The Dog & Duck

This is The Black Boy pub, one of Winchester's best known - not because of the beer (as far as I'm aware) but because of it's rather fantastical decor. 

When I first came to the city I remember some discomfort at the name but the landlord always held that it was called after a chimney sweep's boy and that is still the local legend.  The current landlord has gone several steps further by naming his adjoining restaurant The Black Rat (I'll leave you to work out which building that is) and putting up the tall white structure on the old forge as the B&B part of his empire (The Black Hole).  At the other end of the street is his winebar, The Black Bottle.

So why the Dog & Duck?  Because I'm standing on a small (and I do mean small) triangle of grass which used to house three more pubs.  The most infamous - and the one on whose footprint I took this blip - was called The Dog & Duck..  I think the bargees must have come up the hill from the wharf and the railwaymen down it from the warehouses, boozing and fighting together.  Who knows what went on..

Happy Wednesday evening, all  xx