Ye Olde Yew Tree Inn, Westbere,

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What a lovely watercolour sketch and nice story. I can just imagine you sipping your pint in the sunshine. What a nice day you had and this lovely painting will always bring back the memory. So much nicer than a photograph I feel. Well done, you've really captured the atmosphere of this place.

Thanks for your comments Louise and you're quite right, there's no photographs that record a memory quite like a personal sketch!

Easter Monday today and wife Fiona and I took the VW Beetle out for a spin and the dog for a walk round the 200 acre lake near 'Ye Olde Yew Tree' I hadn't been here since my college days about thirty years ago and the place has changed little. The Inn was built in 1348 and it's the oldest pub in Kent. Queen Anne and the Archbishop of Canterbury are reputed to have stayed here, and Dick Turpin is purported to have evaded capture from the law by jumping from a first floor window. The pub was also used as a hospital to treat wounded soldiers during the civil war and two ghosts live here (so the website says) - 'a man and a small woman'. More importantly, they sell Harvey's Sussex Bitter here, which slipped down nicely whilst painting the postcard above. Winsor & Newton watercolours on 300gsm rough watercolour postcard. (May 2011 update: This painting now lives at the pub ;)