The Morning Star, Papist Way, Cholsey
Morland

    * Morland Original £1.90 (20.viii.1999)

It is not the Marxist newspaper, but a former Great Western train that 
this pub takes its name from. A train, which might even be the Morning 
Star, is painted on the pub sign. More intriguing is the name of the road. 
The Placenames of Berkshire is little help in the matter, but it also 
lists "Papist Bushes" in Streatley, some way down the Thames.

A further oddity is platforms 1 and 2 at Cholsey station, at the western 
end of Papist Way. While apparently fully-functioning platforms with 
yellow lines and everything, they neither of them have any trains stopping 
at them --- only shooting past on their way to Didcot, Swindon and Oxford. 
Platform 5 takes you on the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway, a novelty 
steam service.

The pub itself divides into the Steam Lounge, a cosy bar with pool table 
and a decent pint of Morland Original on cask, and the Pullman Bar, which 
is flagged as a restaurant and has decor not unlike one of those Steak 
Houses that you see in big cities. They have a bottle of LOVAGE behind the 
bar.

Reasonably popular but not too crammed with the locals on a Friday night, 
it is also the home of Cholsey United Football Club. (20.viii.1999)