King Darren I of the Greene King Turfdom.

An Unofficial Guide to the Turf Tavern

VOTED THE NATION'S PERFECT PUB OF 2007.

Visit the official Turf Tavern website.

See how to get to the best pub in Oxford with Mr W.A.Wood.

Introduction:

If there's one thing required after a hard day work, or for that perfect weekend, it's a decent pint of Real Ale. The absolute Mecca for all ale drinkers in the Oxford area is the Turf Tavern. "Possibly the most famous of Oxford's truly ancient city-centre inns", the Turf has a relaxing atmosphere: almost a village pub in the middle of a city. Yet this by no means makes it an older drinker's haunt: the Turf is regarded as the most popular student and tourist pub in a town crowded with decent pubs and ancient buildings. It has it's own place in Oxford tradition, being the site of the yard of ale on Matriculation Day, the famous cooked breakfast at six in the morning on May Day, the site converged on by those having just taken exams, and packed to the beams with students on every Friday night. It features in two of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse books, The Daughters of Cain and Death Is Now My Neighbour, and has been used in filming many of the TV episodes.

THE TURF.... The Guide:

The Turf is "probably Oxford's oldest pub". Its foundations date from at least the thirteenth century. The current timbered front part is seventeenth century when it was progressively a malthouse, a cider house (1775) and finally an inn (circa 1790), the Spotted Cow. It was renamed the Turf Tavern in 1805 and thus it remains to the present. The pub has been frequented by such likes of Inspector Morse and Bill Clinton, and some would claim that it is the "obscure and low-beamed tavern up a court" visited by Jude Fawley in Hardy's Jude the Obscure (althugh this pub is later referred to as the Lamb and Flag). The Turf is owned by Merton College and for a long time was leased to Whitbread. During this period, capitalising on the public return to real ale, the Turf started to feature up to 12 different real ales and a draught cider. And it has done ever since. Truly heaven! Ale is no means the Turf's only selling point: its home-made mulled wine sells like the proverbial fast selling stuff on winter days. This can be combined with coal braziers for toasting marshmallows in the cold months. All year round there is also a fiendishly difficult pub quiz which many University Challenge teams have attempted and cut their teeth on before trying for the big league, notably Wadham College's hugely successful team, known to us at the Turf as "Wadham and Gomorrah".

THE TURF NOW...

The Whitbread chain, which essentially created the Turf as the finest ale house in Oxford, was sold to the Laurel (and Hardy) pub company, who retained the same number of great ales. This despised entity, however, owned by Deutsche Bank, was never intended to last long and the chain was sold to Greene King. Under the management of The Boss® or The Guv®, Darren, who is pictured above in his full Greene King management regalia, the Turf is still going strong. The years come and go, University terms start and finish, and students matriculate and graduate, but the Turf remains essentially unchanged, although the companies in charge have been known unfortunately to redecorate from time to time, changing the ceiling between the beams from yellow to white to yellow again. The electrics also appear to have been installed in the seventeenth century, so it is not unknown for the place to be suddenly plunged into darkness! The Turf also attracts many a legend and urban myth. Did Bill Clinton really "not inhale" here? Is there an old well situated under part of the front bar, as detected a few years ago by a local druid? And who is the lady in grey clothes who wanders up the back garden, only to slowly fade away through the ancient city wall...?

... always ask for a top-up of your beer...
The new Greene King sign where "Duck or Grouse" was inscribed on the beam.

The Rise to Turfdom:

After an "Inspector Morse"-guided exploration, Mart discovered the Turf while on interview in December '97. Since then he has become a solid regular, seeing many changes of staff, guest beers, the departure of "Uncle" Trev the former Manager and finally was awarded the ultimate Turf accolade - the title of "One of Nell's Special Ladies" (???). He is well known to staff as "Dr. Martin", "That Reprobate Medic" or "The Guy Who Stands There"^®.
Mart's drinking life was dramatically changed in the winter of '98 when on sufferance he allowed an acquaintance, Al, to share a few pints. They never looked back: the beer was always in front of them. Thus started a great friendship and drinking partnership, based on beer, rowing, trust, wemen, and beer. The absence of either of them from their allotted drinking times was enough to send out the search parties. Finally, after many toils and tribulations of beer, they got their names on one of the turf's beams. They both have also worked at the Turf, after succumbing to the Might of the Trev (who was the Turf's previous manager and bought Mart at least 29 PINTS) and yet still found time to crack the odd firkin. Even with the Turf partnership now scattered to the four corners of Britain, they still meet here regularly. Martin may also be found immortalised as one of the winners of the Guess the Guest Ale competetion to win a gallon of beer for correctly identifying a rare guest beer from a sample alone.

Some Turf life can be seen in Part Two...

All complaints about Greene King to woolyaphid@greeneking.co.uk.

Back to index page.....