The Boot Inn, Salisbury

This is a rather rustic, rural pub with a two bar set-up on the main road through Tisbury. The two rooms have been opened out quite a bit, into what might just as easily be viewed as a wide single room with the servery along the rear wall, although the division is still fairly apparent. The bar has a dark wood tongue and groove panelled counter with a stone and plaster bar back which has the cask ales on stillage in front of it. The room opens out a little to the left where a couple of tables and chairs can be found, with more such seating also available under the front window. Passing through a doorway, you enter the right-hand side of the bar which has some nice herringbone wood flooring, a grand inglenook fireplace on the right-hand wall, a small alcove housing a dartboard, an upright piano and about four or five more small tables with plenty of chairs. Dark wood beams cross the ceiling and the joists have been decorated with plenty of green foliage, which added a nice dash of colour. The front right is screened behind a curtain, initially looking like it leads nowhere but when pulled back, reveals a small dining room with a few more tables and chairs in a fairly plain and unremarkable space that is seemingly left empty unless overspill space is required. Walls throughout the pub have been decorated with photos of race horses and newspaper clippings relating to the racehorse, Sworn In, that was bought for £5,000 by the pub’s owners and won its first race at odds of 100-1, garnering national media interest in the process. To the rear right, the walls have been decorated with a collection of old black and white photos and from here you can head out to a rear garden with a gazebo shelter, which looked pretty scruffy on our mid-Winter visit but I’m sure it scrubs up okay for the summer months. Two beers were racked up on the stillage – Andwell Resolute and Sixpenny Best – with the Resolute clocking in at £3.80 a pint for a well-kept, sessionable bitter. Two further casks could be seen behind the bar, but these were evidently still conditioning and not yet ready to be poured. The pub has a good food menu and judging by the look of some of the dishes coming past, the quality is very high. We had a quick stop-off here when passing through the area and found this to be a very welcoming rural pub with friendly service, some decent beer and a simple but effective set-up. Not perhaps a destination pub but well worth a look if you’re heading through Tisbury.