Princess Royal, Taunton, Somerset

One of the few positives to emerge from this past year of chronic disruption and uncertainty in the pub trade, has been the truly remarkable show of resilience and creativity that licensees and staff have shown, when any number of the them would have been forgiven for throwing in the towel. I doubt whether I'm the only one who thought the twin ills of an out of control pandemic and an economy on the slide would be the final nail in the coffin for literally thousands of pub businesses, and of course a boom time for property companies looking to cash in on our precious pub heritage. That so many pubs have continued to trade whenever possible, coping with severely limited opening whilst jumping through innumerable logistical hoops imposed by a largely clueless government, gives hope that this particular national institution can rise to the challenge and weather whatever is thrown at it. 

Nevertheless, pubs and clubs continue to close, in some cases permanently, and clearly we're very far from out of the woods with this terrible pandemic just yet. After an initial rush back to the pub this Summer, trade does seem to have slowed somewhat, and it's now more difficult than ever to find a pub open at the less busy times of the week/day. So when we do find a pub maintaining the traditions of all-day opening, with a warm welcome and nice cool pint on a hot midweek afternoon, as I did in Taunton quite recently, it's certainly something worth shouting about I think.

The Princess Royal is one of those sturdy four-square town boozers that seem ever-present and immovable in the urban landscape, and yet so many of them have been lost to other retail or business use in recent years. Located slap-bang in the middle of Somerset's county town of Taunton, and barely a boundary-strike away from the County Cricket Ground, it wasn't actually on my itinerary that day, but the pub looked so bright, inviting, and perhaps most crucially, open, I felt I just had to pop in for a pint. The promise of 'Pub Games' was something of a draw too, albeit that it's still very much the off-season for most of these traditional pub pastimes.

From the appearance and location of the central entrance (above), I'd hazard a guess that the Princess Royal would have been a classic two-room town centre boozer, probably until the 80's when the vogue for knocking through pubs was at its height. Originally part of the long-gone Hanbury & Cotching pub estate, it could almost have been the Brewery Tap given how close the pub would have been to the old Canon Street Brewery. This would date the pub to the early part of the last century, probably pre-war given that the brewery was closed and it's pub estate sold to Starkey, Knight & Ford Ltd in 1923. Starkey, Knight & Ford would itself fall prey to a predatory national brewer, the brewery and brands discarded and the pub estate swallowed up by Whitbread in the 1960's, latterly becoming part of the Punch estate.

The pub we see today is the result of a recent refurbishment, triggered as it was by the retirement of licensees Tim Prosser and Patricia Stone who'd run the pub as a traditional local for 25 years. In fact the pub has changed hands a couple of times since then, the makeover and reopening under new management unfortunately coincided with the very start of the lockdowns and restrictions that have dogged the trade for the last 18 months. So when I visited in June, the pub had only recently reopened again, with new licensees Reece Short and Beth Sandford busy preparing for what has subsequently become a highly successful run of games for the home nation in the European Football Championship.

With social distancing rules in place for another couple of weeks at least, pubs of all sizes are having to be very careful and creative around the potential for crowding, particularly during large sporting events like the EUROs. Some of the more traditional West Country pubs are better equipped than most to deal with these issues thanks to their (currently mothballed) Skittle Alleys. The Princess Royal is one such pub, with a substantial Twin Skittle Alley/Function Room that's currently being put to good use as an overspill to the main bar when things get a bit too busy.

Alley Skittles like this has a long history of play in the West Country, and it remains very popular today. Whilst the game would have initially developed as an add-on to many pubs in the 19th century, often making use of old outbuildings and former stabling, I'd guess that the alley at the Princess Royal was built as part of the original pub, such was the ubiquity of the game in the early 20th century. Whether it was a twin alley as it is now is hard to say, perhaps the two were squeezed in later to accomodate the growing popularity of the game in the post-war years when pubs themselves enjoyed a peak of popularity.

Under normal circumstances, the Skittle Alley at the Princess Royal would be in use throughout much of the week. Both the right-hand and left-hand alleys are used to accomodate around four mens teams, playing Tuesday evenings in the St Austell Brewers Skittles League (formerly the Taunton Brewers League). Ladies play Monday nights in the Taunton & District Ladies League, and of course there are numerous cup and knockout tournaments to be squeezed in around the league action. Let's hope that once the football has finished, and social distancing restrictions finally relaxed, the Skittle Alley at the Princess Royal will once again host this most social of traditional pub games, and enjoy the extra trade that skittles brings to pubs throughout the West Country.