Dealing With Thorny Issues In Thornton

Having a self-imposed hiatus from blogging due to a house move I have been under the cosh from all angles.

Firstly, The Wickingman set the tone with a tweet claiming that I would spend the rest of my days in the Slug & Lettuce in Solihull Town Centre drinking G&T and ‘premium’ brand Estrella Lager forever more.

This scurrilous claim was backed up by Pub Curmudgeon who had clearly canvassed opinion with Mrs BB confirming that my LE67 ticking days were behind me now that I was ensconced in a new pad.

Maybe it  was time for me to embrace becoming a member of the ‘gentlefolk’ as Martin likes to call them and start wearing a shirt and tie to go out for long lunches at either the Slug & Lettuce or a Toby Carvery.

It looked as though the LifeAfterFootball reputation for estate style boozers was teetering on the edge so there was only one thing for it as I reached my century of Leicestershire boozers in style.

I headed straight for 486 – The Thornton LE67 1AH which doesn’t even have its own photo on the CAMRA website (feel free to borrow these ones) and that is always a good sign of a pub’s earthy credentials.

Apparently this place used to be known as the Thornton & District Working Men’s Club and is still a club of sorts but you can just walk in and have a tot at any time.

Thornton is in LE67 territory and is arguably best known for a reservoir that opened to the public or walks in 1997 and is well utilised.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to this suburb but the last visit saw me in a pub with arguably more females than any other in Britain as The Reservoir coined it in.

This place is further up the Main Street and there were no such issues getting served at the bar as the barmaid was there in a quality pair of Doc Marten’s and Dexy’s dungarees chatting to a friendly bloke who was nursing his pint.

The feller told me that this place had two pool teams and two darts teams and that there was a decent turnover although it was unusually quiet at around 5.30pm on a Thursday.

Maybe they’d been forewarned by Ian and Mudgie that I was en route and were tempted to shut up shop as I visited my 100^th Leicestershire pub nudging ever closer to 500 overall.

(view from the back)

The place would be described by an estate agent as ‘ripe for regeneration’ but it served a cracking pint of Pedigree (Marston’s) and the barmaid knew her stuff as she pulled some through first as I was the first punter on it that day.

There are live bands and live sports on the box and it is a place that is trying hard. I reckon the locals of Thornton use this place and now that it’s open to all and sundry I feel as though I am back on track as this would definitely have got the Alan Winfield seal of approval.