Thursday 18 June 2009

Cats, Custard Pots, Uneven Doors and the Battle of Britain


The trip to Kent is now behind me, or at least it feels like that. But here's a photo inside the Cat and Custard Pot at Paddlesworth. It's the local pub for the Battle of Britain Museum, and no doubt their wartime memorabilia endears them to the people who run it. That plane hangs from the ceiling, as if flying.

As for the name, who knows? Legend says it used to be the "Black Lion" but the artist who did the pub sign wasn't very good at drawing lions. And what was the custard pot? Your guess is as good as mine, and my guess is a round, custard-pot shaped shield.

The nearby tiny church is very sweet and very old. What used to be the main door of this dear little church is now relegated to the back door. The reason is either that people 800 years ago were a lot smaller than they are now, or they didn't mind bending double when they went into church.

The door's two sides do not match. You often get this in very old churches. Symmetry was no more important than headroom, it seems.

5 comments:

  1. 800 years ago is such a long time isn't it? Hard to think of what it must have been like then. Although obviously bigger (at least from their perspective)

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  2. The little sinners probably didn't hold a high mass either.

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  3. And low flying planes in that pub

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  4. The people must have been smaller, I'm sure!
    Lovely post, and a gorgeous little church, I do so love the very old English churches that have history written all over them.

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  5. One thing I love about the British countryside is the many interesting old pubs. I never saw one with aircraft memorabilia before. Maybe we will reach the Cat and custard Pot on our next trip to Britain!

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