A pub crawl with a difference (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

A pub crawl with a difference

How can I explain the thrill?

I was riding on a Wadworth's Brewery dray, pulled by two of Wadworth's magnificent shire horses, Baron and Tom.

Their coats shone like burnished bronze and their harnesses dazzled myriad sunbeams snatched from the chill-bright November morning.

The sound of traffic was distant beyond this audio-cocoon of creaking leather, the tinkle-trinkle of chattering metal and the resoundingly heavy, clump-clop of their enormous feathered hooves clattering on tarmac and clundering on cobbles.

Driver Adrian, who held the whip hand but never used it - would gently say... "Steady, steady..." ...so quietly I could hardly hear the words, but the geldings pricked their ears and with a shake of their manes responded. We parted the traffic like a comb through silky hair. People stopped. People stared. Cameras clicked. Children waved And I grinned like someone drunk on pleasure. Not on 6X as it happens.

The morning started early at Wadworth's stable where the men work a seven day rota. When I arrived Colin and Vince were vigorously cleaning the horse brass. Adrian showed me around. "Come and meet the horses." Adrian led me into Royal's stable.

Wow!

I simply wasn't prepared for the sheer size of a 'heavy horse'. Royal at 18.2 hands reduced the surroundings to miniature.

But there was work to do and there could be no hanging around ...there was beer to be loaded and horses prepared for the morning's deliveries. Soon all three horses were harnessed, reversed and connected to the drays, horses and men working quietly in tandem.

At the brewery a gang of men loaded the drays. Adrian settled in the driver's seat, Vince his horseman stood alongside and I climbed on the back and perched on a beer cask, feet spread wide, wary of toppling over.

With a jerk we were off.

Whoah!

Clump-clop, clump-clop.

"Steady...Baron. Walk on..."

Soon I found my 'dray legs' and cautiously stood and watched Wadworth's handsome Victorian red-bricked frontage receding into the distance. A slow moving stream of traffic trailed behind; drivers, good-humouredly watching the spectacle.

US! Dray horses don't pull but push the drays with their yokes and the two carthorses made light work 'pulling' the dray. Adrian sat, reins in hands occasionally resting them on his traditional driver's thick leather apron. Both men wore flat caps.

Vince stood, every so often he would deftly switch from one side of the dray to the other, holding his arm out to indicate to the traffic which way we were going.

First stop Edwin Giddings, wine merchant and retail outlet for Wadworth's. The men unloaded the dray and slid the 'cargo' down a ramp into the cellar, it was all so 'hands on', un-technological and so very yesteryear.

"Sorry to hear you lost one of your old faithful's." A passer-by called. "What happened?"

"Heart attack," Adrian replied.

Buscott, the fourth horse of the brewery, died suddenly recently. It had upset everyone, it was patently apparent that Wadworth's horses are much loved by the people of Devizes. Colin at Giddings brought us coffee and gave the horses shortbread. Baron spat it out.

"He's used to oatcakes and I've run out!" Colin laughed, avoiding Baron's large teeth, "He's the only carnivorous horse in Devizes!" Suddenly a traffic warden appeared- like they do - "You're not going to book them are you?" I asked.

He had a devilish grin.

"Someone said they'd give me a year's salary if I did just that - but I'm afraid I'm not near enough retirement yet, I need to keep my job!"

Delivery done we returned to the brewery to load up 2 1/2 tons for The Lamb Inn. It is Adrian's local. "You know the most memorable thing that's happened to me?" Adrian suddenly said. "I still get upset when I think of it..." He paused. "When the landlord of the Lamb died his coffin was laid out on one of our drays. It was my job to drive it slowly through the main street in Devizes. We were followed by two hundred mourners.

It was uncanny, this normally busy town centre was so quiet and still. It was all very moving."

Vince adores his job, he has worked for Wadworth's for some time but has only been a horseman for six months. Wadworth's policy is to recruit horseman from within their workforce.

"I just love it. I was at a rock concert and someone asked me what I did. I said I worked at Wadworth's. They were blown away when I said I was a horseman!"

We clump-clopped through town and I asked about the 'inconvenience' of horse's toilet habits. The men laughed. "Horses generally have poo-stops in the same place and they tend to pile up!"

"My bet's outside Iceland today," Vince grinned.

He lost the bet. By twenty metres.

At the Lamb Adrian and Vince roped casks into the cellar. "This docker's technique is much faster than the electronic lifts some pubs have, " Adrian said as he held on to the stout rope.

Break time and more coffee - this was not the pub crawl I had anticipated! We took a different route back and as we weaved around the manhole covers to stop the horses from skidding Adrian said, "The horses get bored, I like to give them a change."

The closer we got to the brewery, the friskier Baron and Tom became. Home meant lunch...

Instead of a measured heavy clump-clop, clump-clop the sound of the hooves became an excited clippetty-clop, clop, clop, clippetty-clop.

"Baron!"

"Walk!"

"Steady!"

Later Jonathan Pollock, Wadworth's P.R. manager told me the horses have a two week holiday each year and stay on a farm at Poulshot. They walk the four miles there, and the horses stop half-way at The Raven for a pint of beer!

Humph, if my experience is anything to go by the men probably have a cup of coffee.

The holiday is quite an event and people come from miles around to watch the shires race, run and roll about happy in their fields of freedom. However it's a self catering break and the men at Wadworth's are quite certain the horses are glad to return to Devizes to enjoy the stable hotel service they are used to.

Jonathan told me that Devizes has many surprises. He said at the Lamb Inn they have live ammunition and shoot with rifles down a narrow tube and score like darts... Beer and Guns... what a combination!

It was all over too soon ...

"You must come and see Alastair Simms, our cooper; he's only one of five coopers in the country making barrels totally by hand. He's so very skilled."

And I did ... But that's another story.