The Railway Tavern, Hailsham

Very traditional side-street pub, remodelled at some stage to leave a compact L-shaped bar with the counter in the corner. Also has a very modest beer garden to one side. Sadly, the pair of handpumps are now disused (there being "little call for it" after the Covid pandemic), so resorted to a bottled Badger Fursty Ferret (£4.30) in preference to the limited keg options.

Hailsham is not served by a railway station, but this is one of two pubs in the town centre that were named in regard to the station that was operating until its closure in September 1968. Off the main drag down a side road makes the Railway Tavern very much a locals pub, but I was made to feel welcome enough during my short stay one Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. It’s not the biggest pub, but there is a pool table and dartboard along with an open fire and TV screen that was showing a rugby match on BBC as there is no Sky Sports. This was muted as some inoffensive background music was being played at a reasonable volume. There were quite a few younger kids in the pub, but they were under control and not making a nuisance of themselves. I found the governor to be polite and the Guinness that I had from the standard draught selection was nice enough. I did spot a solitary hand pump on the bar and unsurprisingly for a pub in East Sussex it was drawing Harveys Best. There is some outside seating in a good sized beer garden to the side of the pub. I thought that this was one of the better pubs in Hailsham, but I still wouldn’t go out of my way to return.