The Heart & Hand, Brighton

The Heart and Hand is a fine, traditional street corner local on the fringes of the North Laine area of Brighton. An attractive exterior features green tiling and leaded etched windows advertising the long lost United Ales and Stout. It’s a basic unpretentious pub with traditional padded seating and tables and stools around the perimeter. The small L shaped wooden bar counter retains its gantry with small stained leaded glasswork inserts. A small framed magazine article describes the pub as being a “magnet for writers, musicians and loafers in general”, of which I suppose I come into the last category. We also learn that the pub appeared in the Inaugural Rough Guide to Pubs book, where it appeared as one of the top 50 pubs up and down the country. The far wall of the pub is covered in framed music posters, advertising past performances at local venues such as Komedia and Concorde 2. In the corner here is an old style vinyl juke box, but, based on my visit, volume is kept as a reasonable level and it doesn’t dominate. The external pub sign depicts an old LP record and I gather that the jukebox is something of a local institution. Notably, despite the apparent music emphasis, the customer mix was pleasingly quite varied. 2 real ales were available – Harveys Best and Doombar – the former being in good form. I didn’t see anything to indicate that the range varies much, if at all. As a pub, I quite liked this one and I’d consider calling in again if the opportunity arose.