The Duck, Newark

The Duck has central serving counters that serve front and rear bars. The front bar has an inglenook in the left-hand wall that faces towards seating in the right, where there is also a large mirror that led me to believe the pub was much bigger than it actually is, my visit being a lot nearer to the end of the crawl than the start! The rear bar has televisions for live sport, these were muted whilst some dance music played during a recent quiet Thursday evening visit. Premium and craft keg was available and the two hand pumps were drawing Purity’s Goose and Duck Pale Ale. There are a few decent pubs along this stretch so this place won’t be on my radar during my next visit.

Listed as a CAMRA heritage pub but I’m not really sure why. It is indeed an aged building with two rooms at the front and back bisected by the bar. However the front room had a jumbo drop down screen showing the football and seemed to be lit in green presumably for Irish reasons. The rear is a bit nicer with multi coloured pub carpet, red fabric banquettes and faintly naff brick print wall paper; but none of it seemed particularly worthy of heritage status to me. Points of interest were the dominoes table and a large amount of Guinness breweriana on the ceiling. A darts team was practicing in the back room (if you get a tenner riddled with holes it's cause the Irish darts team were using the queen's head as a target for practice). No cask at the bar but upon enquiry the slightly startled Irish landlord suggested keg Speckled Hen - so I of course had a Guinness. An odd one, really. I get the feeling this could be a cracking traditional pub but it seems to be doing fine trundling along as it is.

The Royal Oak is a decent looking pub that is next to The Ram Hotel. When i first went in this pub it was a John Smiths tied house with two rooms and only keg John Smiths Biter on the bar. On our recent visit the pub still has two separate rooms which are to the right of the passage,we had a drink in the front room which is square shaped and carpeted,the seating is modern looking tables and chairs,there is a large mirror on the right wall which makes the room look twice the size it really is,it all looked far too modern for our liking,the TV was showing the Olympics,the room to the rear is a similar shape and is carpeted,there is comfy bench seating and small stools for seating,there is a table skittle table to the rear left,the TV in this room was showing horse racing. There are now no hand pumps on the bar,so it was a drink of John Smiths smooth crap which lived up to its name. Who we presumed to be the landlord seemed very threatening and could kick off at any time,this made our visit very dissapointing. Pub first visited 20/3/1983 Old photo taken 21/4/1987 Recent visit 6/8/2016