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The Green Dragon
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© Copyright Philip Halling
The Green Dragon, Stoke Fleming.jpg
The Green Dragon, Stoke Fleming.jpg
Spotlight - The Green Dragon, Stoke Fleming
Stoke Fleming’s village inn is the Green Dragon in Church Street, bursting with character, stocked with delicious real ales and fine wines, and for the past 17 years the domain of gregarious hosts Peter and Alix Crowther.
It’s not clear why the pub is named after a dragon, though legend suggests a connection to a Welsh knight who stopped off in Stoke Fleming on his way back from the Crusades. There has been a building on the site since the 12th Century, and the pub remains very traditional with a stone floor, huge fireplace and wooden beams. It is also supposed to have a tunnel under the floor leading down to the beach, and a ghost!
Peter has filled the pub with relics from his sailing past – charts, logs, portholes, blocks, paintings of boats, flags and books. A nomadic voyager for many years, he came to South Devon in 1970, arriving by sea.
“I’ve done a lot of things – journalist, yachtsman, fisherman – and at that time I had a boat which I bought in Inverness, the old gaff cutter Golden Vanity. She was built on the Dart in 1908, so I sailed her down to see the place,” Peter explained.
Golden Vanity is still a regular visitor to Dartmouth, owned these days by the Trinity Sailing organisation based in Brixham. Peter made four Atlantic crossings in Golden Vanity in four years, setting a record that still stands. Peter has documented these and subsequent sailing adventures in a book, Single-Handed Sailing in Galway Blazer.
Peter and Alix ran a pub in East Lulworth before coming to the Green Dragon, a pub they already knew well. They have a well deserved reputation for convivial hospitality and Alix’s kitchen produces good food at pub prices. They range from £2.50 up to £15 for Sea Bass or Turbot. The local fisherman lives down the road and rings from his boat with his catch of the day. As well as a regular menu including fish pie, bangers and mash with onion gravy, curry, vegetarian Glamorgan patties, and pasta, there is a variety of evening specials such as venison, black bream fillet, wild mushroom stroganoff, pheasant casserole, hand-picked crab salad, thick pork chops or tenderloin and Westcountry rump steaks. The pub supports local growers and producers.
Alix and Peter enjoy being at the helm of the Green Dragon. Peter said: “We have a good life – we eat nicely, drink nicely, meet nice people, and though we never make our fortune, it is more than that – it is about enjoying living in such a lovely place.”
First published September 2010 By the Dart