From Chard to Chewton Mendip and from Witham Friary to Withypool, Somerset Pubs is a journey into the past, with photographs of over 140 pubs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Coaching inns rub shoulders with back-street beerhouses, time-worn taverns with roadside hostelries. Although many are still open, the way of life captured in these photographs is one that has gone forever, destroyed by the onward march of time. Yet this is not just a wistful look at the past.

After decades of rationalisation and standardisation, local pubs and breweries are making a comeback, while farmhouse cider is more popular than ever. Somerset Pubs celebrates a tradition that, despite all the efforts of the multinationals, never quite went away.

This virtual pub crawl into the past is not so much an exercise in nostalgia as an inspiration for the future – and for journeys in search of Somerset’s pub heritage.
ISBN: 978095461386 0    Published 2007