The Swan, Banbury

A smart-looking building with a fairly modern sense of branding on the outside, though the inside is a little more traditional in character with clunking wonky wooden ceiling beams, flagstone flooring, undulating ceiling, large hearth fireplace (sadly unlit) and a rambling interior with a number of different rooms. This is a sports-led pub, with four TVs offering up two separate football matches and a rugby union game. The pub dog, a large but friendly beast, patrolled the pub and was happy to hoover up any bar snack chucked her way. Two ales available – Greene King London Glory and Purity Gold. The Purity was pretty good and the barmaid said that ale had only just come back after an absence but was selling very well (at least two pints of it were sold during my 20 minute stop). A downside for me was that the interior felt a little dank and lacking life, a bit of brightening up wouldn’t go amiss. Still, it’s a good pub for Banbury and I’d be happy to pop back sometime.

The Swan is a decent looking pub from the outside and once inside it was just as good,there were a couple of smartish rooms i had a drink in what looked like the lounge. The pub was a Courage tied house and there were three real ales on here,i had a drink of Smiles best and this was a very nice drink the other beers were Courage best and Websters Green Label. I quite liked this pub. Pub visited 13/9/2003