Pub's Legs

[Mick F]

A game we used to play with the children whilst driving, was to count the pub's legs.
You each had a side of the road, and the side with the most legs at the end of the journey won.

Crown and Anchor - no legs.
Farmers Arms - no legs.
Kings Head - no legs.
White Horse - four legs.
Red Lion - four legs.
Fox and Goose - six legs.
Coach and Horses - as many legs could be seen on the sign. (arguments!)
Jolly Cricketers - 11 a side = 22 = 44 legs!

You get the picture.

How many legs have you seen or been to recently?
We were in the White Hart the other evening, so that's four.

[Bonefishblues]

You forgot the Umps - 48 legs...

[Bonefishblues]

Mick's local.

Legless

[thirdcrank]

http://www.thehopleeds.co.uk/

The Hop?

[Mick F]

Hopping is one leg.

[CliveyT]

Next village over from mine has The Bees in the Wall https://whatpub.com/pubs/CAM/13/bees-in-the-wall-whittlesford(and there are actually bees in the wall)
@ approx 50,000 bees in a good hive, I make that 300,000

[661-Pete]

Here's a conundrum for you. A pub in our town centre, which I regret to confess is under the proprietorship of a certain Mr W*****spoon, is named The Six Gold Martlets. This is pertinent because the "martlet" is the stylised (fictitious) bird which ornaments the coat-of-arms of West Sussex:


But how many legs? Guess before you google!

[Cunobelin]

A game we used to play with the children whilst driving, was to count the pub's legs.
You each had a side of the road, and the side with the most legs at the end of the journey won.

Crown and Anchor - no legs.
Farmers Arms - no legs.
Kings Head - no legs.
White Horse - four legs.
Red Lion - four legs.
Fox and Goose - six legs.
Coach and Horses - as many legs could be seen on the sign. (arguments!)
Jolly Cricketers - 11 a side = 22 = 44 legs!

You get the picture.

How many legs have you seen or been to recently?
We were in the White Hart the other evening, so that's four.

There used to be a pub on one of our routes which was an "Arms" but the Coat of Arms on the sign actually had a leg... one point

The other thing was the innocence of childhood. We used to travel the same route from St Ives across the fens, Kings Lynn to Hunstanton.

My parents used to ensure that we sat on different sides of the car so that no-one won all the time, and occasionally my father would take a diversion to add in a strange place to alter the scores.... we never sussed that out.

As for big Scores.... I remember going to `Ipswich and therein lies a Pub called the "Grand old Duke of York"..... that is 20,000 legs!

[Cunobelin]

One that backfired...

We took a coached of Cubs and Beavers to Gilwell Park.

Given the inevitable "Are we there yet" she came up with the brilliant "It is 150 caravans" so off they went counting caravans as we progressed. Until we reached a point where up on the hill was a very large caravan park.......... so they all assumed we had arrived.

[Mick F]

The rules are many and varied.

The Bees in the Wall would be a plural of bees. Two. That's 12 legs.
Grand Old Duke of York had two legs.
Fictitious birds? They have two legs. Six would mean twelve.

Fox and Hounds. How many hounds? Plural equals two. Twelve legs.

[Tangled Metal]

That's probably a good way to teach a route. I mean up this way and especially where I used to move you tell people how to get to you by pubs. There's enough around that they were often on the corner or just before the corner you turn off on. Certainly where I used to live.

Used to live near Blackburn. Loads in Blackburn when I was a kid. However Darwen is a much smaller town but has a lot more pubs. Easy to navigate!

[thirdcrank]

Re martlets, I can tell you without googling that in heraldry they are a "charge" and depicted without feet.


PS I've since googled and it suggests they do have feet

[661-Pete]

Re martlets, I can tell you without googling that in heraldry they are a "charge" and depicted without feet.


PS I've since googled and it suggests they do have feet

Ambiguous. Common wisdom is that the "martlet" has no feet. But some illustrations suggest that they do have sort of foot-like protuberances. So I'm undecided.

Incidentally, the Latin name for the Swift family (from which the heraldic martlet is partly derived) is Apodidae - literally "footless" - based on the ancient belief that these birds really did have no feet...

[Vorpal]

As for big Scores.... I remember going to `Ipswich and therein lies a Pub called the "Grand old Duke of York"..... that is 20,000 legs!

should that not be 20,002?

[thirdcrank]

On the subject of counting bees, in the pre-forum days, there was correspondence in the CTC mag about who had carried most passengers on a bike. My chevronning chum, Tim Harberd, wrote to claim number one spot for having moved his beehives on his bike-drawn trailer. IIRC, he was too modest to mention that his summer hives were in the heather above Otley and he had to ride up Newall Carr Road - signed 1:6 - to get there. In those days, the relevant pub was called The Spite - presumably no legs (unless it's a long-running feud) but it's now called something like the Roebuck.