The Blenheim

The Blenheim, often 'TB' in these pages, was only open fitfully over the holiday period, if at all, and now appears to be closed, at least for the present. With the beer garden installed during the plague now being dismantled, in favour of what not yet being apparent.

The place, in the middle of the orange loop on the snap above, appears to have been built just before the second world war, more or less in what was the yard of Court Farm, once a farm of 300 acres employing a dozen men and half a dozen boys, having gradually been given over to housing, hospitals and other uses over the previous fifty years.

By the 1950's I believe that it was a thriving suburban house, set back from the road with raised beds in front. Owned by Watneys, the people of Red Barrel fame when I was young. Also the people who had had the Stag Brewery, then more or less opposite Victoria Station.

By the time that I knew the house in the late 1980's, it had become Gee Gee's, a wannabee cocktail bar cum night spot. The name being a play on Blenheim, the 1930 winner of the Derby. Run by a good looking and efficient young lady who quit to go to the country, where she would not have to deal with drunks that she used to go to school with.

This was followed by a rather chequered history as a managed house, with some managers lasting for years, some for months. Its main business was provided by the mental hospitals which were not far away and by the van trade, that is to say builders and building workers, with a leavening of people from the utilities. A thin sprinkling of suits, including my own. The raised beds gave way to the vans. Most of the business was done early evening and there was the odd skirmish later on.

The most recent incarnation was as a gay house at night which served food during the day, food which we took advantage of during the first half of the plague, when it was warm enough to eat outside in the beer garden which had taken over out front. The mental hospitals had largely closed down and the van trade had left.

The site - or perhaps the head lease - is owned by Greene King, and we now await developments. My own theory is that at the time the shops were rebuilt - including the successful Costcutter we now have - the whole site should have been redeveloped, leaving just a modest ground floor bar, better suited to present needs than the present building. With flats above. I don't suppose I shall ever know whether it was Greene King that was not interested or whether such redevelopment was blocked by some combination of council and heritage. Heritage people who would not dream of using the place themselves, given its somewhat mixed reputation.

PS 1: sharp frost this morning and it was cold outside at 09:00. The lock on the passenger door of the car had frozen up and needed BH's special care to get it to work again - while I had to revert to bicycle for my warfarin test. Which, I am pleased to be able to report, I passed. Albeit just. BH reports that this cold snap will not last the week, so maybe that will be it for this winter.

PS 2: not lifted by 16:00 when it was cold again, getting colder. Interesting patterns of ice in and around the flooded micro ponds, mainly in the form of lines radiating from their rims. Interesting patterns of frost at the back of the back lawn, where the frost highlighted the mossy areas, which seemed to hold the frost for longer than the grass.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=tb. Some confusion between the present TB, a public house, and the once common and often fatal disease. Lots of it in Maigret stories.

Reference 2: https://eehe.org.uk/?p=29764. A history of Epsom Court, aka Court Farm.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim_(horse). For a time, the pub sign was for the Blenheim Arms, which was quite wrong. Race horse with colours rather than heraldry with shield.