Fox & Anchor

Once and a while you come across a hotel that is not just a place to stay and sleep but a place to become increasingly obsessed with within the first 40 minutes you're there. You can't blame me. There are golden anchors dangling from balconies, pewter tubs you could drown in in every room with bubble bath and roses all around, the warmest coziest white towels everywhere you look, movie selections, an outdoor light wood patio surrounded by vines looking out into the industrial remanence of the sky at sundown. The bed.... I can't even get near it because i am 100% sure that if i put one foot on it i'll sleep for a week straight. There is a bright white tiled shower that feels like you're standing in the middle of a tropical storm naked. Washing yourself with coconut & vanilla shampoo. The door to our room leads straight downstairs to the back door of the Pub. Since 1841, The Fox and Anchor is tucked away on a beautiful ancient English street, cobbled and uneven and welcoming to everyone.

There will be many more posts about this magical Pub and Hotel but let me start out with their side of the story, and that is the story of the fox and the anchor:

There are times when you tire of the chase and your surroundings. The fox was no different. Charging from wood to glade, never able to take in nature's treasures, the endless fight with chicken wire and fence, the dodging of buckshot and hound. It was clearly time to make a sly change - A warmer climate, maybe the feel of sand underpaw, or to lands where the sunsets burned as rusty red as his coat. He thought of asking the geese, but thought better of it. They had history. Despite being an average swimmer he followed the river downstream to the sea, trickle became torrent and the fox thought he would surely be a gonner. Sodden, wringing wet through and beyond the point-of-no-return, he abruptly felt himself hoisted out of the water by the anchor of a passing cargo ship en-route for the Azores. Given a warm bed and just the sustenance he had been waiting for, the fox had finally found a retreat where he was never hounded and the fowl ran free. You see, if you're determined, you'll always find aweigh.


Goodnight little foxes.
Emily