Greene King have been changing some of the pub signs in Abingdon. They have changed to written signs with the corporate tag “Meet and Eat”.
Looking at the Vale of White Horse Planning Portal it is not clear whether permission was granted for all the new signs.
Application P13/V0074/A for The Boundary House says application “Withdrawn prior to determination on 5th March 2013”.
No planning application could be found for the change to the College Oak sign.
Application P13/V0084/A, for a change to the Midget sign, was granted by the Vale saying “The change to a single sign, from a double is a welcome change.”
Its a shame they are removing the traditional ‘picture’ pub signs.
sad, very sad 🙁
Clearly an idea from someone in Greene King who has no interest or real understanding of the history or culture of the pub trade.
‘meet and eat’ says it all really… fast heading towards a chain of poor quality restaurants.
Anon Coward I couldn’t agree more.
They’re pretty much McDonalds with beer available these days. I wouldn’t go near the places, but I guess there must be a market for it as GK seem to be doing OK.
Says a lot about modern culture really. Everything has to be quick and cheap.
🙁
It would be good if the town could ask GK for the old signs and maybe make some use of them in future for exhibitions etc. Also, in case the wheel turns full circle and future pub owners want them – as happened a few years ago at the Broad Face.
Its strikes me as an odd move, it makes the pubs look cheap and nasty as the graphics are very down-market. The older pictorial signs look a lot more fashionable than the new branded signs. Good quality food and real ale is a popular as ever (see how the revamped Nags Head, and Kings Head and Bell do a good trade), and the new GK look, makes the revamped pubss lool like a place to go to drink cheap lager and watch sky sports. I cannot see GKs logic here?
How bland!
Well, the sign for the Wetherspoons will be a new one, so it will be interesting to see what style they adopt. Probably corporate, I guess, but begs the question of the name. “The Old Post Office”?
The Broad Face also has an application in to change the sign again.
http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/java/support/Main.jsp?MODULE=ApplicationDetails&REF=P13/V0429/LB
How sad to see the connections with Abingdon’s history obliterated. I am fairly new here but I imagine that the former sign at the Boundary House (depicting a wheel) was in recognition of the MG founder?
Is it a wish of large organisiations that everything is cloned?
These new signs are AWFUL. Even my kids think they are horrible.
They look like they’re becoming Harvesters or the like 🙁
The signs at the Old Anchor Inn are still the same.
The beer is excellent and they have a new exciting menu
available from Wednesday. Well worth a visit.
Have you noticed all the signs feature a “Sky Sports” logo ?…. they know their market… chavs with their feral spawn in tow. That’s why they put the little fence up round the Boundary House garden. Pity, a few of them running into the road would give natural selection a chance to kick in and thin the herd a little.
The news signs are very bland with no individuality. Lets face it pubs have to change or go under. There is no profit in drink as people cannnot drink and drive and thanks to tax it is very expensive. Branching out in the food market is the only alternative. My friend and I used to have a meal in the boundary house from time to time. Yuk, Sky sports. Thats all we want blaring out in the background when we are trying to have a conversation.
Vote with your feet – drink in the Old Anchor, the Kings Head or the Brewery Tap instead.
The Broad Face signs are interesting. 2 meals for £9.95 …. I don’t thnk so – not even 2 starters !!! Does this mean the Gastropub concept has failed?
When Weatherspoons open they will all have the same sign CLOSED! . There is no loyalty in this town try supporting your local pub instead of a faceless business . You do not do it with your local independants shops so you might as well try saving a pub .
Neil – Are you really suggesting that people boycott a business due to it’s signage?
Moody Man – no business is faceless. The people behind the bar and in the kitchens are locals who are part of our community.
Implying that the closure of corporate drinking establishments is desirable isn’t very helpful as when a pub closes people lose their jobs and locals lose their pub, which as I recall was the big argument against Tesco taking over pubs last year.
You can’t have it both ways!
I love the Kings Head and Bell but I wonder why you think this pub under Foundation Inns PLC is more deserving of our money than one run by Greene King when they both aim to make money out of pub ownership?
Playing favourites is a tricky game in any small town once you start digging down into who owns what and where the money goes.
Most Abingdonians keep your heads, drink where they like the beer and the staff and the gardens and don’t listen to the anti-everything brigade.
