The Bottle Inn
Encyclopedia
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
in Marshwood
Marshwood
Marshwood is a village in west Dorset, England, situated on the northern edge of the Marshwood Vale six miles north of Lyme Regis. The village has a population of 283 , 8.6% of dwellings are second homes....
in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England which hosts the World Nettle Eating Championship. The building started life as an ale
Ale
Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...
house being close to a church where people came to pay their tithe
Tithe
A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
s. It was named The Bottle Inn sometime late in the 18th Century when it became the first inn in the area to sell bottled beer
Beer bottle
A beer bottle is a bottle made to contain beer, usually made of glass.Bottled beer has been in use since as early as the 16th century. Beer bottles come in various sizes, shapes and colours....
s. During its history the building has also housed the village shop and during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the village school.
World Nettle Eating Championship
The Bottle Inn hosts the annual World Nettle Eating Championships as part of a charity beer festivalBeer festival
A Beer Festival is an organised event during which a variety of beers are available for tasting and purchase. Beer festivals are held in a number of countries...
. Competitors are served 2 foot (0.6096 m) long stalks of stinging nettles from which they pluck and eat the leaves. After an hour the bare stalks are measured and the winner is the competitor with the greatest accumulated length of nettles. The contest began in the late 1980s when two farmers argued over who had the longest stinging nettles in their field and evolved into the World Nettle Eating Championships when one of the farmers promised to eat any nettle which was longer than his. The championship has separate men’s and women’s sections and attracts competitors from as far afield as Canada and Australia.
In June 2010 Sam Cunningham, a fishmonger from Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
won the contest, after eating 74 feet of nettles.