20070201

Drop in for a short one


At the risk of making the maddening Disney song echo for hours in your head, it's a small world after all.

Last summer I wrote an item about a 64-square-foot former railroad signal box structure in Cleethorpes, England, that had earned the title of the world's smallest pub.

The other day I received an envelope containing a note, a letter and some photos. The note, from Frances Hynds of Delmar, NY, informed me she and her husband, Given, had met a couple from Cleethorpes while on a cruise and had struck up a continuing correspondence. "I sent your article, and I have enclosed their reply," she wrote.

The reply, from Mary Keeble, said in part: "I couldn't believe it when I read about the small bar in Cleethorpes. We went to look for it and found it. I thought I would take some photographs ... . The pub is a small signal box on the light railway that runs near our promenade. It is very good."



By the way, the Greenwich Meridian passes through Cleethorpes. A signpost in the town shows various distances in miles. Among them: the North Pole 2,517, the South Pole 9,919, London 143, and New York 3,481.


ON THE WEB
Cleethorpes Online
• Cleethorpes: An Overview
Boxing at the Winter Garden

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi:

I've just seen your article on the smallest pub in the world. Just thought I would e-mail you to let you know that I own the said pub and to thank you for your article.

Anonymous said...

This is not correct, the smallest bar of the world is in Sta. Maria V.M. Graubünden Switzerland. See here: http://www.smallestwhiskybaronearth.com

William M. Dowd said...

Detlef:

You've jumped the gun. The web site for this establishment says it is due to open on Nov. 24, a full 10 days from now. Thus, the original posting remains correct until then.

Incidentally, the Guinness Book of World Records, the accepted arbiter on such whimsical things, still recognizes the Cheethorpes pub as the world's smallest.

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