The "Bird and Baby" grows up: inside the new Eagle and Child | Hacker News Reader

The "Bird and Baby" grows up: inside the new Eagle and Child

oxfordclarion.uk

62 pointsDoctor_Fegg26 comments

This is the pub where Tolkien and Lewis met with their literary group the Inklings before moving across the street to the Lamb and Flag.

Title made it sound like it had reopened, but “The Eagle & Child will not reopen before 2027. Planning permission has not yet even been granted for the building conservation work, let alone the extensive restoration and revival.”

At least they have a very fine historically restored pub for ants built out.

I always wonder how atrociously expensive the little scale models architecture firms make are, I’d imagine this one uses real tiny hardwoods on the floors and stuff as well so it’s even more eye wateringly expensive.

Well they are _Oxford_ ants. They are used to real hardwood floors with a coating of floor polish so storied you can do archaeology on it.

In the US at least, most of that work is outsourced to third parties in China or low cost of labor countries.

If an architectural firm has one in house it’s sending a message about just how boutique (and expensive) they are.

Do they still make physical models? I took an intro to architecture class in college, which was fun, but essentially just a drawing and model-making class. I would assume that most models would be digital 3d renderings now.

At least when my spouse wss in architecture school, these were mostly expensive in time, not materials. Things like the divided windows are a giant pain to put together.

It's pretty atypical to use actual materials in the model. When you need to see the actual materials together, you just use samples at 1:1 size and either hold the individual samples near each other or at most build a small corner to illustrate where things will come together.

Interesting to note that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien met Arthur C. Clarke and a BIS colleague in a different bar - must have regarded it as neutral territory:

'Needless to say, neither side converted the other, and we refused to abandon our diabolical schemes of interplanetary conquest. But a fine time was had by all, and when, some hours later, we emerged a little unsteadily from the Eastgate, Dr. Lewis' parting words were "I'm sure you're very wicked people - but how dull it would be if everyone was good"'

I wonder if the Botley Road will be reopened and the improvements to the train station will have been competed by then?

I suspect they'll have been delayed by another archaeological dig when they find some artefacts left over from when the road was first closed.

Mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand I am absolutely terrified for the future of anything touched by Larry Ellison. On the other hand, there is definitely scope for it to be improved- last time I went there (which was a long time ago admittedly) it was cool to be there because of its history etc but it wasn't that great an actual pub. Like if you're into historical drinking places somewhere like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese near fleet street in London where Pepys and Boswell used to drink is a much better actual pub than I remember the Eagle and Child being at least the one or two times I went there.

I am glad to see they are planning to keep the pub's weird layout of different rooms. A large part of the charm of drinking there was how it is/was laid out.

I wonder if Ellison will also buy the Eagle in Cambridge - which also has an interesting history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle,_Cambridge

Didn’t know this pub! Cool history

I had missed that it also used to be called the Eagle and Child.

Not to mention the Baron of Beef in Cambridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baron_of_Beef

Pretty sure that The Maypole (https://maypolefreehouse.co.uk), which is round the back of the Baron, is safe... thank goodness.

> We are a Euro FREE Zone which means no sports will be shown at the pub.

American here. What the heck does this mean?

LOL. Pubs in the UK tend to fall into roughly 2 camps... with TV, and without. And the with TV ones can be quite extreme, and conversation can be difficult when people are distracted by a TV visible whichever way you look. During the European football championships, lots of pubs have wall-to-wall football coverage (as in soccer, not Rugby in drag) which serious drinkers might want to avoid ;-) (And for the more sports obsessed, it also makes, avoiding seeing the scores before you get home and watch it properly on catch-up much easier...)

It means they haven't updated their website since summer when the European football championships were on :-) (and that, as the sibling comment says, they're advertising themselves as a pub where you go to avoid the coverage rather than a pub where you go to watch it).

The other idiosyncratic pub in Oxford is the Turf Tavern to be found down some twisty passages off Holywell Street. But my 1970s Oxford undergrad experience was daily pie, beans, and chips in the much more normal Kings Arms opposite the Bodleian.

Did not realize it was closed. When I was there maybe 15 years ago it was in quite a lot better state. Re-opening it at all, given all the pub closures, is a good thing. That it will more or less be kept intact is a big bonus.

Check out the fingers on the AI generated images!

I've been there once, and it was quite cozy and nice; I would have liked it a good bit even if there had been no Inklings in its history (although that certainly added something). Their plans for it sound good, I hope they follow through!

Glad to see it'll still be around just as weird and charming as it was.

the USENIX YouTube link took me down quite the rabbit hole

End of an era. Used to go there in the 90s. Now everything belongs to shitty, worthless Silicon Valley adventurers.

A non drinking billionaire to take over a pub, it will be suprising if this goes well.

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