A lovely sunny Friday and a day off combined for a walk from Thrumpton, over the top of the widening A453 and then up and down the other side of the Gotham hills. We had planned a lunch stop at The Sun Inn, but that was closed for a funeral wake.
So instead we popped over the road to The Cuckoo Bush, which had a bar area also suitable for those in walking boots. A quick detour into how it came by this name.
The village is known for the stories of the “Wise Men of Gotham”. The villagers wished to feign madness in order to avoid a Royal Highway being built through the village. This would have meant that they would have to pay for building and maintaing it. As “madness” was believed to be highly contagious, they decided to act the fool so that King John’s knights would give them a wide berth and send the Royal Highway elsehwere.
One of the stories involves a group of villagers fencing off a small tree in order to keep a cuckoo captive. This is how the Cuckoo Bush Inn got its name. There is a nice little wind vane in the village, depicting some of the legends of Gotham:-
We had a nice chicken roll (plenty of proper roast chicken in a good sized bap – cob if you were born round these parts) and a chicken burger with chips, salsa and coleslaw. Both very pleasant, and keenly priced. This was accompanied by a pint of Harvest Pale, always a reliable choice. A friendly welcome, and much amusement from some other customers too.
The Minister of Food and Drink 