PINT TO PINT

The Old Star, East Yorkshire

The subject of a covetable Hockney sketch, East Street in the Yorkshire Wolds village of Kilham bears a passing resemblance to Genoa’s “street of palaces”. After the Old Manse, Pond House, Manor Farm and Hall Farm, you turn a corner into Church Street, where The Old Star faces the graveyard of All Saints. Behind a modest facade, you discover a surprisingly capacious pub that happily combines food and drink, a balancing act that defeats most boozers. A sympathetic refurb has enlarged one of the front rooms and let daylight in on the central bar where locals congregate.

There were about a dozen of us scattered around the pub on a Saturday lunchtime, warmed by wood fires and sipping pints of Theakston Best Bitter (3.8% ABV) or – hurrah, my favourite – Timothy Taylor Landlord (4.3% ABV). A similar scene might have been observed any time in the past 270 years, judging by an indenture for the pub dated “The 11th day of December in the 20th year of the reign of our sovereign George II” (1747).

Just then the head chef Andrew emerged from the kitchen, hands claggy from pastry-making. “I’m doing 60-odd steak and ale pies for a shooting party. Trust me, when they come in at five o’clock you won’t be able to hear yourself speak.”

A county winner of last year’s National Pub & Bar Awards, The Old Star is owned by the Savile family, who supply beef from their nearby farm. “Grown all of three miles away,” said Andrew, “and slaughtered by [local butcher] James White, who still has his own abattoir. All our beef is aged from 42 to 49 days.”

Since a 12oz sirloin with five different trimmings (£21.50) was a bit hefty for lunchtime, we decided to share a bacon, brie and cranberry baguette with an excellent chopped salad and a great pile of chips.

The intoxicating quality of my pint was enhanced by the tipsy gravestones across the road. How did they come to lean at such crazy angles? Surely not vandalism in such a posh spot. Whatever the cause, The Old Star is endowed with one of the most pleasing views of any pub I know.

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It is situat situated in crowded south-west London, yet Bushy Park, a Roya Royal deer-hunting

Sunday 3 February 2019