An afternoon of sausages and ale

Old Town was alive on Sunday afternoon with visitors wandering between the venues of the Sausage and Ale Trail in Swindon Old Town. The event, to raise funds for the Christmas lights in Old Town, was fortunate with warm sunny weather. With entertainment and market stalls in Wood Street, several pubs were offering sausages — usually served outside — to eat along with their beer. Several shops also had promotions for the day. The Hop Inn was perhaps the most fortunate. With the Arts Centre next door also being a licensed premise, it was able to sell sausages and beer from a counter facing the Arts Centre serving the small crowd watching the entertainment there. For other pubs, it was more discreet, in some cases so discreet that one wondered whether they were worried the event might disrupt their normal Sunday lunch trade.

So busy was the Hop Inn that it ran out of sausages and had to get an urgent re-supply.

A crowd and queue soon formed once they had restocked.