Wonder Walls: The Timber Batts Ale House & Forge
The Museum of Curiosities has made the Timber Batts a pub you won’t forget
As the morning mist rolls across the valley beneath, a small clearing atop the Kentish Downs is dimly lit by a red glow. The faint scream of hammer against metal echoes from within a darkened outbuilding. There is something strange in this place, like an empty fairground.
Suddenly, the wind picks up and wildly rustles the trim of an old hoopla stand to the right, and the eye is caught by a car I have never seen before; something is written on the side – a warning perhaps? Against my better judgement, I carefully tiptoe around to get a better look at the vehicle, so as not to wake whoever might be inside… it slowly comes into view and it says… “Cheers Mush”.
In the village of Bodsham (between Ashford and Canterbury) The Timber Batts Ale House & Forge is like no other pub you will ever come across.
Somewhere between Emmerdale’s Woolpack Inn and the weirdest episode of Antiques Roadshow you’ve ever seen, the Timber Batts is full to the brim with brilliant curiosity.
“We nearly got a 27-foot dinosaur once, but we were having problems getting it here”
Adorning the walls, tables, fireplace and pretty much every other available nook and cranny are fascinating items, each with a story to tell: a model spaceship from a merry-go-round, a Pac-Man video game, a vagina tea cosy, a disco ball, a weird gas-mask-wearing doll, signed punk album sleeves, dummy arms pointing to the loos, a piece out of Francis Bacon’s studio and a cuddly toy (fans of the Generation Game will get that one) all reside within the building, and the husband-and-wife team behind it love every piece.
“We just like being a bit different,” says Ross Berry.
“We call it a Museum of Curiosities,” says Sarah Berry.
Having taken on the empty pub three years ago, the pair have injected much more than a bit of life into it; they’ve created a community, a destination and even a festival – The Wooden Man Fest.
“It wasn’t planned, it just came together,” explains Ross. “This is pretty much the inside of our house, except we now have a bar in it. Most of the pieces we already owned as we’ve just always collected strange things.”
Ross has been a blacksmith for more than 20 years – offering lessons from the forge round the back – and together with Sarah toured up and down the country selling furniture, art and implements at festivals.
But gathering the weird and wonderful artefacts now on show is like a bonkers Bayeux Tapestry (look it up, kids) of their time together.
“We don’t have a process – if we like it we buy it and then work out where it’s going to go,” says Sarah. “Things are getting bigger and bigger at the moment.”
“We nearly got a 27-foot dinosaur once, but we were having problems getting it here,” says Ross. “We could have had the old log flume from Dreamland years ago. We got offered it, but that was before the pub and the garden. So we just took one of the logs instead and converted it into a sofa out on the terrace.”
Both hailing from east Kent, the pair are known for their penchant for the peculiar, buying numerous items from the notorious Fort Road Yard – known for its quirky antiques and funfair wilderness vibe.
“I suppose you get into that world of collectors and antiques dealers and they know we like mad stuff,” says Sarah. Indeed, people often get in touch to offer the latest oddity and it is not uncommon for people to leave items at the pub, for example a mummy in a coffin that randomly appeared a few nights before our visit.
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
Out in the garden, a stunning view is joined by a catapult range, bowling alley and stage, which acts as the main focal point for the Wooden Man Festival, a charity event held across the August Bank Holiday weekend that sees hundreds of live-music fans come to see good bands and taste good food and plenty of moonshine.
In fact the southern states delicacies have become quite a pull for the Timber Batts.
“No one seems to do good Cajun food around here,” says Ross, who also admitted that they might take it on the road next year.
Imported American Moonshine is the base of a number of cocktails, which can be paired with seafood or vegan gumbo, blackened fish, jambalaya or vegan jambalaya, po-boy, po-fish, Cajun chips, coleslaw, cornbread, hushpuppies or dirty rice, not to mention a healthy selection of ‘dirty burgers’ including a terrifically tempting ‘onion baji burger’.
While their lagers offer a tour of international brewers, constants include German beauty Paulaner and the Welsh Lazy Boy. The ales and ciders are a strictly local affair, with their Devil’s Piss brewed solely for them by Hopdaemon brewery in Sittingbourne as is their Kaos Beer (named after Ross’s Kaos Blacksmithery).
As you can imagine, the Museum of Curiosities is now an attraction on its own, with some visitors not even staying for a drink… cheeky bu**ers!
But it isn’t to everyone’s taste.
“We have some really interesting pieces,” says Sarah. “We have kids come in and see the shark’s skull, for example. And unless they go to a museum, then they’re not going to see that sort of thing anywhere else.
“There is taxidermy, which is not everyone's cup of tea, either. We have had a couple of people leave because they don’t like the stuffed animals, which is fair enough – we can accept that.
“But there are some great pieces that people really take notice of.”
Ross adds: “I’ve never seen so many people walk around with phones. Facetiming their friends in another country or taking pictures for social media.”
The Red Room, as it is known, has also become notorious for its gigs, with the likes of 90s electro-artists Adamski whipping out the decks and punk legend Ed Tudor (of Tenpole Tudor) rocking up for gigs there… it just means they have to move the curios around a bit.
The Timber Batts crew joke that the pub is where ‘Severance meets Deliverance’, and seeing the motorbike crews, punks and affluent villagers from Bodsham all take the pub to their hearts is proof that being friendly, welcoming and quirky brings in all sorts.
“My favourite piece is my 1960 Woolworths bin. It’s awesome. I’d love the Woolworths sign from the old store in Margate to add to it,” says Ross.
“I do try to keep the bar end of the pub fairly normal,” adds Sarah.
“Hold up, it’s bordering on minimalist in here,” says Ross.
For more information on the Timber Batts, see @timberbatts on Facebook and @thetimberbatts on Instagram