The Chequers, Wallingford Road, Cholsey
Free House
I would not have credited it myself had somebody else mentioned it. Anyone 
who has been a first year student recently will remember Webster's 
Yorkshire Bitter, a sort of watered-down John Smith's that comes in 
dirt-cheap cans, generally to Meet The Freshers parties in some third year 
student's capacious room. You can get it in its cask version here, which 
is much better than the canned one. It's the only cask bitter they have.

They have a decanter of sweet sherry behind the bar as well. Pete, while 
waiting to order, overheard a woman opting for sweet sherry instead of Dry 
Blackthorn, because the latter was rather too dry and rough. I think we 
were the only people in there under fifty. This isn't always the case, or 
hasn't always been, because the photos above the bar are of the Chequers 
over and under 30 football teams, along with a blade from the first 
Wallingford pub regatta. I wonder if that's still going.

By way of entertainment, there's a blackboard on one of the walls not far 
away from a pair of cupboard doors mounted high up on the wall. Behind the 
doors lies not a dartboard but a fusebox. I suppose this would account for 
the lack of an oche.

The pub sign is mock heraldic with the head, wings and feet of an eagle 
sticking out of the sides of a chessboard. Intriguingly, the 
bottom-right-hand square is white, not black. I leave you to draw your own 
conclusions. (20.viii.1999)