Victoria Hotel, Eastbourne

Official site of Victoria Hotel - www.thevictoriaeastbourne.co.uk

Official site of Victoria Hotel - www.thevictoriaeastbourne.co.uk

Occupying a street corner position in a residential side street a block or so inland from the sea front is The Victoria Hotel, a fine, welcoming, traditional, community orientated, local. It’s a Victorian era pub with a door on each street, indicating a former multi bar pub. We now have a comfortable, carpeted single bar pub with a semi circular central bar servery. The interior features gold, floral wallpaper, a number of old pictures of Queen Victoria, a high burgundy coloured ceiling and the trademark large arched windows. Hanging from the ceiling is a collection of jugs and these extend to the shelves round the perimeter of the room. The seating area is divided into small semi circular seating areas with padded seats. High up on the bar back is a collection of beer bottles. Old small circular photos of former kings and queens etched into the windows add to the traditional feel, although these are obviously not original. Reminiscent of Eastenders, a bust of Queen Victoria occupies a prominent position on the bar counter. Overall, the pub still retains something of a feel of a pub from an earlier, maybe better, era of pub going. A separate room at the back of the pub – probably the former official public bar – is more basic and contains a pool table and a Toad in the Hole game. On the walls here are the usual photos of a selection of other Harvey’s pubs. A door here leads out to a pleasant outside seating courtyard area. The Victoria Hotel is a Harvey’s tied outlet which, on my visit, was serving Best, Old and Armada. Beers sampled were in good form, as befits a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular. A page in the pub menu exhorts me to “why not visit our other pubs in the area – The Heath, Haywards Heath and The Alma, Uckfield” which, noting that no reference is made to Harvey’s other Eastbourne pubs, suggests to me that the two named pubs are under the same individual tenancy. Accommodation is offered, but, despite the name, this is first and foremost a fine, traditional pub. This pub was specifically recommended to me as one to prioritise when in Eastbourne. I’m well glad that I made the effort to seek it out and I’d be looking to return when the opportunity presents itself.

Having enjoyed a pleasant stroll along the seafront in the unusually hot October weather, we made a short detour to this fine Harvey’s pub for a bite to eat and some much needed liquid refreshment. The pub has a traditional two room interior and the entrance takes you into the warm and welcoming main bar which has a slightly opened out area to the left with a fair bit of seating and numerous pictures of Queen Victoria. Additional seating is provided opposite the bar counter and this area was full with people enjoying the Merseyside derby on a TV screen mounted on the front wall. The second room to the rear of the main bar was almost entirely filled by a pool table and has a very short stretch of bar counter. A door at the back of the room leads to the garden, although it initially appeared to be the door for the gents, which are actually located just beyond this doorway. The patio garden gets its fair share of sun and I found it a nice spot to enjoy the last few rays of sun of 2011. There were three Harvey’s beers on when we visited - Best, Old Ale and Armada (£3.35), with the latter in excellent shape. Another handpull was dispensing Old Rosie Scrumpy and menus throughout the pub listed the full Harvey’s range as being available in bottled form. The food was very reasonably priced with most mains around £7 and I thought the portion sizes were rather generous. I had the chicken which was very nice and great value for money. This is a really friendly and well run local's pub of the sort that I would be quite happy to while away an afternoon in and it is well worth seeking out.