British pubs

    Ministry of Education of Russian Federation

    Northen (Arctic) Federal University 
 

                                                          Chair of Linguistics 
 
 
 

    “British pubs” 
 
 
 
 
 

     Written by V year student Koshkin A.V.

     Checked by

     Khokhlova  N.V. 
 
 
 
 
 

Severodvinsk 2011

     Content:

1. Introduction        3
2. Pub as a British tradition

                 2. I. What a pub is       4

                 2. II. Brief history of the British pub    5

                 2. III. Beer houses and the 1830 Beer act   9

                 2. IV. Signs        12

                 2. V. Names        13

                 2. VI. Entertainment      14

                 2. VII. Food        14

           3. Conclusion        16

           4. List of reference       17 
 
 
 
 

 

    INTRODUCTION 
 

    English –genii of comfort. Nowhere in the world there is such a warm, cozy interiors, as in British houses, and the older the house, the more generations living in it, the more it is appreciated.

            There is only one place where a foreigner traveler can come in an coziness of the English fireplace and its name is a pub.

           Pub – a unique and absolutely typical phenomenon of English life. It is as an integral part of the English landscape as green fields, sheep and old oaks under fast floating clouds.

    Inside a pub there is a world away from work tomorrow and the agonies of real life. In there is the British pub – a home from home for the locals, and a drop in place for the tourist keen to experience this unique aspect of British life and social history. It is appropriate that any book on Britain should end where many British people relax at the end of the working day, in that most popular of places for relaxation, the pub. The British pub exercises a special fascination for foreigners. In fact it is so popular that many imitations exist around the world, some relatively successful, others less so.

          The purpose of my work: to study peculiarities of English pub culture. To achieve this goal the following tasks will be observed:

    1. An etymology of the word “pub”.

    2. Brief story of British pub.

    3.Pubs’ names and signs.

    4. Pub’s interior appearance, behavior services and entertainment.

 

    PUB AS A BRITISH TRADITION 

    I.WHAT A PUB IS 
 

    A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller villages no longer have a local pub. In many places, especially in villages, a pub can be the local point of the community. The writings of Samuel Pepys describe the pub as the heart of England.

    Historically, public houses have been socially and culturally distinct from cafés, bars, bierkellers and brewpubs. Most public houses offer a range of beers, wines, spirits, and soft drinks. Many pubs are controlled by breweries, so cask ale or keg beer may be a better value than wines and spirits. Traditionally the windows of town pubs were of smoked or frosted glass to obscure the clientele from the street. In the last twenty years in the UK and other countries there has been a move towards clear glass, in keeping with brighter interior décors.

    The owner, tenant or manager (licensee) of a public house is properly known as the “pub landlord”. The term publican (in historical Roman usage a public contractor or tax farmer) has come into use since Victorian times to designate the pub landlord. Known as a ‘local’ to regulars, pubs are typically chosen for their proximity to work, the availability of a particular beer, as a place to smoke (or avoid it), hosting a darts team, having a pool table, or appealing to friends.

    Until the 1970s most of the larger public houses also featured an off-sales counter or attached shop for the sales of beers, wines and spirits for home consumption. In the 1970s the newly built supermarkets and high street chain stores or off-licences undercut the pub prices to such a degree that within ten years all but a handful of pubs had closed their off-sale counters. A society with a particular interest in beers, stouts and ales in the British Isles, as well preserving the integrity of the UK public house, is the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). 
 

    II.BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BRITISH PUB 
 

    A place in which to consume alcohol is common to all countries, and certainly the Celtic warriors of Ancient Britain would have knocked back their heather flavoured ales sitting on benches like a German bierkeller. However, with the Roman invasion roads and a need to set up taverns to refresh the weary traveller came. These taverns would have offered food and drink and games such as chequers (a common pub sign). The British pub was starting to take shape. Games are an essential part of a traditional British local, though the larger, modern pubs in high traffic locations will have no dart board, pool table or petanque pitch: such activities will presumably interrupt beer sales.

    The next major development came about due to a 12^th century murder. The assassination of the turbulent Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral resulted in pilgrimages to such sacred sites as Becket’s shrine becoming as popular as a package holiday is today. Inns and hostels sprang up to provide shelter for the pilgrims – a tankard of ale, a good meal, conversation with fellow pilgrims, and a bed for the night. A number of these inns still survive, such as The Cat and The Fiddle in Hampshire, The Old Bell in Malmesbury or The Weary Friar in Cornwall; plus the two pubs which claim to be Britain’s oldest, The Fighting Cocks at St Albans, and The Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham. But the most famous pilgrims’ inn, The Tabard in Southwark, was sadly pulled down to make way for a railway. The Tabard was the pub from whence the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales drunkenly set forth, taking the large and merry host with them along the way.

