Dr Peter Prinsley

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is well known that Charles Dickens stayed at the Angel hotel in 1835, and it later featured in “The Pickwick Papers”. He returned regularly to give readings next door. Two centuries on, guests can still stay in the very same room associated with his visits. Of course, most hoteliers would simply settle for a good online review. The Masons Arms occupies a building dating back to the early 16th century. In Stowmarket, the Royal William, a traditional backstreet pub that was granted its licence only in the 1960s, serves real ale by gravity. There are plenty of things I would like to see modernised, but certainly not that. I come to my favourite pub, the Nutshell. [Hon. Members: “Aha!”] It is listed in the “Guinness Book of Records” as the smallest pub in the country, at just 15 feet long by 7 feet wide, complete with a mummified cat. In 1984, an extraordinary 102 people and a dog called Blob reportedly squeezed inside. Any of us who struggle to find a seat at Prime Minister’s questions should count their blessings. Stowmarket once had a pub called the Hop Pole Tavern, which had a railway siding running all the way through it. I support travelling to the pub by train, but that was taking integrated transport rather too literally. I have already read out one of the ditties about Bury St Edmunds’ pubs, so I shall not tell the House another one, although there are several.