I first saw that the Iron Bridge had closed on Instagram. I cycled to the pub and there, in the middle of the latticed panes of the front door, was a notice, apologetic in its finality: “The Iron Bridge is closed hereon in.” The blinds were down behind the door and the windows, giving the ground floor the appearance of a giant who had decided to sleep forever. This was the third pub I used to visit that had closed since lockdown.
The Iron Bridge was a fixture of my personal Exeter pub trail. I loved its position: It took its name from an adjoining iron bridge erected in 1834, while across the road the former (equally venerable) brewery St Anne’s Well stands, its buildings reminiscent of a tiered pagoda. The bridge spans a sunken valley below, where Victorian catacombs had been built into the hill, surrounded by squirrel-filled woodland.
The pub was also Victorian. Its interior was laidback, creme brûlée brown, with prints and mirrors on the wall, a well-sanded wooden floor, and a piano by the front door. Its charm was understated, and it served as a bookend to all that quiet history outside. Its beer offerings spoke of the West Country, and included local breweries like Powderkeg Brewery, Exeter Brewing Co., and Utopian Brewing, alongside the Bristol-based Wiper & True Brewery and Bristol Beer Factory.
I often sat there with a pint and a book, and would experience that sense of tranquility that only a pub can provide, comparable to sitting in a quiet church as the light fades on an autumn afternoon. This was the pub as a bolthole from the world outside, with the feeling that time had stopped for as long as you sat there.
Though the Iron Bridge had been closed for several years previously, until its 2017 reopening, the finality of the latest message on the door suggests it will not be a pub again. On the one hand, it is another statistic, as the pubs of England continue to close. But it was also a small universe unto itself, personal and indefinable, that is now lost forever.