@ pete – ‘chavs with their feral spawn in tow. That’s why they put the little fence up round the Boundary House garden. Pity, a few of them running into the road would give natural selection a chance to kick in and thin the herd a little’
really?!??! you’re really advocating and hoping for the deaths of working class children?!? the fence in the boundary house is to prevent children from running into the road…why does your ignorance suggest they would be ‘chavs with their feral spawn in tow?? god forbid a prissy little middle class kid gets hurt tho eh…because it’s the chavs in society who have ruined the economy and destroyed democracy in this country isn’t it.
i’m guessing pete that you don’t get out much…probably because you’re in your 80’s by the style of your post….oh well….no need to get worked up….you’ll soon depart this mortal coil and the ‘chavs and their feral spawn’ shall dance on your grave.
‘sky sports’ – good heavens!!! lol….how much more out of touch could you be…i spose you’re referencing the ‘good old days’ when the bbc ruled the roost…and allowed their dj’s and presenters carte blanche to rape and molest the nations more vulnerable children…but hey – that’s what they deserved for being the ‘feral spawn’ of the working class isn’t it pete….
damn you sky sports with your ‘man of the people’ stance and your commitment to competition and choice…damn you!!
Drove from Luton to Abingdon yesterday and passed quite a few GK “Meet and Eat” establishments. The brand was highly visible, the pub name virtually unnoticeable. That is clearly what they are trying to achieve.
Each to their own – let those who want brand uniformity make their choices – no need to be judgemental about them – but those of us who value a bit more character in our pubs need to keep supporting them.
However I still feel that something should be done to preserve the old signs and names for when the pendulum swings back…
The Blue Boar has a sign saying they no longer sell food. At least the ‘Meet and Eat’ concept goes some way towards creating the Café society that Blair promised us when he introduced all day drinking!
@DKR87: in my 80’s ?!?!? No… and actually I get out loads what with not having a curfew and tag from the magistrates.
If you are referring “working class” scum sleazing their way round town in their piss stained JD Sports wear (like they’ve ever done any other sport than running away from the plod…) yes I do indeed favour a cull of the dregs of the gene pool, or at the very least a vigorous application of spaying to cut down their unfettered breeding tendencies. BTW ever notice how council estates (no I don’t call them “social housing ” as who wants trash like that living anywhere nearby) are absolutely plastered with Sky dishes, after all why go to all the effort of actually going to the match for a punch up when you can stay at home with some super strength lager and beat the wife up. I do hope my frankness hasn’t upset your sad little uppity leftist tendencies….. NOT ! :O)
@pete – i’m very far from a leftist…i can just recognise isolation, loneliness, prejudice and resentment when i see it.
as i said peter – regardless of your mail-esque attitudes – please explain to myself how this feral underclass that you attempt to wax so lyrically about are responsible for the state of the economy?
no sir…it wasn’t sky dishes, jd sports or working class scum who have destroyed this countries economic prospects…it was middle class chancers who have never done an honest days work in their life.
this England inhabited by those you refer to has always been a place of raucousness and brutish behaviour…do you think it was the effete stylised behaviour of the comfortable pseudo-aristocrats that won us an empire?
lol re: your obsession with sky – hilarious! were you molested by rupert murdoch or something??
rather sky than the biased left-wing bbc….as i said earlier choice seems to offend you…perhaps because it illuminates your isolation from the majority?? your obvious yearning to belong is embittering you…let it go before it eats you up.
DKR87: I see you are of course spreading the fairy tale that the so called “working class” somehow is entirely blameless…. feeble. What it must take for each and every generation of them to never have advanced one iota from the last to still remain a self inflicted “loser” contributing nothing to this world. Being “working class” is NOTHING to be proud of.
@ pete – sorry explain again how the working class have destroyed the economy please? explain how they impact upon the rest of us and why their children should be executed because – in your opinion – they wear the ‘wrong’ clothes? i must have missed that bit.
your beloved middle classes have advanced so much that the economy is destroyed by their actions…please explain how the workers have done this?
what have YOU personally contributed to the world peter?? if we go by this thread then nothing more than hate, resentment and bitterness….
what is it that annoys you about the majority of people so much peter?? why such hate?
and please…i keep asking…but please explain what is so demonic about sky sports!?!?!
and please – explain to me how being middle class is something to be proud of…you seem very obviously proud of your status so break it down for the plebs…
DKR87 – oh dear, have I upset the king of the stupidons ? So your argument is that by never doing anything constructive that the so called “working class” are blameless… ?!!? pull the other one. Breathing in and out with their mouths open is not a life skill. If we all followed the mindset of your “plebeian” (you used the word first) masses we’d all be living in mud huts picking the fleas off one another…. oh, hang on, your beloved chav scum still are ;O)
@pete – rather than wittering on mindlessly try addressing the topic – how have the working classes in the uk destroyed the economy to the same extent as that of the middle class?
it surely shouldn’t be too difficult for a ‘learned’ man such as yourself to answer…
btw – ‘upset’ – lol….i’m just giving you rope to hang yourself with….
