Historic Lamb & Flag pub to reopen

Hurray!

More information will soon be available to my patrons

Let me just drop here that a 15 year lease seems to have been signed and that the main task of this community interest company is:

The company has been set up to acquire a long lease on the site known as the Lamb & Flag pub in Oxford to run it as a community public house for the benefit of the Oxford community.

So yup, we will be able to have a pint at the Lamb and Flag again.

The Eagle & Child, meh... there are some other, major issues there. And it's looking rather bleak for the Mitre.

Bird and Baby to remain closed for at least two years now, as plans for renovations have stalled or are taking longer than expected.

Mr Richardson said viewings took place last month as the college seeks a landlord to take on the pub.

He added: “As far as I’m aware no work has started yet and the pub is in quite a bad state.

“It may not re-open for a couple of years yet, but we can rely on St John’s to cherish the pub’s history as it has done with the Lamb & Flag.”

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1974 ... ItdcZQMXTvnqI5sihWX0-YJRY

Both the Eagle & Child and Lamb & Flag were my local pubs—I lived right there on St Giles while in Oxford. Of the two, the Lamb and Flag was in much better shape and much more popular: it was cleaner, more spacious, and had much better food and drink. The Eagle and Child was quite a mess, and not so popular: a tiny front room with 'characyer' that was always packed (being the most 'Inklingish' of the rooms, certainly, but I generally saw tourists there), then a narrow space in which the bar itself was, then a tiny hallway with a horrificallly squalid bathroom off it and the kitchen next to it (also squalid), and finally a large back room seemingly last decorated in the 1970s (wood panelling, mirrors, and faux greenery), which was once the conservatory (where Inklings gathered on occasion, as mentioned in letters). I'd get a table back there away from the chatter (it was nearly always empty or close to it), eat, drink, spread out the books, keep drinking, and do my work. Out back in the off-limits garden proper—one could see into it from the rooms above Greens—were piles and piles of junk. Grim. The fare was that of the Richardson chain: frozen food and no local ales, only mass-produced stuff. The Greens Café was delightful: they made fresh pastries and panini, and in the former inn rooms upstairs one could eat and or study; there's good sun through the large windows morning and afternoon. The upper rooms in the Eagle & Child would be better used for seating than boutique hotel rooms, as there's so little seating on the ground floor for patrons, and would benefit from a conference room somewhere up there for Inkling-related stuff, surely. The Greens Café upper rooms were quite spacious and would make better hotel rooms, considering the necessary addition of en suite bathrooms. The Eagle & Child really does need an overhaul, though, so hopefully it will get one, however long and however expensive it may be.

This is really good news! I walked past it on Christmas morning and it looked like it would never re-open. Now I'll know where to head for a good beer when the Oxford Literary Festival is on in March!

It is set to open on October 6th

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/2264 ... ric-lamb-flag-pub-oxford/