The Mortal Man
Our favourite local pub when we are at Limefitt Park, The Mortal Man, has now reopened (June 2009).
It has been taken over by Garry Duncker who is fast restoring this traditional inn’s reputation (which had taken a bit of a knock with the last owner). Garry is ably assisted by his partner Kate and Toby and his cheerful team.
We "road tested" the pub extensively on your behalf over the course of a long week this Summer (yes, hard work but someone had to do it!) and we can confirm that the food is great. The beer is also great (Timmy Taylor's "Landlord" is a favourite of mine) and the attitude to problem solving and customer service is great too. Suki, our retriever, thinks it's the best pub she has ever been into, but I think that the dog biscuit they gave her may have something to do with that.
Most importantly the prices have returned to what most of us would consider reasonable too.
We think that The Mortal Man is now getting back to what it used to be - a great Lakeland pub. We'd welcome any feedback from our guests at Windermere Lodge and other visitors!
The view of the pub from the beer garden
The beer garden
360 degree view from the beer garden
Have you EVER seen a better view from a pub?
The image below is a 360 degree panorama. Click on the image and drag your mouse to see the view from the beer garden.
The new owners have also replaced the traditional old pub sign that used to hang by the road.
The sign carries the rhyme:
"Thou mortal man that lives by bread
What is it that makes thy nose so red?
Thou silly fool that lookst so pale,
'Tis drinking Sally Birkett's ale."
The landlord at the time the original sign was painted was called Tommy Birkett, and Sally was presumably his wife
I was told recently by a Geordie the "mortal" means drunk in Geordie slang, as in "Last night, I was proper mortal", so maybe that explains the use of the word in the rhyme and the pub's name.
Another source for the name I found on the web is that the remains of a local giant (the mortal man) are supposed to be buried under the pub.
According to the "Dictionary of Pub Names" the original sign was painted by an artist called Ibbetson who did it to settle his holiday bill. It showed two men - one an "ill-looking wretch" and one who was in the best of health. By the time we began to visit the pub the original sign had been replaced with this one
I am not going to waste bandwidth with a photo of the "Mortal Man Experience" sign put up by the previous landlord.
The new sign is close to the original Ibbetson sign
All in all a great improvement
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