The Bent Arms Hotel, Haywards Heath

The Bent Arms is a large L-shaped Hall and Woodhouse 16th century coaching inn that is geared more towards dining. The larger right hand side acts as a dining area and a double sided fireplace separates this from the bar area to the left. In the left rear is a raised seating area with another fireplace and long table set for dining. Out the back is a large beer garden with picnic tables. There is also a function room for hire and upstairs there are eight B&B rooms. The bar supports five handpumps, one of which was unused. Tangle Foot, Badger, Fursty Ferret and Noble Queen were the cask ale options. There is also a standard and premium keg selection. I found the service to be polite, but this place was a little too dry led for my liking.

The beerpumps were being polished when I arrived yesterday lunctime; always a promising sign and the 3 beers did not disappoint, the Badger, Tanglefoot and Sussex bitter (not Harveys) were all in great shape. It seems to be popular for food and the lunch rush kicked in soon after 12:30 keeping Lorna, the lone barstaff, busy with food & drinks orders and service for the bar and restaurant as well as some peripheral duties for the attached hotel. The bar itself features an effective, but not original, sloping timbered ceiling and has some curious paraphernalia such as a ship's speed navigation mechanism and a rather unfortunate stuffed bear. Large grassy beer garden to the rear. Intrinsic to a Lindfield mini-crawl.