The Plough, Belsize, Rickmansworth

Official site of The Plough - www.theploughatbelsize.co.uk

Official site of The Plough - www.theploughatbelsize.co.uk

The Plough is a good looking small pub situated in Belsize, which has the fame of being named Hertfordshire’s best kept Hamlet a couple of years ago. It’s an impressive looking flint stone building from the outside but unfortunately the interior doesn’t quite live up to the period exterior and more closely resembles a modern café. The main bar is a fairly small and narrow space, with seating areas to the left and right of the central serving area and the area to the right includes a comfortable sofa arrangement that I managed to ensconce myself in. Then there is a separate room area to the right of the bar where tables are laid out primarily for dining. Reasonably priced home-cooked food seems to be a feature of the Plough, and there were several people eating throughout the pub on my early evening visit. There is a decent sized garden to the side of the pub which I can imagine would be a very pleasant spot for a pint in this small hamlet on hot days. An additional interesting feature is that some former cow-sheds to the rear of the pub have been converted into a games area called the ‘garden room’, so the available pool table and dart board are set apart from the small available main pub area. There are three hand pumps on the bar along with the usual draft Lager and Guinness offerings. The local Hertfordshire CAMRA rag makes reference to Tring beers frequently featuring as guest ales. Unfortunately no such luck on my visit and the options were Sharps Doombar, GK IPA and St Austell Tribute. My Tribute was a well-kept pint and this is a solid enough village pub that I would certainly frequent often if I lived locally. But I don’t and the standard cask offerings were probably not enough to get the pulse racing enough to be diverting off the M25 again.