Barley Mow, Milton Keynes

An attractive, stone built country pub just a short stroll away from the canal and there are a couple of beers gardens on either side of the pub. Inside, the main bar is a large, mainly open plan affair, although it still manages to feel quite cosy with it’s low, beamed ceiling. It has a traditional appearance with red patterned carpet on the floor, plenty of wooden tables and chairs, a couple of fabric covered benches around the perimeter, plenty of country pictures on the wall, lots of bottles dotted around on various ledges and window sills and even a grandfather clock. There is a small fireplace with a stone chimney breast and this had a fire blazing away, although it looked to be of the gas variety rather than anything more authentic. A smaller bar to the right has a flagstone floor, and an impressive large stone fireplace taking up pretty much the whole of one wall, although I’m not sure if this is still in use. There is another bar counter here, although this has a much smaller range of drinks and was unmanned on a recent visit. Off of this room is a very tiny snug, with just one table and four chairs completely filling the available space. There was a decent selection of food chalked up on a board with probably fifteen or twenty choices, as well as a small specials board with a couple more. On the whole it’s a cut above your usual pub grub with most of the dishes being around the £9 - £10 mark, but it’s not too gastro-pubby. That said, there was still a burger, chicken Jalfrezi or ham, egg & chips if that’s more your thing. My smoked haddock kedigree was a decent enough dish and a very generous portion, although personally I found it somewhat lacking in flavour. Barman seemed friendly enough and there were a few locals gathered at the bar. One rather rotund gentleman though was unable to speak at anything like a reasonable volume and had an opinion on everything. I soon got fed up of this even though I was sat at the other end of the pub. However, he’s probably in there every night and this was my first visit, so I’m not really in a position to complain. Beers on tap were predominantly from the Everard’s stable with their Original, Tiger and Sunchaser. There was also Wadworth’s 6X. The solitary cider was Strongbow, unfortunately.