A new Landlord has just taken over The Broad Face. He plans to build the business up again by serving good pub food, well kept beer, and put on live folk and jazz music. But first needs to re-kit the kitchen. The pub is already open, but expect more news in July when he starts promoting what is happening.
The Grapes has also been re-opened looking smarter – thanks to the Landlord, who also runs the Brewery Tap.
Greene King still have a large foothold in Abingdon, with a large distribution centre on the Business Park, and a number of pubs …
but they have been reported as selling off their two – at risk – pubs in Abingdon to Hawthorn Leisure. Hawthorn Leisure is a new rapidly growing pub chain with 275 pubs acquired from Greene King and 88 from another group. They could get even bigger, and they now own The Saxton Arms,
and The Cross Keys. I expect both will continue to sell some Greene King beer as a three year supply agreement has been signed between the two companies.
I wish we had pubs like this in Sweden.
You can have the Saxton arms Stefan. Where would you like us to mail it?
You can have the Cross Keys to! What is it with pubs and “music” aka noise? It seems to me that the most succesful pubs is Wetherspoons and they are music free!
There really arent that many pubs that play music is there? When I’ve had a few I like a bit of a boogie but rarely find anywhere to strut my stuff. The white horse and the anchor occasionally have a band on a saturday night and theres the black swan and blue boar with their dj’s for the younger crowd. The cross keys and punch bowl have jukeboxes but arent really somewhere to have a dance. In many towns and villages you can wonder out on a friday or saturday night and be sure to find a band but we dont seem to have that. We do have however many good places to go and have a quiet drink and a bite to eat. I like the pubs we have. Infact i enjoy just about everyone of them for different reasons. I just think as a town entertainment in the pubs is something thats lacking.
spot on Gunga, great pubs for a few quiet drink but if you want a boogie late on you have to go into Oxford.
Do you think those metal kegs at the distribution centre have “beer” in them? If they do, it might explain a few things… Especially in this weather.
Gunga – the football club (the one just past the nags head) have a night club at weekends. Also the nags head do a lot of jazz and blues if you want something a bit more mellow
iani have you been to the football club disco? 🙂
Lol afraid I haven’t had that pleasure Rolf – I suspect my disco days may have passed, not greatly mourned
@gunga There is loads of live music in Abingdon… sometimes on a Friday or Saturday you’ll find up to 5 live bands playing in various pubs, and most evenings if you look around you’ll find something going on somewhere!
I try to keep a diary of upcoming events at http://abingdonbeer.co.uk/livemusic/ but I admit I don’t always know about everything as often they are only advertised inside the pub they are taking place in and I don’t visit every pub often enough to pick them up.
Pubs that often have live music include:
– Nags Head: Band every Friday, Jazz on Sunday afternoon and tuesday evening.
– Brewery Tap : Every Sunday and occasionally on Saturday evenings and at beer festivals
– Anchor: Monday Acoustic, Tuesday Open Mic, bands on many friday or saturday evenings
– Cross Keys: Occasionally on Fridays or Saturdays
– White Horse: Most Saturdays
– Crown & Thistle: Often on Friday or Saturday
– British Legion: Occasionally on a Friday or Saturday
– Broad Face: New manager that moved in last week, intends to have regular live music of various kinds.
– Railway Arms Culham: Occasionally
– Wagon & Horse Culham: Live band Every 2nd Saturday
– Prince of Wales Shippon: Jazz 2nd sunday of month, Folk last Sunday of month, live bands occasionally.
… I’ve probably missed a few out.
Pub business and customers have been falling for years, but pubs insist on filing the air with noise pollution, I suspect there would be a lot more people that would actually use pubs if they felt they could have a drink without being subjected to such pollution – why are Wetherspoons so popular?
cause they are cheap
The last good gig/pub venue Abingdon had was The Red Lion.. No Pubs are designed for taking Bands and good sized crowds, in Town. Yourself or Band are crammed into a little space holding your Pint. Some good friends have been doing music promotions around Town for years, the place is dead on it’s feet for alternative/original music.
I remember having Radiohead/Echobelly/Supergrass/Dodgy, etc, etc down the OldGaol and The Selecter in The RedLion, how awesome!!
The local Pubs are great and I use them frequently but for entertainment purposes, they lack (no fault of their own) the space that a good Rock n Roll Band should have..
Fat Lil’s in Witney is a prime example of a great small Town Pub/gig/Club Venue, where Kids can rock out and let loose. Would be nice for Abingdon to have such a dedicated place, again.
well said jb!!
Yes jb well said. The Lion was a great music venue, we havent got anywhere anywhere near as ideal as it was there. Steve, on any single Friday or Sat you really dont get the choice that you try and suggest. I havent seen a band in the cross keys for sometime and the tap only has a band about twice a year. I havent found any bands in the nags so I’ll look out for that. The Anchor is the only one that seems to do something regular. since the white horse has had new managers their music seems to be slowing up and the guys that do the nights in the stocks and the legion have only been back to the stocks (or are we supposed to call it the crown and thistle now?) once since it reopened. So Steve I will check out the Nags in the hope i find something i like but no fear Iain, it wont whilst I’m on the way to the football club!
Loads in the nags head gunga – there was a whole programme that came through the door the other day – mix of jazz and blues