Название: The Groundwater Diaries: Trials, Tributaries and Tall Stories from Beneath the Streets of London
Автор: Tim Bradford
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Хобби, Ремесла
isbn: 9780007404957
isbn:
One balmy night, during the never-ending Britpop summer of 1996, I sat with three friends at the bar of the London Spa in Exmouth Market and watched England beat Holland 4–1 on the big screen. When the fourth goal went in we held each other and exclaimed that Truly It Was A Miracle. And, being superstitious in a sad medieval country boy sort of way, I decided that the result was down to the pub’s lucky vibe, rather than the skill of the players. The Spa then became our ‘lucky’ pub for a couple of years, until England lost to Romania at the 1998 World Cup and, like a gang of fickle eighteenth-century hypochondriacs, we went in search of a new lucky pub.
The Spa appears in census records dating back to 1851, but there has been pub there for over 250 years. The name refers to a nearby spa garden and the area surrounding it, also known as Bagnigge Marshes, from which flowed chalybeate springs. These were at one time used as holy wells and by the eighteenth century had been rediscovered and turned into pleasure gardens. These days a pleasure garden is a can of strong lager and a place to piss, but then it meant threepence for a glass of murky liquid and some songs and rhymes. I decided I would trace the Fleet’s course via its spas and wells, seeing if I could pick up on the ancient healing vibe and celebrate its traditions with a modern-day version of taking the waters. Drinking Beer.
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