The Crown, East Grinstead

This is a very smart looking town centre pub located in the historic heart of East Grinstead. The pub retains a two-bar layout, with the entrance taking you into a U-shaped front room with the servery directly opposite the front door and some pleasant seating areas to either side. This room is carpeted throughout and has half panelled walls with grey upper sections. The right-hand side has been filled with standard tables and chairs, plus a couple of sofas under the front windows, all centred around a nice fireplace on the end wall with a vase full of twigs on the hearth and a circular mirror in a cool frame above. The grey wall panels have each been filled with very large images of food and drink, presumably as a not-all-that subtle effort to tempt customers into ordering more. The servery has a rather severe, square bar counter with a tongue and groove panelled front and modern mirrored bar back topped with some battered old luggage cases. Over to the left, things have been set up slightly differently, with comfier looking chairs serving uniformly sized tables and the grey panels now occupied by large black and white images of local landmarks, whilst the windows have unusual candelabra-style light fixtures on their sills. The room extends to the rear down the left side, into a rear room which acts much as a continuation of the front left part of the pub. A weedy indie soundtrack dribbled away in the background throughout my stay and there were only a couple of other customers in, both of whom left before I’d finished my pint, leaving me stuck there on my own with the staff looking like they wanted to close up early. Unfortunately, three of the four handpulls were out of action on this visit – two with turned pump clips and a third with no clip at all. This left me in the dreaded situation of having to order a pint of Sharps Doom Bar, which was served to me by one of the friendly waiting staff who were doing their best to impress despite the total lack of atmosphere within. It’s not really a beer I relish but they’d managed to keep it pretty well and it was definitely drinkable. I felt this was the sort of pub that would appeal to those looking for a meal or perhaps casual pub goers just wanting somewhere quiet and smart-looking. However, for the drinker, the pub fell a bit short by having more of a dining feel to it and just the one ale available, although I may have just been unlucky with the latter. This place certainly has its plus points and I was happy enough in here but there are definitely better pubs around town if you’re after good beer and a convivial atmosphere.

Official site of The Crown - www.crowneastgrinstead.com

Official site of The Crown - www.crowneastgrinstead.com