The Nutshell, Bury St. Edmunds

A rushed visit to this "smallest pub" candidate. I had spent the day driving around photographing pubs for this website that had not previously been depicted, and it was rapidly growing dark as I parked nearby. The parking ticket machine ditheted so long over accepting my card that my alloted time was even shorter than the half hour I had paid for. So I dashed round here for a swift half of Abbot (NBSS 4, £5/pint) before moving swiftly on. Maybe a more leisurely visit another time. By train.

The Nutshell is a perfect name for this tiny little pub, that thankfully only had one other customer during a recent midweek evening visit. The other customer turned out to be a local of long standing, so he relayed the history of this pub and pointed out all the dead creatures that are found on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Hanging above the bar is a mummified cat that was found bricked up in the walls, and framed on the walls are a dead mouse, dead spiders, and I think I saw a dead woodlouse. I was also told the story of the human hand that sadly had to be removed due to some stupid law about not displaying dead bits of humans in your pub. On my way to the toilet, I was impressed with all the bank notes stuck to the walls all the way up the two stories of stairs and I wondered where they all came from. Coming back down to the bar this conundrum was answered because ten or so American students had descended on the place making it very cosy. They were taking pictures so the penny dropped that this must be a pub of note, especially for overseas students. I love a quirky and memorable pub like this, it’s just a shame that the two hand pumps were drawing GK’s IPA and Abbot Ale, but what else was I to expect in Bury-St-Edmunds. This place is worth a look for the interest, but I can’t see a return visit now that I’ve been.

Tiny old traditional bar, luckily with paving on the street. Hard bencg seating around the small serving area, enough room for about 10 people if they are friends.

I have been looking forward to calling in here. The last time I was in the area was during lockdown and table service would be impossible in the Nutshell. It is tiny. Only 15 customers allowed and it's hard to picture that many people in here. Very friendly service. Greene King Abott and IPA on offer. The IPA was fine. Well worth a visit for the novelty factor alone!

This was my third visit to this place, the first being forty years ago and the second a few years later after a visit to the local brewery. This is a tied house of that brewery (Greene King) so isn't a micropub but just a very small pub. Marking it as a micropub jeopardises the validity of the List Of British Micropubs that can be viewed under stats and features on this site. Micropubs vary in size a lot but the size of the location is not really relevant. Having seen it again I'm sure this place is smaller than what I believe to be the smallest micropub I've been to (The Farmers Yard in Maldon, Essex). The place is loaded with bric-a-brac including what appears to be a mummified cat (it could be fake) which I remembered from earlier visits. Doctor Who fans will be delighted to see an ice bucket disguised as a Police Phone Box. There were about half a dozen in on my visit so it was around half full. The bar has four mainstream keg options and just two hand pumps with Abbot and IPA. I went for the Abbot (£4.00) and at that price I wasn't going to stay for a second. There are limited wines and spirits on sale. It's a novelty this place but at the end of the day it's just a GK pub with only Abbot & IPA. A real micropub would be laughed out of town with that choice.

This pub is remarkably small, and is in fact well known as the smallest pub in the country and I spotted two separate tour guides pointing this out to their group of visitors whilst I was there. I have ticked the micro-pub listing for this pub, which although it might not strictly meet all the criteria (there was background music for example) it surely must qualify just by virtue of being the smallest. Internally, it (obviously) consists of just one room, if you can even call it that, with seating for about ten people. There is a small table to the left in front of the door, and then a small curved bench seating around the window. With space being at such a premium, I’m slightly surprised that they didn’t squeeze a small table on the upstairs landing leading to the loos which would have accommodated a couple more. There are bare wooden boards on the floor and wood panelling on the walls, some of which have been stained dark brown and others painted cream. The ceiling was completely covered in a collection of bank notes, whilst a large number of foreign coins had been affixed to the wall. Various other random odds and ends were fixed to the walls and on shelves including a stag’s head, a propeller, caps, old bottles, and so on. Beers on tap were Greene King IPA and Abbott Ale, and interestingly the pump clips looked to be of a very old design, perhaps made of porcelain, rather than the more usual plastic ones that you see. The solitary cider meanwhile was Thatcher’s Gold. Overall I really liked this pub, and not just for it’s novelty value.