    In the 18^th century the alehouse started to change. This change would result in the first of the Public Houses: the first true British Pub. Before we get there though we need to consider Britain’s most famous pubs: the coaching inns which started to spring up in the late 16^th century to serve the coaching routes, both passenger and Royal Mail, that were spreading across the country. The pub furniture found in most out of town establishments is a reminder of the coaching era: polished copper pots, horse brasses, lamps, trumpets, tankards and the yard of ale glass for the thirsty coachman. Coaching inns are easily found in the countryside; they are less easy to find in large towns and cities due to road developments over the centuries. However, The George off Borough High Street in London is an excellent surviving example.

    Coaching inns come in two basic styles. Wayside inns would merely be set back from the road to allow space for the coach to draw up in front. There would be stables at the side or back to allow for a change of horses. The town or city inns, however, would be built right beside the road. There would be an archway entrance to allow the coach to pull into a galleried courtyard. The lower floor would house the stables and rooms for eating and drinking. External stairs would lead up to the gallery, from which doors would lead into small rooms – mostly for sleeping, but also for private consumption of food and drink for the better off who didn’t wish to mingle with the common folk who rode in peril on the outside of the stagecoach. Each town will claim its own coaching inn to be worth visiting,

    But, let’s return to the public house. Small alehouses had started to buy in their beer by the 14^th century, and the larger taverns and inns began to do the same so that by the 18^th century brewers were competing with each other to supply the local establishments. They were also competing against gin houses, and against the protests of immoral asagna, gaming and entertainment provided by beer establishments. Social distinctions were also becoming so divisive that the middle classes did not wish to frequent the dives of the asagna classes and vice versa. However, with a purpose built beer establishment of decent size, with separate rooms for each class of person, all cleanly run, a shrewd businessman could get a decent return on his money. The public house was born. And with the invention of porter, a beer that could be brewed and stored in vast quantities, breweries grew so large they needed a secure outlet to safeguard their investment. Agreements were drawn up and signed that tied the new public houses to taking their beer from just one brewery. By the start of the 19^th century three big London breweries, Meux, Truman and Whitbread had tied up enough pubs to guarantee the sales of at least 45% of their production. Smaller breweries on the fringes of London, such as Young’s, could only compete by buying up the independent establishments and putting in a tenant landlord to manage the pub.

    It was the public house that first introduced the concept of the bar counter being used to serve the beer. Until that time beer establishments used to bring the beer out to the table or benches. A bar might be provided for the manager to do his paperwork whilst keeping an eye on his customers, but the casks of ale were kept in a separate taproom. When the first public houses were built, the main room was the public room with a large serving bar copied from the gin houses, the idea being to serve the maximum amount of people in the shortest possible time. It became known as the public bar. The other, more private, rooms had no serving bar – they had the beer brought to them from the public bar.

    These traditional public houses served as the backbone of the Victorian town expansion. The first building on any new site would be the pub. The pub would draw in other speculative builders who would build around the pub. Building the pub first would also allow the builder to get an instant income from the men working on the other houses as they would no doubt use that pub to quench their thirst.

    The coming of the railways and trams had a curious effect on pubs. Tram stops and (at first) railway stations were named after the nearest pub. With the terminal stops this did the pub a great favour as people would get off the tram or train and go straight into the pub. Such pubs becoming so famous that entire areas would be named after them – such as Elephant & Castle, Angel and Swiss Cottage in London.

    But in general the public house thrived. And by the end of the 18^th century a new room in the pub was established: the Saloon. Beer establishments had always provided entertainment of some sort – singing, gaming or a sport. Balls Pond Road in Islington was named after an establishment run by Mr Ball that had a pond out the back filled with ducks, where drinkers could, for a certain fee, go out and take their chance at shooting the poor creatures. More common, however, was a card room or a billiard room. The Saloon was a room where for an admission fee or a higher price at the bar, singing, dancing, drama or comedy was performed. From this came the popular Music Hall form of entertainment – a show consisting of a variety of acts.

    Increasing social division led to a new room being created in the late 19^th century – the Snug. This was a small, very private room that had a sliding frosted glass window, set above head height, accessing the bar. You paid a higher price for your beer in the Snug, but nobody could see you. But it was not only the well off snobs who would use these rooms – prostitutes found them very useful as well! It is rare to find a pub with a snug these days, though The Argyll Arms in London is still set up in this manner.

    Social pressure, rather than social division, led to the next major development: interior design. Temperance movements campaigned against the squalid attractions of the public house, so landlords set about decorating their establishments with educational and artistic items such as books, paintings, stuffed animals in cases; artefacts displaying the technical advancements of the time, guns, clocks and embossed wall paper. The pub became an ornate museum of the achievements and aspirations of the Victorians – how could anyone complain now? Look around at the interior of a grand Victorian pub and you will still see those stuffed birds and that embossed wallpaper. And over in the corner, dusty and unread, will be a shelf of aging books.

