Having met with an Excluded friend, we decided to go for a drink and I knew just the perfect place. The Royal Oak is in part over 1,000 years old with parts of it dating back since 1002 AD.
There are lots of old alleys and pubs in Winchester so you don’t have to look to hard for one that is just perfect as this one is.
What I didn’t expect though perhaps should have was that in a long-winded and somewhat tangental way, the pub actually features in my family history.
For originally before the building was a pub, it was given to Queen Emma as a wedding present from King Ethelred and as you can see from the photo below, she had an an eventful life.
It is an lovely old pub with a nice atmosphere and great looking food. We restricted ourselves to a drink as there was still much to see. I had a rather delightful cider as I listened to the locals and their subtle accent. Winchester is home to a beautiful Cathedral and a very prestigious school where none other than billionaire man of the people, lying Rishi Sunak studied. The accents tended to vary slightly between those very proper Received Pronounciation and subtle bit of a Hampshire twang which I have never really heard before. Not as broad as those in Wiltshire or places further west, rather similar to those in Portsmouth which I am sure most people don’t pick up on anyway. It’s just one of my things.
Suitably refreshed, we headed out again into the still endless heat head off down the same narrow streets that Ethelred, Emma and King Alfred would have known so well.
For what many believe to be a much older pub, check out my post on Ye Olde Fighting Cock – The Oldest Pub in Britain?
Stephen Liddell 
This sounds amazing. I am going to look it up. Now I want to see this.
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