New Wellington, Newmarket

The New Wellington is a fairly plain looking brick built pub on the Ashley Road just outside Newmarket close to the gallops, and I’ve driven past it many times on the way to relations in Ashley with no compunction to stop as it is yet another of the GK dominated outlets in Newmarket After crawling round a few of the pubs in town we convinced our driver to stop at the New Wellington for a last one before heading home and was pleasantly surprised. It’s clearly undergone a makeover in recent years and the interior is clean and modern but still keeps a traditional local pub feel. The bar area has a public and salon bar set up either side of the central serving area with three large screen TV’s dotted about for the sport (something that seems compulsory for pubs in Newmarket ). Then there is a separate area housing a pool table and then a separate restaurant room, for which there are several different meal menu’s available, but cannot comment on the food (see Trip Advisor for that) as we didn’t try it. There are a couple of benches to the front of the pub and then a small beer garden with a smoking shelter out back. Four standard lager and Guinness options available as well as Aspalls Cider, There are three handpumps on either side of the bar which were dispensing the usual GK OSH and IPA and the other one was reversed for our visit, and although advertised as a guest beer it looked like another one from the GK stable. The IPA was perfectly fine and the service was friendly. There were posters for forthcoming live bands as well as Karaoke and Pub Quiz nights so looks like its run as a good community pub. So it’s nothing special, but I wouldn’t have an issue if it was my local, except for the GK beers. But frankly, if you are a resident of Newmarket, you have little other choice.