The Blue Boar
Chipping Norton's oldest coaching inn, pouring pints since 1641 and the kind of place a quick drink becomes supper.
Chipping Norton's oldest coaching inn, pouring pints since 1641 and the kind of place a quick drink becomes supper.
The Blue Boar stands at the top of Chipping Norton's high street, on the corner of Goddards Lane where it opens onto the old market square. It is around fifteen minutes from the cottage by car, and it has been a working pub since 1641, back when this was a stop for coaches changing horses on the run through the Cotswolds. The building is listed and wears its age well: flagstone floors, low doorways, thick walls and open fireplaces that draw everyone in once the weather turns. Plenty has changed in nearly four centuries, but the job of the place has not, which is to give you somewhere warm to sit, something honest to eat and a pint worth lingering over.
We tend to end up here on a first night, when we have just arrived and want somewhere familiar and unfussy rather than a big occasion. Chippy, as locals call the town, has a quiet confidence about it, and the Blue Boar matches that mood exactly. It never tries too hard. You can walk in for a quick drink and find yourself still there an hour later with a menu in hand, which is precisely how a good town pub is meant to work.
The kitchen keeps things seasonal and firmly British, the sort of cooking that suits the room. Expect proper pub classics alongside homemade pies, and a Sunday roast that has a loyal following and tends to fill the dining room by early afternoon. There are vegan and vegetarian choices too, so a mixed group is easy to please. Food runs through the day rather than in tight sittings, which makes it a relaxed choice whether you want a late lunch after a walk or an unhurried supper. The pub is genuinely dog friendly, with water bowls to hand, so the walk in from the car park need not part you from the dog. We would still book at weekends, though midweek you can usually walk straight in and find a table near the fire.
Part of the appeal is where the Blue Boar sits. Everything in Chipping Norton is a short stroll away, so it is easy to fold the pub into a wider evening in town rather than treating it as a single stop. If it is full or you fancy a change, The Chequers is only around the corner and older still, all low beams and open fires of its own. For arrival-day supplies before you settle in, M&S on the high street covers breakfast and a bottle for the first night. And if you want the fuller picture of where to eat locally, our guide to eating and drinking in the area runs from village pubs to farm-to-table kitchens and everything between.
“First-night choice when you've just arrived and want something reliable. Order the pie, sit by the fire, and don't rush.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.