Danes Meet their ‘Water-loo’ at the Saxon Bar

Long, long ago, in the Kingdom of Nog - err I mean Wessex - King Alfred the Great ruled his Saxon subjects, with a wary eye on the Danes (who, according to Wiki, are people who live mainly in Denmark), fearing that they would invade...

At that time Christchurch was one of the most important ports in England and was one of King Alfred’s burghs - a fortified town, to help keep out the Danes.  

Fortunately the 'important port’ mantle was ultimately to transfer to Southampton and spare Christchurch from thousands of steel shipping containers.  

Nevertheless even today the Saxons of Christchurch are wary of the erstwhile invaders of centuries before and signs banning mobile phones are clearly evidence of subconscious fears that Danish visitors, apparently here to enjoy themselves, don’t get on their phones and rustle up a surprise invasion.

Of course this doesn’t mean you can't use it to take photos for your pub blog...

I’d better start at the beginning before I talk myself into yet another tenuous title hole...

This particular day was a visit organised by local CAMRA and we congregated outside Southampton station.  Whilst waiting for our microbus transport to arrive we admired the inspirational concrete architecture which replaced the boring old rows of terraced houses and shops in the 60s

Being a lovely day in September - no-one had yet told the populace of London, that the holiday season had finished and consequently we crawled along the A31 to Christchurch, joining the typical summer Saturday exodus to Bournemouth and all points south west.

Eventually we reached our (first) destination to be greeted by the jeers and joviality of fellow CAMRA members who had avoided the traffic by letting the train take the strain, thus arriving earlier and already partaking of their cask ales...

The Saxon Bar is a small micro pub in a fairly modern parade of retail units.  It takes it’s name (as with other things in Christchurch) from the Saxon history of the area.

However, contrary to it’s name, The Saxon Bar has no bar - just an area to stand next to a till, blackboard menus and storage shelves, where you are served.  The beers are poured and brought back from an adjacent room.  That’s the barman sitting at his laptop, rear left of the photo...

The cask ale range was good, but not excessive...

Not having tried them before, I went for the Yeovil Ales beers.  First the Lynx Wildcat, which sounded like a beer with two names, but was a good tasty bitter.

I followed this with the Stout Hearted stout which again tasted good.  Apparently there was also a wide selection of up and coming beers in the cellar...

The pub wasn’t full but with CAMRA types congregating today - there was plenty of energetic chat about real ale, and related issues.  It was all face to face (rather than Facebook) stuff, and with the exception of one bloke holding his phone up and waving it about like he was taking photos, the phone ban seemed to be working...

The people in the know - suggested that it might be worth visiting the toilet before leaving...so I did....

I know...you’re wondering if that’s one of those autovac devices aren’t you...?

In fact it’s further evidence of the locals historic hang-up with the Danes....

...but is it probably the best toilet in the world....?