When facing Blackwell’s you will notice a tiny pub on your left, The White Horse… A short distance to your right, beyond the traffic lights and on the corner, you’ll see The King’s Arms pub.

 

Humphrey Carpenter, in The Inklings, reports that Lewis and his friends used to meet in these two pubs during the war (and at the Mitre on the High Street) because of a beer shortage ‘caused largely by thirsty American troops waiting for D-Day.’ …

 

From the diary of Major Warren Lewis … ‘There will be no more pints with Charles: no more “Bird and the Baby”: the blackout has fallen, and the Inklings can never be the same.’”

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Both pubs remain popular today. The White Horse, reputedly 16th century, still seats barely a dozen inside. The King’s Arms, founded 1607, offers a fine glimpse of collegiate Oxford life continuing much as Lewis knew it.

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