however the path of history has meant that rather than a mainline stop is it an infrequently served station at the end of a single line spur of track from Chalfont & Latimer. Despite the relative inconvenience of reaching this farthest flung outpost of the tube network, our visit revealed some surprises. Chesham’s high street isn’t bad, but it’s the old town which is the biggest highlight. Based on recommendations we tried out the Queens Head, famed around these parts for its Thai food. It lived up to the reputation and was a fine old pub with it. Round the corner there’s also a Chess River walk to be had.