breathing in and out with your mouth open is not a life skill?? really!?!? pmsl…
you seem defined by what you think you are not…rather than what you are…i pity you…it must hurt you to have to mingle with the flotsam and jetsam of society every time you go to the shops…i mean goodness i saw a man in waitrose on monday who had, heavens above, a tracksuit on!! in waitrose of all places!! is nothing sacred!?!? surely nothing can more herald the end of civilisation than a man in a tracksuit in waitrose….well other than sky sports….obviously.
it must hurt you tho….you’ve (probably) been to uni…worked hard…got a decent job…a nice house….yet that one thing that escapes you is all that really matters at the end of the day…a sense of belonging…of being part of something…dare i say it – empathy….
so you pick on the weakest in society…to make yourself feel better about yourself….the one quality you think you have is in your opinion ‘achievement’ so you highlight the percieved lack of that quality in others….i pity you.
all that really matters in life is procreation…nothing else is, ultimately, important.
have you children pete?
DKR87: Even the most basic bacteria can reproduce, by your argument that makes them somehow “worthwhile”… hmm, what it must be to live without any ability to sort the wheat from the chaff.
@pete – oh i can sort the wheat from the chaff…lol …you’re just think you’re wheat…when in fact you’ve amply demonstrated with your prejudice and misanthropy that you are in fact chaff.
lol.
define ‘worthwhile’ peter…
you cannot show me how the working class have ruined the economy in this country…because they haven’t.
and you cannot explain your phobia for sky sports…because it has no logical basis.
nor can you say with anything approaching intelligent comment why you hate those of (allegedly) lower social class than yourself because that feeling itself is rooted within your own lack of security as to your own identity and place in the world…indeed you’re reduced to whinging on about such subjective concepts as ‘worthwhile’ in a failed attempt to regain the upper hand.
i speak not from a lowly position peter…i think it’s now clear that i’m more intelligent than you…i’d be surprised if you earn more money than me…i have children and i am qualified to degree level…
does that make me better than yourself?? surely following your logic above that would be the case? should i now wish death on your children or a desire to sterilise your womenfolk?
too.
easy.
DKR87: your sad desperation to defend the chav scum is really is quite boring. As any good farmer knows, the runt of the litter is not worth the waste of feed and you certainly don’t breed from it. Is that simple enough for you.
fine. all i’m asking you to do is explain why they are runts…what do they do or don’t do that makes them less ‘worthy’ than yourself?
go on…push yourself to make a comment with some actual depth…
and as i stated…if i have achieved more than you…WITHIN the parameters set by yourself…does that mean that from my position you are less worthy…ergo a ‘runt’ of the litter?
there’s always someone ‘better’ than you.
DKR87: Its pretty obvious you have more considerably more misplaced sympathy than brains. Your having kids does NOT make you an any more worthy person or provide you with any moral advantage, like I said before any basic life form can achieve that. “Degree level” in what, doubtless some sociology or other Mickey Mouse dosser course rather than something a bit more actually well shall we say”hard”, well beyond that entry level I’m afraid. Oh, and by the way, I managed to retire in comfort decades early through hard work and taking the career risks required. But I have no need to run around suggesting these give me any superiority like yourself. I simply detest the chav scum for their sheer laziness, basic stupidity, sponging ways and all round scabby nature (and what is it with their pock marked features and obsession with “hoodies” ?) what more do you need ? The planet would not miss them, what the heck is it with your need for them ? Your pointless defence of them reveals nothing more than a self serving need to big yourself up as “Mr Empathy”..get over yourself.
blah blah blah…
so you haven’t children…you haven’t procreated…
but you’re calling other peoples lives meaningless and hoping their kids get killed??
have a word with yourself!
i wasn’t throwing around ‘achievements’…you were…i merely responded to your posts…my qualification is actually a specific profession…certainly not the mickey mouse things you’re talking about..regardless it;s a mean to an end…certainly nothing that makes me any ‘better’ than anyone else..
what is my need to defend them?? none really….i just don’t like bullies and don’t like hearing people wish death on kids.
i think you’re extremely out of touch.
DKR87: what a load of self righteous drivel. The fact you’ve you’ve replicated is truly tragic.
‘replicated’ lol!! this aint star trek sunshine…i haven’t replicated…i have procreated….
your clear hatred for children is quite concerning i feel….not very far from the surface is it…
no kids eh pete….when you’re dead and gone no-one will even know you’ve been here….what a pointless existence.
what have you added other than hate for complete strangers based on their appearance…
Abingdon should have a wall built round it, stop the creatures that reside there from spreading their poison elsewhere.