United Kingdom Journals

A Very British Summer

A travel journal to United Kingdom by koshkha

Examining the exhibits Photo, England, United Kingdom

Quote: A few tips on ways for tourists to get under the skin of the real British summer

7 Photos

The Chequers

Best Of IgoUgo

Restaurant | "Chequers - in black and white"

Quote:

I thought I knew the Cotswolds quite well after many visits but I’d never come across the village of Churchill until a few weeks ago when I went to Oxford for a reunion of the people I studied geology with back in the 1980s. Two of our classmates who are now university professors in the USA and in Wales organised the day and came up with the unusual idea of going on a field trip. In our student days, ever Wednesday afternoon in the summer, we’d get put in the back of minibuses and shipped off to yomp around a muddy quarry or three, looking at fossils and trying not to get rained on. I would say "Oh happy days" but for the life of me I remember very little of those visits in terms of the rocks, but I always enjoyed getting out of the city and into the countryside.

Our trip was an odd combination of wandering around quarries and visiting historically significant sites in the history of our old subject. A surprising number of the fathers of geology were born or died within about an hour’s drive of Oxford and so we took in a few graves and memorials. The village of Churchill was the birthplace of William Smith, the father of stratigraphy a.k.a. the father of English Geology. However, unless you are a lot more interested in the history of geology than I’ve ever been, the only thing to attract you to the village could be the Chequers at Churchill, a rather swanky – some might say pretentious – country gastro pub.

Assuming that you don’t instantly recognise the name ‘Churchill’ as a destination rather than a dead wartime leader, it might help to know where it is. I would describe the area as south east Cotswolds since the village lies east of Stow on the Wold and south west of Chipping Norton. Blink as you drive through and you may well miss it. I did find myself wondering why we went such a long way for lunch until we were marched round to the William Smith memorial and a heritage centre after lunch.

Our table had been booked weeks in advance for a Saturday lunch time in August and we’d all be asked to order our food in advance to help simplify things once we arrived. Since we didn’t arrive until really quite late – it must have been nearly 2 o’clock – I’m really not sure quite how knowing what we wanted was going to help, other than by making sure they didn’t sell all the ingredients to someone else. We had also been advised that items on the starters and snacks menu were likely to be quicker to serve. I sent my choice to the organiser a week before our visit.

We arrived and parked up by the village hall and walked across the road to the pub. We entered into the bar area and were asked if we’d like a drink in the bar before going to our table but we were so late that we decided to go straight to the table after ordering drinks. For those who care about such things, there seemed to be a lot of real ales which were well received by several people who’d flown over from the USA for the event and claimed not to have had a decent beer in many years. I ordered a white wine.

The dining area was decorated in a country-retro theme with lots of stripped wood, nick nacks and even a stuffed deer head. We had a long table and it had all be set for us before we arrived but oddly, the waiter then checked all our pre-orders with us again before going to the kitchen.

Despite the forewarning about what we all wanted, the service was very slow and most of the boys had finished their pints and were on their second long before the food arrived. When it did, there were some very disappointed faces. First shock was that ‘soup of the day’ turned out to be a chilled soup – from memory something odd like chilled minted pea. I heard it wasn’t awful but it wasn’t what those who’d ordered it had expected. Next disappointed was the size of some of the portions – they guy sitting next to me had ordered tuna nicoise and it was barely the size you’d expect for a starter portion and was missing a lot of the components you’d expect in that classic dish.

I had ordered moules mariniere and my problem was not what was missing – it was what I got and didn’t want. I’m a fishitarian and I’ve not eaten meat in nearly 25 years. I know exactly what to expect from a mariniere sauce with mussels and I got a heck of a shock when I found really big chunks of some kind of sausage, like a chorizo or something similar. I bit into the first piece and had to spit it out and then spent most of my meal picking out the bits of meat and passing them to my tuna Nicoise neighbour who was hungry for any extra food. He also helped out with my chips after he’d requested some bread to try to eke out his pitifully small meal.

The mussels were OK but not great even if it hadn’t been for the unwelcome meat in the dish. Perhaps it was unfair to compare them with mussels I’d eaten in Belgium a couple of days earlier. I wasn’t overly impressed by the setting, the dining room or the service. Being with a group of old friends, most of whom I’d not seen in over twenty years, I wasn’t in the mood to make a fuss but I did think The Chequers served food that was over-priced, undersized and in the case of my mussels, unnecessarily mucked about with. Given that they’d decided to put their own spin on two classics – tuna Nicoise and mussels mariniere – and they’d served a cold soup without warning anyone, I thought it was a pretty poor place.

On the plus side, the toilets were spotless and had such nice toiletries that I liberally applied loads of their handcream. I’ve not been to Churchill before, I doubt I’ll return and if I did, I’d give the Chequers a miss.
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Member Rating 2 out of 5 on September 3, 2013

The Chequers
Church Road
Chipping Norton
01608 659393

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The Flower and Produce Show

Best Of IgoUgo

Story/Tip

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If you spend any amount in England, you’ll soon realise that we’re a nation obsessed with gardening. We’re obsessed by quite a lot of things – weather, queuing, politeness, just to name a few – but in the case of gardening, we’re also collectively rather good at it. I have to say collectively because I personally am no horticultural goddess but in our own rather modest way, we are a nation that’s quietly confident of our international superiority when it comes to matters of spade and fork. We are the nation that can probably claim more ‘celebrity gardeners’ than any other. The French have famous philosophers – we have famous gardeners.It’s not all about grand stately home gardens and...Read More