The Wig & Quill, Salisbury

The Wig & Quill is a Wadworth’s pub with a small carpeted front seating area with tables and harlequin upholstered chairs and padded benches that are found throughout. There’s also a barrel with high stools before a flagstone floored bar with a serving counter midway up the left-hand wall where three of the five hand pumps were in use drawing Horizon and 6X alongside Old Rosie cider. Opposite the bar up the right is a carpeted seating area with a muted television that hangs above an unused burner housed in an exposed brick fireplace below. At the rear is a bare board floored conservatory with more seating, including a very long table. The further back in the pub you go the more geared towards dining it feels, so I wasn’t surprised to find highchairs for family dining in the rear. It was ok in here, but it wasn’t worth deviating off the main pub crawl.

Very traditional Wadworth's pub, with a small frontage but various seating and dining areas stretching back some way past the central counter until you reach the rear patio beer garden. Unfussy furniture and decoration. 6X, Horizon and Old Rosie cider being served from three of the five handpumps.

Facebook page of The Wig & Quill - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Wig & Quill - www.thewigandquill.com

Facebook page of The Wig & Quill - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Wig & Quill - www.thewigandquill.com

This is a well presented Wadworth pub with a slightly opened out, former multiple room interior, just a short distance from the cathedral. Entering via a basic porch with swing doors that seemed adept at trapping pushchairs, you find yourself in a smart front lounge area that was clearly once a separate room, but has now been opened out to the rear, in order to allow smooth access to the main bar area. The lounge is carpeted and has hard bench seating down the front and right-hand sides, supported by plenty of low stools and a couple of decent armchairs. The walls and ceiling are crossed by plenty of dark wood beams and there’s a very attractive fireplace to the rear, which was thankfully lit on a cold February afternoon. A few interesting photos and arty nature pictures line the walls and the space has a homely feel that the rest of the pub fails to recapture. Moving through to the flagstone floored bar area, the servery runs along the left-hand wall, with a dark wood panelled counter front and matching bar back. A TV screen at the end of the bar was showing a subtitled news channel and there is limited seating opposite, with the space mainly given over to vertical drinkers. A partitioning screen opposite the bar hides a second seating area with lots of comfy chairs around another nice fireplace, in a space with slightly more contemporary decor. Some highly decorative screens to the rear, delineate the border between pub and restaurant areas, with the back of the pub given over to diners in a bright space with a long table through the centre of the room and smaller tables around the perimeter. Patio doors to the rear ensure plenty of light gets in and allow punters to head out to the nice looking patio beer garden. Music played quietly in the background throughout my stay and there was a good mix of customers , including a few well behaved children. There were just two Wadworth beers available on my Monday afternoon visit - 6X and Horizon - with two turned clips suggesting that more ales might’ve been on over the weekend. My half of the Horizon (£2.20) was served to me by a very cheery barman and was in decent enough condition. There are a few nice old pubs in this part of town that are worth the look for their interiors but don’t quite deliver on the beer front and this definitely fits into that category. If you don’t mind a session of Wadworth beers, this would be a nice place to spend a few hours, but for me, a quick half was sufficient enough to get a feel of what the pub has to offer.