British crying in their beer over new pub names
July 1, 1997
Web posted at: 2:56 p.m. EDT (1856 GMT)LONDON (CNN) -- British legislators, responding to an outraged public, filed a motion in Parliament Tuesday to stop a trend toward the bizarre in renaming traditional taverns.
Britain's "public houses" or "pubs" have historically had solid, almost sober names redolent of the monarchy or the country's rural past, such the Duke of Clarence, the Prince of Wales and the Horse and Hounds.
But increasingly owners are rechristening their hostelries with names such as the Purple Turtle, the Rat and Parrot or the Philanderer and Firkin. A firkin is a medium-sized beer keg holding about 40.9 liters (10.8 U.S. gallons).
The issue, which has enraged traditionalists, reached the British Parliament when seven legislators introduced a motion to protest the new trend.
One of them, Nicholas Winterton, presented a bill calling for magistrates to be consulted about name changes.
Neither the motion nor the bill has a realistic chance of being debated, but Winterton insisted the effort was worthwhile.
'Our national heritage'
"My bill seeks to stress the importance to our national heritage of ancient public house names and to force a debate about the way in which they are being wiped out at the stroke of the marketing man's pen," he said.
The motion "deeply regrets the growing trend toward theme pubs with contrived names that have no relevance for the local community and which can cause embarrassment, ridicule and a sense of alienation for local people."
Winterton, a Conservative, said he was alerted to the problem when the owners of the Bull's Head in his constituency proposed to rename it the Pig and Truffle.
The idea provoked outrage in the northern English town of Macclesfield and the owners eventually backed down.
The Campaign for Real Ale, one of Britain's largest consumer bodies, agrees with Winterton that the issue is worth examining.
But a spokesman acknowledged that pub names had to change with the times. "After all, it was probably pretty outlandish to call your pub 'The Railway' in 1845," he said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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