The Bear, Oxford

This small pub, tucked away down a quiet side street in the heart of the city, claims to be the oldest in Oxford. It reputedly dates back to 1242, although it would be fair to say that such an incarnation has long since gone, with the present Grade II listed building first appearing in the 17th Century. You enter into a compact main bar, with a roaring fire on the go next to the entrance and a small servery opposite with just enough space for a row of handpulls - the keg taps being satisfyingly consigned to the bar back. The servery apparently boasts a rare pewter counter, but I somehow managed to completely miss this. The room has some fixed seating, but most customers were in the larger back room which has four or five tables served by padded banquettes and some wide, upholstered low stools and benches. There are some original wall panels in here as well as bell pushes running behind the banquettes. A final room can be found to the right of the bar. This is a small snug with room for a few bar stools and its own serving hatch, but very little else. The compact interior has been acknowledged by the provision of a fair sized pavement seating area. The pub's most remarkable feature is its collection of tie ends which are mounted in numerous display cases throughout the pub, covering most of the wood panelled walls and some sections of ceiling. The collection was started back in 1952 by the then landlord, Alan Course, who would snip a couple of inches off the thin end of customer's ties (with their consent) in return for a half of ale. Each tie is labelled with details of the club, school, team or otherwise that it represents and a signature from the wearer. In all there are now over 4,500 ties in the collection and the landlord's expertise on the subject was used as a plot devise in an Inspector Morse novel, in which the landlord was able to identify a tie in a photograph Morse showed him. The pub is owned by Fullers and five of their beers were available on my visit - London Pride, ESB, HSB, Chiswick and Front Row. There is also a regular guest from the local Shotover brewery, which on this visit was Oxford Scholar. I gave the HSB a try and, whilst it was in good condition, I can't say I enjoyed it much as it seemed far too sweet. This is an interesting pub with a traditional layout and welcoming ambiance. We dived in here to escape the bad weather and expected it to be a flying visit, but we really enjoyed it here and reluctantly left much later than planned. Whilst it might not be the most exciting pub for the ale drinker, it still merits inclusion on any crawl around the city.