The Horse and Groom, Ipswich [Closed] - pub details
Closed
Address: 104, Woodbridge Rd, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP4 2NL [map] [gmap]
Tel: 01473 400805
Ipswich (1.1 miles), Derby Road - Ipswich (1.1 miles), Westerfield (1.7 miles)
> Current user rating: 5.5/10 (rated by 4 users)
> Local guides: Ipswich pub guide, Suffolk pub guide
other pubs nearby:
Grinning Rat, Ipswich (0.1 miles), Dove, Ipswich (0.1 miles), Orchard, Ipswich (0.1 miles), County Of Suffolk, Ipswich (0.1 miles), Milestone Beerhouse, Ipswich (0.2 miles) - see more nearby pubs
user reviews of the Horse and Groom, Ipswich
please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
| What a shame. I came in here when I lived round the corner a few years ago, as did my Dad just after WW2 and his Dad in the 30s. We all liked it as it served the function in ways fitting for each time. This just shows - the traditional pub is dead, largely thanks to government policies. How can it cope when supermarkets sell beer more cheaply than it can buy? Now kids get drunk on cheap booze at home and go into town to throw up on and fight / shag each other. hornado - 7 Sep 2008 20:48 |
| An application has now been lodged to convert this pub into 2 or 3 houses. The case against allowing this conversion is overwhelmingly strong. As the picture shows, the pub fronts directly onto one of the busiest roads in Ipswich; just a few metres away there is a busy road junction which is an accident blackspot, and on a daily basis queues of traffic form along this stretch of road creating a blanket of pollution. Any new resident would find their front room set in the midst of this noise and pollution. Many new flats and houses have recently been built in this densely populated area and a former allotment site, rich in wildlife, is currently being concreted over to provide 150 or so more homes just up the road, which in turn will add to the number of cars passing the Horse and Groom. It seems screamingly obvious that all these new residents- plus the existing ones- will need a community pub to act as a focal point for their community much more than they will need 2 or 3 badly sited new houses. It also needs to be pointed out that the owners of the site- someone called Bankside- certainly haven't owned the place for very long and would have a hard time convincing anyone who cared that they ever tried to run the Horse and Groom as a pub as opposed to having acquired it as a property speculation. The only alternative local pub, the Orchard, has been converted into a 'brasserie' called Creams which certainly doesn't function as a community local, so allowing this application would leave many hundreds of Ipswich people publess. Given this case, it's clear the planning committee would only allow this application if they didn't give a monkeys about the local people whose interests they are elected to serve and were only interested in promoting lucrative business deals to enrich wealthy speculators. So I'm confident they will throw out the application and force Bankside to run the Horse and Groom as a community pub or else sell it on to someone else who will do this. There's a pub in Cambridge called the Flying Pig- I feel this would make a good name when the pub is relaunched. edchambers - 7 Oct 2007 22:27 |
| Just prior to the smoking ban (which all you non-smokers claimed was going to reinvigorate the pub trade) Pubmaster/Punch Taverns quietly disposed of various pubs which had no obvious beer garden area to cater for the people who have actually been using the pubs for years. Now the results are starting to show. Just around from the Horse and Groom the Water Lily has been boarded up for about 8 months. Just down the road the Orchard has been turned into a 'brasserie' called Creams. Turn the corner again and the County has been turned into pseudo gastropub called the County of Suffolk. Both the latter are obviously struggling with their new identities and are sort of pretending to still be pubs to get the punters in. Now the Horse and Groom has joined the ranks of the closed and boarded up. Of couse both the Water Lily and the Horse and Groom are theoretically 'to let' as pubs, neither being easy premesis to sell off for conversion into flats. Meanwhile the Dove is still going strong down the road, but given so many pubs falling by the wayside so quickly it's hard to imagine what will be left of the real British pub in say 20 years time. edchambers - 3 Sep 2007 21:49 |
| Trad local with very good real ale and real conversation, with civilised pool and TV sports enthusiasm thrown in. Top notch. anonymous - 31 Jul 2006 00:18 |
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