The Gardener's Arms, Lewes

Very small beerhouse in the conservation area of Cliffe High Street with an excellent and changing range of ales. Recommended for serious drinking - actually not much choice as food is restricted to the occasional pie.

Visited July 2010. Situated on a picturesque thoroughfare near the river, this fine pub is a must. Several guest beers, Dark Star Festival was excellent. Ample seating outside to front and side.

Pub of the day on yesterday's Lewes jaunt. A compact pub with a central bar, fairly limited seating and easily full, as it certainly deserves to be! Mainly wooden floors, small carpeted area to the rear, various pictures, breweriana etc, including some fascinating old 60's beer mats from a time forgotten. One picture of "The Burning of Richard Woodman" is very macabre and relates to the 16th century executions of protestant martyrs, 10 of which occurred in Lewes. On a much lighter note, the pub has an ongoing garlic growing competition, where cloves were planted on the shortest day, to be harvested on the longest. The local Toad in the Hole game is also played here if space allows. Very well run and friendly with it, yesterday we had Harveys Sussex, Kiss,and Porter, Welton's Schneider Gold, not a lager type as I expected but a full flavoured ale, Dark Star Espresso Stout, Hammerpot White Wing and Black Rat cider. Top marks to the landlady as my pint of Kiss looked a little tired, she immediately spotted it, poured herself a small taster and offered an alternative without any words being spoken. That's got you a 9 instead of an 8! Not sure who supports Swindon Town and who Berwick Rangers but both teams are well represented around the pub. If you only do one pub in Lewes (which would be silly) make sure its this one. They did us carry outs too!

Imagine you could realise that dream and own your own ‘lifestyle' pub that you could do whatever you wanted with. Well you'd probably come up with something like the Gardeners Arms. Small, intimate and friendly with character and characters built up over the years. There's not much I'd change about it. The beer is the star of course, a free house with a diverse range of beers and cider, mainly from the South. I had the White's Dark Mild and then an excellent Iceni Men of Norfolk, supplemented by the, often difficult to find these days, perfect gastronomic accompaniment, a pork pie. This was the seventh pub on a solo Lewes crawl, next time I'll make it earlier and be a bit more selective.

This is a very small and basic pub in which I spotted seven hand pumps and apart from the Harveys Best the rest were all unseen by me before. I'm into my Guinness at the moment and I have to report that I was glad to see it in the very limited selection of draught products and it was spot on. The music was a bit random, but it fitted the pub well and was played at a decent volume. The barmaid was a little off at the beginning of my visit, but she seemed to cheer up the longer I stayed. There were plenty of locals in that had managed to conjure up a bit of a whiff which I put down to the beer and meat pies. I was wondering if this was the unluckiest pub in the south of England due to the pictures on the wall of a flood and a fire. There were no hints as to the origins of the photos so maybe it would be nice to put a little note on them so that non locals could be informed of the history. I liked it in here as it is all about having a beer and a chat, but it's not the sort of place I'd go for a lad's night out – which I think is the whole point of the place.

Very nice , friendly , small-ish bar . Beer - John Smith's Smooth . Service polite and friendly . Food served .

Aah! Now this is a good pub. Small Free House: a central bar with drinking areas in front and behind. Offers a good choice of ales (I counted 6 of them) and a pile of CAMRA mags from around the country to read while you drink. Definitely the place I'd recommend in Lewes.