h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How about some odd pub names that you've come across. I'd rather leave out the major chains - i.e Firkin and *****, The Moon and ****. I once saw a pub called The Bag O Nails. I've no idea what has happened to it since. I think I saw it on a trip many years ago. Although I do have a Wetherspoons called The Back of Beyond.

There is around Huddersfield a pub called 'The silent woman'. Topers fall into it with a sense of relief. Somewhere I think between Liverpool and Chesterfield I used to drive past a pub called 'The case is altered'. Then, in Nottingham, there's the wonderful 'The old trip to Jerusalem'. This is living history, chaps. Let's drink in it!

Linguists might be interested in some of the odd origins of pub names. For instance, 'Goat and compasses' derives from 'God encompasseth us'. Lost heroes are remembered in the Sir Colin Campbell and such. Who remembers him now? The pub round the corner from me as a child, now demolished, was the 'Nor'West' in speech, but its sign read 'The Great North Western'. My two-up two-down terraced house had originally been built for employees of the Great North-Western Railway, later morphing into the London Midland and Scottish, LMS also being my mother's initials after marriage (and before my birth).

Chaps, language is the medium we live in, a key tributary of the great mud-coloured river of history. Now, on the subject of tree-climbing fishes ...

The Bag O'Nails is in Bristol quite close to the new Exploratory/Imax place. It is a fantastic pub for real ale afficianados and is gas lit for the ambience.

We have one near us called PoorHouse.

When we (my family) went to England (from Austraila), we spent alot of time driving everywhere. My sister and I discovered that finding funny names of pubs was the best way to entertain ourselves.

They don't have old pubs in Austraila so it's hilarious to see how low the ceilings are when walkin through.

Nottingham's Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is a great name and they claim to be the oldest pub in England.

I can only speak from experience and have seen the following pubs;

The Railway and Naturalist - Manchester(ish). I believe the owner put two old pub names together.

Land O'Cakes - Manchester - no idea about this.

The Peveril of the Peak - Manchester

There also used to be a pub called Help the Poor Struggler which was owned by Britain's last hangman, Albert Pierrepoint in Hollinwood, Manchester.

i have had many a meal and a glass of Cornish Ratler at The bucket Of Blood, Hale, Cornwall where the low beems advertise Duck or Grouse, Your choice