The Black Dog, Salisbury

A 15th Century village pub which reopened a couple of years ago after a long period of closure and some renovation.  It’s on the main road through the village but doesn’t suffer from traffic or other noise.  There is a large car park and garden and the back, the latter mostly lawned with a large open-sided marquee providing shelter to al fresco diners.  There is a small paved seating area at the front which has pleasant flowers planters on 3 sides.  Inside, there is a carpeted dining room on one side and a bar with floor tiles the other.  The bar has a brick inglenook housing a woodburner. Three ales on, but on sampling them we found two of them – Bath Gem and Tribute – were so far past their best as to be undrinkable. The third, Pride, was average; the barman, who was pleasant and trying to be helpful, said this was because it had only been on “a couple of days”. He then went on to change the two ‘off’ beers. The beer quality would put me off rushing back.