Pubs and Bars / A-Z Bristol pub crawl
A-Z Bristol pub crawl: The Hare on the Hill, Kingsdown
On a recent evening at the Hare on the Hill, a regular had scarcely walked in through the door when landlord Ed Johnson begun pouring him a pint of Keller Pills from St Anne’s brewery Lost & Grounded.
This is a pub where you can always choose to have a beer from around half a dozen Bristol breweries, with the pump clip of Clear Head from Bristol Beer Factory just taken off its position above a small model of Boba Fett pushing a miniature shopping trolley.
If you like Star Wars and Lego, you’re going to be in luck here, with plenty of memorabilia to catch the eye among the plants and framed artwork.
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The Hare on the Hill hosts live music and a weekly pub quiz – photo: Martin Booth
Blind Willie McTell’s Atlanta Twelve String album from 1972 was being played on vinyl as the sun was setting on Thursday evening.
The turntable here is positioned on top of a piano, with that other once ubiquitous feature of a pub – a dartboard – still on the wall in one corner but with a table making the oche difficult to access.
As the regular left the Hare heading up Thomas Street North to Fremantle Square, he passed both a cow and a rat: the cow painted on the wall of the house next door by Sophie Long and the rat an early stencil by Banksy now protected under Perspex.
Back inside the pub, one newly arrived customer turned to his companion: “Walking up that hill was knackering. I need a breather!”
Also at the bar, it was time for a group of three to work out whose round it was. “I better reach into my pocket,” one man straight from work told his two friends, ordering another Keller Pills.
The Hare on the Hill is on the corner of Dove Street and Thomas Street North – photo: Martin Booth
The Hare on the Hill, 41 Thomas Street North, Kingsdown, Bristol BS2 8LX
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
- Historic pub to be reopened by new owners
- New owner of much-loved pub promises he will not change anything
- This small Bristol road once had almost 40 pubs
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