Name That Pub

That's rather a lot of pictures of pub signs. So here are some anecdotes about pub names for you:

• Until the 1950s there was a pub in Whittlesford, Cambridgeshire, that was known as The Exhibition. However a colony of bees set up home in the wall of the pub which then changed its name to The Bees In The Wall, by which name it is known to this day.
• In 2007 both The British Beer And Pub Association and The Campaign For Real Ale carried out surveys into the most common pub names in England. The BBPA makes the 1,2,3 - The Red Lion, The Royal Oak and White Hart while CAMRA reckons it's The Crown, The Red Lion and The Royal Oak. Possibly alcohol influenced their mathematics.

• On Cambridge's Madingley Road their used to be a pub called the Man Loaded With Mischief. The sign depicted a man carrying a woman.
• While we're being politically incorrect, there's a pub in Scotland called "The Black Bitch", which is apparently named in honour of a famous greyhound.
• The Cambridge Blue, in, naturally enough, Cambridge, used to be known by the dreadfully punning name of The Dewdrop Inn - Do drop in - while in Brecon in Wales is The Cwm Inn. Cwm is Welsh for valley but it's also a pun, Come In of course.

• The two Irish pubs in Mill Road, Cambridge, The White Swan and The Earl Of Beaconsfield, are known respectively as The Swimmer and The Beaky by many drinkers in the area.
• My home village of Meldreth once boasted six pubs, one of which went by the remarkable and completely inexplicable name of The Dumb Flea. It may have once been either The Dun Fleece or The Earl Of Dumfries. Why on earth a pub in Cambridgeshire should be named after a Scottish earl is another question entirely. The road in which it stands is known as Chiswick End, in the 1881 census it was mistakenly recorded as Cheesecake End!

Perhaps my favourite pub name.

Take care.