Everyone with a love of good pubs — and I can hardly exclude myself from that happy band — will applaud the return to top form, under new brewery operators, of The Grapes, in George Street. Oxford City Council, with acumen far from typical, has granted a lease on the building, the city centre’s only surviving Victorian hostelry, to Bath Ales, an enterprising West Country brewery with another eight outlets much closer to its home, in Warmley, near Bristol.

I don’t drink beer — well, not in any quantity — but I know someone who does. At last week’s spiffing opening party, Rosemarie sampled her way through Bath Ales’ Barnsey, Gem, Dark Side and S.P.A. — as well as seasonal guest ale Golden Hare — and found them all delicious, that last especially.

I, meanwhile, was making inroads into the party food — in between glugs of an excellent Spanish white wine (Carrasvinas Verdejo, 2009). Good solid pub grub, it proved. The S.P.A.-battered fish and chips and the breaded chicken fillets were disappearing almost as fast as the kitchen could produce them (not all into me).

Home-made pies (cheese and leek, beef and ale, shepherd’s) roast beef sandwiches, slow-roasted ham with greens and parsley sauce and burger and chips are among the British classics on the regular menu.

Bath Ales must consider themselves lucky in The Grapes’ manager, James Dixon. A veteran (though you would hardly guess it) of five years running a pub in his native Wales, he possesses a friendly, open manner that can’t fail to please his customers, especially if they happen to share his interest in rugby. The company seems well served, too, in its bar staff, a matter of some importance in a pub of intimate spaces such as this.

As some of my older readers will doubtless remember, The Grapes was once considerably more intimate. Until 1969 and a controversial reconstruction (’elf ’n’ safety, even in those days) it boasted an interior (pictured on the right) unaltered since the time of its construction at the turn of the 20th century.

Mahogany divides, with stained glass panels, separated the room into four private compartments as if in a railway carriage. This was the pattern of the period and was found as well, at one time, in my local, The Waterman’s Arms (now The Punter) on Osney Island.

With the New Theatre directly opposite the front door, the pub once enjoyed a strong connection with actors and entertainers as a house ‘registered’ for their use. Gracie Fields, Elsie and Doris Walters, Sir Henry Irving, Tessie O’Shea, Marie Lloyd and Billy Cotton (of “Wakey, wakey” fame) were among its big-name customers.

In my nearly 40 years working in Oxford, the pub has been more associated in my mind with stars of the pop world. For it was here that one could laze, over a pint or three, while a not-to-be-bothered-with support act did its bit over the road, knowing that the sight of crowds milling in the foyer would signal the imminent start of the main event.

Memorable nights for me at the New Theatre include performances by The Who, Roy Orbison (five or six Pretty Woman encores!), Tina Turner (my only time in ‘the gods’) and Leonard Cohen. I can’t remember which, if any, of these actually had a support. I am pretty certain that in all cases, though, The Grapes figured in my evening, possibly twice.

I have an especially fond recollection of the Cohen night. This was in the days when a big event at the theatre sometimes led British Rail to hold back the last train to London. The announcement of this would be left to the star.

Who could forget the iconic Cohen telling us, in his famously lugubrious tones, that the 11pm service to Paddington would be leaving 15 minutes later than usual, calling at Didcot, Reading and Slough?