    The final movement of note in the British pub is the modern pub chain. Because of complex British laws involving the sale of beer by breweries to tied houses, it is now easier for the brewery to be separated from the pub chain. Wychwood and Brakspear for example have sold off their brewing operations to Refresh UK, but have kept their chain of pubs. A modern pub chain will stamp its house style on its range of pubs, and will buy up pubs or buildings in prime locations. Wetherspoon is the most innovative in this area. Wetherspoon’s buy up old banks, libraries, cinemas, theatres and, in Soho, the old Marquee Club – a famous rock venue where The Rolling Stones and The Who started out. They are usually huge places – temples to the god beer. They play no music and offer no games. The buildings, while remarkable, have no place in the history of pubs. They are (usually) clean, tidy and well run by efficient young people looking for promotion. They are the McDonald’s of the beer world. But they offer a constantly changing range of seven real ales in excellent condition. You pay your money and take your choice. 
 

    III.Beer Houses and the 1830 Beer Act 
 

    Traditional English ale was made solely from fermented malt. The practice of adding hops to produce beer was introduced from the Netherlands in the early 15^th century. Alehouses would each brew their own distinctive ale, but independent breweries began to appear in the late 17^th century. By the end of the century almost all beer was brewed by commercial breweries.

    The 18^th century saw a huge growth in the number of drinking establishments, primarily due to the introduction of gin. Gin was brought to England by the Dutch after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and started to become very popular after the government created a market for grain that was unfit to be used in brewing by allowing unlicensed gin production, whilst imposing a heavy duty on all imported spirits. As thousands of gin-shops sprang up all over England, brewers fought back by increasing the number of alehouses. By 1740 the production of gin had increased to six times that of beer and because of its cheapness it became popular with the poor, leading to the so-called Gin Craze. Over half of the 15,000 drinking establishments in London were gin-shops.

    The drunkenness and lawlessness created by gin was seen to lead to ruination and degradation of the working classes. The distinction was illustrated by William Hogarth in his engravings Beer Street and Gin Lane. The Gin Act (1736) imposed high taxes on retailers but led to riots in the streets. The prohibitive duty was gradually reduced and finally abolished in 1742. The 1751 Gin Act however was more successful. It forced distillers to sell only to licensed retailers and brought gin-shops under the jurisdiction of local magistrates.

    By the early 19^th century and encouraged by a lowering of duties on gin, the gin houses or “Gin Palaces” had spread from London to most major cities and towns in Britain, with most of the new establishments illegal and unlicensed. These bawdy, loud and unruly drinking dens so often described by Charles Dickens in his Sketches by Boz (published 1835–6) increasingly came to be held as unbridled cesspits of immorality or crime and the source of much ill-health and alcoholism among the working classes.

    Under a banner of “reducing public drunkenness” the Beer Act of 1830 introduced a new lower tier of premises permitted to sell alcohol, the Beer Houses. At the time beer was viewed as harmless, nutritious and even healthy. Young children were often given what was described as small beer, which was brewed to have a low alcohol content, to drink, as the local water was often unsafe. Even the evangelical church and temperance movements of the day viewed the drinking of beer very much as a secondary evil and a normal accompaniment to a meal. The freely available beer was thus intended to wean the drinkers off the evils of gin, or so the thinking went.

    Under the 1830 Act any householder who paid rates could apply, with a one-off payment of two guineas (equal to £158.64 today), to sell beer or cider in his home (usually the front parlour) and even brew his own on his premises. The permission did not extend to the sale of spirits and fortified wines and any beer house discovered selling those items was closed down and the owner heavily fined. Beer houses were not permitted to open on Sundays. The beer was usually served in jugs or dispensed directly from tapped wooden barrels lying on a table in the corner of the room. Often profits were so high the owners were able to buy the house next door to live in, turning every room in their former home into bars and lounges for customers.

    In the first year, four hundred beer houses opened and within eight years there were 46,000 opened across the country, far outnumbering the combined total of long-established taverns, public houses, inns and hotels. Because it was so easy to obtain permission and the profits could be huge compared to the low cost of gaining permission, the number of beer houses was continuing to rise and in some towns nearly every other house in a street could be a beer house. Finally in 1869 the growth had to be checked by magisterial control and new licensing laws were introduced. Only then was the ease by which permission could be obtained reduced and the licensing laws which operate today formulated.

    Although the new licensing laws prevented any new beer houses from being created, those already in existence were allowed to continue and many did not fully die out until nearly the end of the 19^th century. A very small number remained into the 21^st century. A vast majority of the beer houses applied for the new licences and became full public houses. These usually small establishments can still be identified in many towns, seemingly oddly located in the middle of otherwise terraced housing part way up a street, unlike purpose-built pubs that are usually found on corners or road junctions. Many of today’s respected real ale micro-brewers in the UK started as home based Beer House brewers under the 1830 Act.

    The beer houses also tended to avoid the traditional public house names like The Crown, The Red Lion, The Royal Oak etc. and, if they did not simply name their place Smith’s Beer House, they would apply topical pub names in an effort to reflect the mood of the times. 
 
 

    IV.Signs