Not already a member?
Join our community and
- Rate & review pubs
- Upload pictures
- Add events
JOIN for free NOW
Chat about:
Random news of the day with Tris39
on the Pub Forum
Detail Pages
Angel Vaults Inn (JD Wetherspoon), Hitchin
Hitchin
SG5 1AE
Pub Type
J D WetherspoonReviews (Current Rating Average: 6½ of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about Angel Vaults Inn (JD Wetherspoon)
This is an interesting branch of the Wetherspoons chain located in a nice building in the historic part of the town. Arriving during the period of post-lockdown restriction easing, I was marshalled down a side alley by a cheery doorman who ensured track and trace details were completed before sending me down the alley to a rear entrance which leads directly into the modern rear part of the pub. This room is semi-partitioned by bare brick walls through the centre from front to back, creating distinct bar and seating areas. The right-hand side has herringbone flooring and a copper topped drinking ledge along the side wall, under windows that look out to the sizable patio garden that extends a surprisingly long way to the rear of the property. High tables and stools fill this side of the room, all jammed in between countless Covid partitioning screens that clatter and clang every time you move. Meanwhile, over in the left-hand side of the room, the servery dominates, occupying most of the end wall, with only a handful of additional high tables and stools opposite. The bar has a stylistic counter front and simple mirrored bar back which is dominated by a very large wicker angel that has been mounted high above on a bare brick wall. A few steps to the left of the servery take you up into the older part of the pub, which is now a single room seating area. This room is carpeted and has a brick fireplace at one end and some very nice looking banquette booths down either side, almost entirely filled with very young looking customers on my Thursday evening visit. From where I was sat in the main bar area, I could hear trap music playing quite clearly, but this may have been coming from the open kitchen, which also appeared to be populated by impossibly young looking people.
Unlike other Wetherspoons I’ve visited since the pubs reopened, this place had a couple of guest ales on alongside the Ruddles, Doom Bar & Abbot Ale regulars. I ordered a pint of the Adnams Ghost Ship, which the waitress couldn’t find on her app and therefore didn’t believe was available until I asked her what guest ales were on, at which point she went to the bar, consulted some colleagues and returned with a pint of the Ghost Ship! The place was doing a good trade, with the front room and garden pretty much completely full and only seats in the bar area remaining available.
There was a lot here that I thought worked well and set this place apart from your average town centre ‘Spoons. The modern bar area, plush front lounge and extensive garden meant that there was a good range of places to pull up a seat and enjoy some well-kept beer in comfortable surrounds. The age profile of the evening-time customer base makes me wonder if it might get a little rowdy at peak times, but there were no such problems during my extended stay here and I left feeling this really should be included on any crawl around Hitchin.
On 2nd June 2021
- rating: 7
[User has posted 3114 recommendations about 3114 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Ian Mapp left this review about Angel Vaults Inn (JD Wetherspoon)
Very busy Identikit JDW, with a bar at the far end of a rambling building that takes a bit of finding.
No need to describe, you could be anywhere in the land.
On 9th September 2019
- rating: 5
[User has posted 1338 recommendations about 1324 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Alan Winfield left this review about Angel Vaults Inn (JD Wetherspoon)
The Angel Vaults Inn is a Wetherspoons pub that is housed in a nice old looking building.
Once inside the front area is carpeted and has normal tables and chairs and diner type seating,the bar is on the left side in a room to the rear and down some steps,there are tall tables and chairs and bench seating in this area,there is an open kitchen to the rear.
There was a decent enough choice of guest beers on the bar,i had a drink of Farr Brew Golden,which was a decent drink,the other beers noted were Farr Brew Porter,one from Wild Weather,Doom Bar,GK IPA and GK Abbot.
I thought this was a decent Wetherspoons to start my large Hitchin pub crawl in.
Pub visited 17/6/2017
On 27th August 2017
- rating: 7
[User has posted 6113 recommendations about 6113 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Aqualung . left this review about Angel Vaults Inn (JD Wetherspoon)
New JDW opened Tuesday 10th March.
Thie had been open for 10 days on my Friday afternoon visit and was busier than I expected it to be. It has a rather off-putting layout rather similar to their new outlet in Hoddesdon. As you enter from the street door there are rooms set out for dining on either side with no sign at all of a bar.
There is a small shallow stairway at the end of the left room that leads down to the bar area which has a blue and white laminate flooring and just tall tables although there is a smaller area to the right before the garden that has some lower tables and chairs. The kitchen is beyond the bar area. I would have thought the narrow stairway linking the bar and kitchen to the front area would create a bottleneck with staff and customers moving between the bar and the front rooms but I saw no evidence of this happening.
The bar must have had up to six staff doing one thing or another but I still had to wait an unacceptable time to get served. As mentioned below the two GK beers and Doom Bore are doubled up but I thought there were two banks of SIX hand pumps. I was running late and it was busy but picture 6 on the Spoons website shows the left bank with six pumps. I noted five festival beers and I think the other may have been a cider. There are also five "Craft" keg taps with the standard Brewdog Lager and Banks's Devil's Backbone IPA plus three others one of which was an Erdinger brew.
I went for the Wychwood Lighthouse Shipwreck IPA which was in good condition. This leads to the only thing that really impressed me about this place and that was the fact that this 6.5% beer cost just £1.85. The festival beers this time are set at a lower price than the normal Standard guest but this really took me aback, I had £2.50 in my hand wondering if it would be enough!
I'm not sure about the odd layout here and the chaos behind the bar but the beer price went some way in compensating for that.
On 22nd March 2015
- rating: 6
[User has posted 2143 recommendations about 2143 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Bucking Fastard left this review about Angel Vaults Inn (JD Wetherspoon)
A very fine Georgian exterior,this was formerly the Conservative Association but little mention is made of the former political leaning.The 'spoons conversion team have made the original building into a comfortable seating area with high backed seating booths and generous sized tables,but it still feels very corporate.However there are some nooks,crannies and original fireplaces giving an upmarket feel to this part of the pub.A wide corridor leads to a lower modern extension which houses the bar and kitchen ,and a more lively drinking area.French doors leads to a paved beer garden.It's worth a trip to the loos to ascend a good looking staircase.If you are looking to park your breakfast you must use the gents to the left,the one to the right is urinal only.
Having just opened,the novelty factor brought in a good crowd and free tables were at a premium on a lunchtime visit,with most folk eating from the standard menu.At the bar there were two ranks of 5 handpumps but I was surprised to see both Doom Bar and Abbott doubled up,leaving just three guests to choose from the festival ale menu.My Batemans Lincolnshire Red wasn't is very good condition.
Maybe the place needs to bed in,but I was disappointed by the ale line up,maybe food will always dominate given 'spoons very cheap pricing compared with eateries near by,in what is a pretty well to do town.
Judging by my visit the other serious real ale pubs in town have little to worry about,and the internal refurb doesn't quite live up to the attractive exterior.
On 13th March 2015
- rating: 7
[User has posted 2727 recommendations about 2727 pubs]