The Painters Arms, Landport, Portsmouth

A Victorian corner pub at the end of the busy Commercial Road pedestrian area. There is a front garden with tables, chairs and umbrellas, fronted by an iron fence that makes you feel like you’re in a zoo, and which offers fine views of the nearby shops. There is a small, tidy dining area to the right as you go inside, and a larger square bar to the left. The latter has a pool table, a jukebox and a TV showing game shows which is also used to screen sports matches, I am told. There is also a dart board, and stacked in the corner what looks like a karaoke set. Food looked like good value for money, but the only ale on – Doombar – was badly kept and not good quality. Staff were friendly, but some of the younger regulars were openly hostile. I didn’t feel comfortable here and will probably brush past in future.

The Painters Arms is a stand alone pub that has got a brown tiled lower half and a mock tudor upper half. Once inside there was one room that was fairly smart and also very busy. When we went in this pub it was a Whitbread tied house and there was one real ale on the bar this was Whitbread Flowers bitter and this was quite a nice drink. This was a decent enough pub to have a quick drink in. Pub visited 18/2/1999 Photo taken 20/2/1999