The Goose & Cuckoo, Upper Llanover

Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Robert Gale in Pubs

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The Goose and Cuckoo is an award-winning pub located at the end of long country road about 2 miles from the A4042, just south of Abergavenny. Being situated in the Brecon Beacons National Park, the scenery around the pub is very picturesque.

The pub is thought to date from around 1760-80 although the landlord is not sure exactly how old it is. Whilst the pub is isolated today, it would been on a route from the mines over the mountain in Blaenavon to Llanover further down road.

This is the only pub in Llanover. Lady Llanover, a leading light of the temperance movement, converted all the inns in the district into coffee houses in the mid-19th century and must have forgotten about the Goose.

The interior consists of a single room with a wood burner in an arched fireplace on the left, a basic bar with a good selection of ale and simple furniture such as old pews throughout. The walls have old portraits photos and newspapers clippings from the area including an interesting story from 1914 about a man that pushed his grandmother over the mountain from Blaenavon to the pub. All whilst playing the mouth-organ!

On the right of the pub is a small extension for dining. The views from this part of the pub are fantasic and on a good day you can see for miles.

Outside the pub there is plenty of seating in the garden and across the road. The pub keeps goats, ducks and chickens which are a big hit with the kids.

Twice a year the pub hosts a music and beer festival which is very popular. The first is on a bank holiday in May and the second on August bank holiday. The last festival in May was extremely popular with 400 people attending and it didn’t take long for the pub to run out of beer. At one point they sold 72 pints in just 17 minutes!

There are always four ales availabe with Newmans Red Stag and Rhymney Bitter being the two regulars with the other two pumps featuring guests. Available when I visited was Warcop Cobblers and Quercus Shingle Bay. It was good to see that there weren’t any big name brand lagers, stouts or ciders. The stout was provided by Felinfoel, the lager from Dortmunder and the cider from Stowford Press.

The Goose is a very traditional pub where you won’t find fruit machines or TVs. Instead you will get a farm welcome from the owners, great ale at reasonable prices (£2.40-60 a pint) and from what I hear, great food. If you are visting the south Wales and it’s a nice day, you just have to visit the pub.

Venue Location

Goose & Cuckoo

Llanover

Abergavenny

NP7 9ER

Tel: 01873 880 277

www.gooseandcuckoo.com

View on Google Street View

Robert Gale (Twitter: @awv)

Beer Taster, Pub Attendee, Photo Taker

Robert Gale likes beer, pubs and beer festivals. He also likes to take photos of beer, pubs and beer festivals. Most weekends of the year you can find him travelling around the UK (and sometimes beyond) photographing and reviewing good quality pubs and beer festivals. He also has a day job in the form of a web developer for Ozum.