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Picture source: MJ Crook

The Friar Bacon was situated on Elsfield Way.  This pub opened in 1934 and closed in the 1990s. It has now been demolished and replaced by flats.

tThis wonderful  pub was close to my home. The landlord for many a year was the much loved Monty Hillier. There is a lot about him at https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18439641.memory-lane-looking-back-life-athlete-administrator-monty-hillier/ The snug that your correspondent refers to was, I believe, called the 'jug and bottle' in my pre 18 drinking days, complete with a  sash  window that Monty would appear through ready to dispense a coke and packet of crisps. Happy days.

Tim Todd (March 2026)

Review from tantallon.org.uk:

Morrells Light Ale (275ml) 98p Whitbread Best Bitter £1.80 Guinness Stout £2.30 This feels like a genuine pub. The lounge seems to be out of action, but a room marked "The Snug" is in operation. Didn't get a chance to look at the garden. Never mind young people in black polo shirts such as you'd find in the Kings Arms Summertown (where young Cutteslovians go) or in the Turf, here we have a huge and jowly publican with tattoos. But they do do Morrells Oxford Bitter now, after a bit of a gap. They have a blocked-up fireplace, and a jukebox with visible workings which is rather upstaged by a terrestrial television mounted above the bar so that the barman can watch it in quiet patches. I think folk between 21 (the upper limit for the Kings Arms Summertown) and 40/50 must come here during the day, leaving the evenings for folkwhose children have either left home or are drinking lager in the Kings Arms, and teenage girls, because round the corner there's a pool table. Because teenage boys don't know about the pub, the girls get a go on the table. Or so it would appear. (26.x.1998)

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