The most overlooked city in Britain (with more pubs per capita than any other)
To be truly oblivious to the attractions of a beautiful and historic cathedral city, all you have to do is grow up there. I spent my childhood on the outskirts of St Albans, and it’s therefore news to me that the city is anything other than a dull commuter dormitory born of boredom and necessity.
I yearned for the cathedral to tumble down so I’d get out of school carol services, for the market stalls to be swapped for a McDonald’s, for the Roman remains in the park to be removed so that I could play football on a pitch free of artificial hillocks. Somehow overlooked for the post of town planning officer, I left for university and then work. Only now do I learn that St Albans claims to have more pubs per square mile than anywhere else in the UK.
This had been lost on me when I lived there, because by the time I was old enough to buy a pint I was spending my downtime as far away as possible. But imagine how much ale I could have supped if I’d stayed! There are approximately 50 pubs here (come and count them if you think your liver’s hard enough), which is enough for the local Rotary Club to make the bold claim cited above. Said claim is contested, but what’s undeniable is that St Albans is part of that elite bracket of British settlements in which a full pub crawl is essentially a suicide pact.
With my stomach lined and my address scrawled on my arm, I returned. The cathedral was built to dominate the landscape around it, and remains comfortably the most obvious landmark. I had a look around and within minutes had learned more about its history than I had in years of being coerced into chain-gang school trips. Its near-1000-year history encompasses the Medieval Warm Period, during which the monks – this was originally an abbey, and is called as such even by locals as absent and ignorant as me – tended a vineyard in the gardens.
This would have pleased the Romans, who made this the second-biggest town in the country after Londinium. Back then, it was known as Verulamium: one horrible martyrdom later (the nation’s first, according to the Venerable Bede), it became St Albans. No such backstory is put forward by the burgesses of nearby Stevenage, I might say – which didn’t stop us from referring to it as St Evenage. Pfft.
Verulamium survived a trashing by Boadicea and the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire to become a busy market town. Its 20-mile distance from central London made it a popular staging post for those travelling either to or from the Midlands and the North. This is why there’s such a preponderance of olde-worlde pubs – and it probably didn’t do the market any harm either.
Add a 20-minute rail commute to London and you have a perfect storm of picturesque ’burbiness. If I couldn’t see the picture, I guess it’s because I was in the eye of that storm. So look here, St Albans: I was wrong. It wasn’t you; it was me.
Six fine reasons to visit St Albans (including three pubs)
The drink pub
Camra has its HQ in St Albans and many local recommendations. The Mermaid was the South Hertfordshire branch’s Pub of the Year in 2017.
The food pub
Local hunters and gatherers provide the ingredients used by The Foragers at Verulam Arms. The pub is Victorian and isn’t far from the cathedral.
The history pub
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks claims to be the oldest pub in Britain, and certainly looks the part.
The Romans
Start with the excellent Verulamium Museum. Take a walk in the park that surrounds it, and you’ll encounter remnants of the town wall. Cross the road to visit the remains of the Roman theatre.
The market
St Albans’ traditional street market runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with more than 160 stalls to choose from. There is a farmers’ market on the second Sunday of every month.
The Abbey
Or the cathedral, whatever. It’s free to visit and has the longest nave in Britain. Look out for the Shrine of St Alban, and for the ornate medieval murals that were whitewashed in 1539 but uncovered again in the 19th century.
