UK pub crawl aims to be a roaring success (From The Oxford Times)
When It Happens Panel Get involved: send your photos, videos, news & views by texting 'OXFORD NEWS' to 80360 or email
UK pub crawl aims to be a roaring success
11:40am Tuesday 22nd January 2013 in News
By Jamie Brooks, Contact me on 01865 425422
Buy this photo »
Cathy Price outside the Red Lion in Oxford, the 300th inn on her mammoth pub crawl
A PUB fan’s quest to visit every Red Lion in the UK brought her to Oxford over the weekend.
Personal trainer and mother-of-one Cathy Price, 53, came to the county on Saturday and ticked seven pubs with the popular name off her list.
And although the Red Lion in Gloucester Road, Oxford, was her 300th, she’s not even halfway through her list.
Ms Price wants to visit 620 Red Lions across the UK after hearing it was the most popular pub name in the country.
Of those pubs, 23 are in Oxfordshire and Cathy had only visited three of them before the weekend – in Drayton, Abingdon and Banbury. The Abingdon pub has since closed.
Ms Price she said she thoroughly enjoyed her visit to the city.
She said: “It was great. We had a bit of food there, just a lump of garlic bread to see us through to our next destination.
“It was a really nice pub. I had a pint of Brakspear Blonde.”
During her visit, Ms Price also visited the Red Lion pubs in Kidlington, Chalgrove, Adderbury, Bloxham, Deddington, and Chipping Norton before heading to Gloucestershire on her way home to Preston.
She said: “It was quite exciting to make it to 300. It is a fantastic way to explore.
“All of them in Oxfordshire have been really lovely pubs so far.”
Ms Price has spent 20 months trekking over 10,000 miles across Britain.
She wants to finish the remainder of the challenge within two years.
Her quest began after she visited the Red Lion pub at Hawkshead in the Lake District in April 2011.
A sign inside said that the Red Lion was the most common pub name in the country. Seeing the sign made her wonder where all the pubs were and she decided to find out.
Ms Price takes a picture outside every pub she visits.
And she wasn’t going to let a little snow in the county at the weekend put her off.
She said: “The snow would have had to be very thick to stop me.”
She told the Oxford Mail that she doesn’t always drink the same thing.
Sometimes she has a half of local ale, sometimes a soft drink and occasionally, a glass of wine.
Her designated driver over the weekend was her partner Stephen Burns, 49.
