Posted on January 2, 2003 - by Ralph Grizzle

Meet The Duke

Got an hour to spare before boarding Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 in Southampton, England? Walk several blocks from the cruise ship terminal to the Duke of Wellington pub. We did, and what we found in the 15th-century pub located at 36 Bugle Street was a convivial maritime setting, stone fireplaces with logs blazing and a row of cask ales to accompany the menu of traditional English fare: Fish and Chips, Ploughman’s Lunch, and Bangers and Mash. Sailors and “cruise” passengers from earlier times may well have stopped here for fortification. In 1620, more than a century after the pub opened, another ship set sail from the foot of Bugle Street. Its name: the Mayflower.