The Shepherd & Crook, Romney Marsh

One of the very traditional Romney Marsh village inns, with this having a small lounge behind the saloon bar / dining area and a snug on the other side of the entrance. Dark-wood furniture and decoration including horse brasses, soda streams, water jugs and all sorts of other ephemera. With two of the four handpumps in use, I found Wantsum's Montgomery and Copper Top from Old Dairy (£3.80).

Well I'm very glad to be able to report that over 10 years since Nick's visit this pub is still a going concern. As you enter the vestibule entrance a door on the left is signed to the restaurant, with the door on the right to the saloon bar. As we weren't eating we didn't venture into the restaurant, and obviously spent our visit in the saloon bar. On the day of our Saturday afternoon visit they were engaged in a fundraising event for the Air Ambulances, with a vocal/guitar duo performing, and they had clearly had Morris dancing earlier on as the participants were partaking of no doubt well-earned refreshment in the pub. In fact thare was a very jolly atmosphere in there. They have definitely upped their game in the real ale stakes. They had six on during our visit - two from Canterbury Ales; two from Cotleigh (one being Styrian Wolf) and two from Nelson Brewery (one being Midshipman). It looks as if they've made food a major player here, as these fairly isolated pubs often have to in order to survive, having devoted an entire room as a restaurant. The saloon bar is still very much a museum piece, with all manner of interesting bric a brac and momentos around the place, as well as a very attractive and clearly old brick built fireplace. This one is definitely worth a visit if you can make the effort to drag yourself out to Burmarsh.

Official site of The Shepherd & Crook - www.theshepherdandcrookburmarsh.com

Official site of The Shepherd & Crook - www.theshepherdandcrookburmarsh.com