Shuckburgh Arms

Contact Details

Shuckburgh Arms
The Shuckburgh Arms
Main Street
Southwick
Oundle
Northants PE8 5BL UK

Phone: 01832 272044

http://www.shuckburgharms.co.uk

Shuckburgh Arms
The Shuckburgh Arms
Main Street
Southwick
Oundle
Northants PE8 5BL UK

Phone: 01832 272044

http://www.shuckburgharms.co.uk

The Shuckburgh Arms at Southwick

A NEW CHAPTER begins..............

One of the oldest public houses in the area has re-opened its doors in April after an enforced winter slumber. We aspire to offer a friendly warm village pub back to the people of the area, despite the doom and gloom of a post new labour era and the inevitable swingeing cuts of the con-lib future

I do believe there is a market for a pucka english/british bar/pub in a rural location. I welcome anyone to come and poke me in the eye if I even slightly hint at gastro-pub, yes we do food and some of it has garlic in it ...shock horror....but its all good traditional fayre served with passion and not a jus or rosti in sight.

I read a insightful article in the daily snail last week about a pub on the west side of northnts that had been shut for two years and has just been re-opened by an ex-brewery conglomerate wallah who spent his life closing them. The striking thing for me was the paragraph that began...it all starts with the closure of the infant school, then the post office and or shop along with a bus service that only the cryptic solution solvers can work out, then the church becomes one of the flying vicars bi-monthly rounds and then finally the pub goes.

Well its time we fought back and when I say we I mean us the community and residents, not the nimby weekender's that object to anything remotely akin to economic growth or community development....sod off back to your metro-glutton free semis in Wimbledon and allow us to develop our communities and create jobs and education at grass roots level for real and not on white papers and green bills that keep expenses sheets bulging with greed etc

Well that's got that off my chest and whittled down half my potential clientèle so I suppose I had better tell you some more of my aspirations....The Shuckburgh Arms will be offering fine local ales along with a range of excellent locally sourced food. We will be open every day all day, fantastic value home produced food along with and environment suitable for great banter and company over a pint. We have a large gardened area to relax in and from time to time we will have live music from local artists and anyone who wants to join the music community

Our menu will change regularly and will always be seasonal as well as locally focussed where ever possible, the ethos here at the shuckburgh is to serve the best quality pub food within a traditional atmosphere of a typical English country bar and support local producers so the fat cat supermarkets and super-brewers don't get all the cake

In order to survive in the current climate we have to be a bit more cute than just being a pub and waiting for custom to magically appear, so after a little encouragement and suggestions from some wise old owls we are opening our doors at the weekends for breakfast from 9am along with a few other slight variations on the theme of running a busy wee rural bar.

We are now nearly two months into the new life of a small business in a rural location and what a start, a spring burst of sunshine, a general election and a great start down her at the shuk

It seems an age since I was battling to get the refurbish finished, the kitchen up and running and all that beer racked and flowing, the reality is its only 6 weeks ago, what happened to may its seemed to disappear into the distant past without barely a hello from me. We have had the best start I could have imagined along with a few wee situations, shall I call them, to deal with. The electricity gremlin decided to pay us a visit on the opening night, but the chefs produced what can only be described as pure genius food by candle and torch light with only half an oven working and three hot rings, all three beer engines failed at the second hurdle so we hurriedly flitted between bar and cellar and back to the bar serving ales from the barrel necks, just how it should be really. I hope those digfield boys are proud of us

Then on weekend three the drains bogey man thought it would be hysterical to drop in, completely blocked up into the building, I think other than a few very helpful regulars we managed to deal with the back up! without any hindrance to service or the graceful presentation of the beers

I have to thank the entire staff team I have here, they just got stuck in from day one and swept each challenge aside with neither a blink or droplet of sweat, they are all my hero's and heroine's alike, we are all new to the trade which does show occasionally with maybe a naive service manor, but I promise you its all done with passion and we are learning each day, I welcome your feed back and promise make appropriate changes based on your comments, I can only improve if I'm told what's not quite working for you, please remember this is your pub and will only survive with your support and my desire to improve continuously

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club has started fantastically well with attendances growing each week, we are open from 9am on Saturday and Sunday for a full hearty English or continental breakfast, as I was taking advantage a of a lazy start last Sunday morning I couldn't help but over hear from my bathroom two local families exchanging phone numbers and details as their kids had struck up a new friendship on the swings as the parents chatted away over breakfast, what a great feeling for me that we are connecting people, families and friends

Music at the shuk

As I alluded to earlier I want the shuk to be known as a place that promotes live music engendering a culture of inclusiveness to new comers to the arts we have been open a little over 6 weeks and we can boast to have had five evenings of live music all of a differing variety but all very much much locally based. I am delighted and proud to announce that we have two significant dates coming up as we become more established and the visited by more custom we will be in a position to guarantee much more regular music dates

June 27th sunday afternoon we have the renowned steel union blues band, check them out on youtube.com, this is all part of the Southwick gardens open day event

Each 4th monday of the month we will have the superbly versatile oundle pickers, pluckers and blowers

Cricket at the Southwick

Your Village Inn – at the hear of the community

Look out look out, if you demonstrate any inclination towards cricket you will be press-ganged into the newly reforming cricket team and club, poor old Ross Thain only came in for a pint with his father robin last week and got roped in as new recruit and a recent transferee to RAF wittering has been roped in as a batsman, all six feet six of him

The proposal is for a wider and more inclusive team to include the five all parishes and possibly rename the club to southwick five alls, so common all you you bucks and old hands lest see you down at the shuk volunteering to play the likes of oundle school, barnwell and brigsteck et al, there could be a wee wager to be won along with the villages pride at steak

we hope to to hold at least four friendlies from late july thro to September

SUNDAY BEST

Sundays is all about the great British roast accompanied by some fine company around the dinner table with those closest to you, we will be serving traditional roast beef and pork with all the trimmings topped off with home made sauces, stuffing and gravies etc.

I will sign off at this point and wish you all well and offer my thanks to those that have been so generous and helpful in getting this wee venture off to such an exciting start

Wishing you all a successful, healthy and warming summer and look forward to seeing you about the in the area and especially in the Shuk bar from time to time

Best regards

david and the team