I think I’ve found England’s best pub

In an attempt to secure the future of the British boozer, Will Gore introduces his children to the joys of an inn holiday

The Queen’s Arms, situated in one of North Yorkshire’s prettiest dales, was a hit with the kids (Will Gore)

In the first two decades of this century, almost a quarter of pubs in the UK went to the wall. The availability of cheap (and decent) alcohol in supermarkets provides a partial explanation, as does the explosion of alternative leisure pursuits and changing family dynamics. It’s also fair to say there were once a lot of pretty ropey pubs, some of which are little missed. But small independents have struggled to compete against the big corporates: a pub might be decent, but scale talks. And coronavirus hasn’t helped.

Perverse though it may be, I take this decline personally: not because I spend all my time in pubs, but because if ever I have more (or any) spare hours in my life, I don’t want to find that my local has been turned into flats or a nail bar. I probably also cling to some romantic ideal of England: a village green, church on one side, pub on the other and a cricket match – or burning wicker man – in the middle.

One way or another, I realise that a lot of my formative experiences have involved pubs. Family walking holidays invariably meant pub lunches, which seemed like such an extraordinary treat – even when the food was barely adequate. I had my first snog in a Cambridge boozer; and on the same night had my first experience of public vomiting. Friendships have been made firm over drawn-out pints; sorrows have been drowned.