County Ground Hotel, Swindon

The County Ground backs onto the car park of Swindon Town FC so it wasn’t surprising to find lots of Robin’s memorabilia adorning the walls. A sign on the exterior of the pub advertise an opening time of 10:30 but the doors were firmly closed when I walked by at 15:15. Thankfully on my return just after 16:00 the pub was open, and a couple of locals had already made themselves at home. An L shaped bar is in the left hand-side of the pub where a pool table, dartboard, table football and a jukebox are also found. The two televisions were off, but Sky Sports is advertised. I also spotted a sign for karaoke every Friday night. To the right of the bar is a long and thin seating area. Out the back is a covered smoking area. There are eight letting rooms that the Arkells website suggests are suitable for contractors. Unsurprisingly, on match days this is a ‘home fans only’ pub. From the bar a standard keg range was available alongside Arkells 3B which was available on cask. Two other hand pumps were unused. The governor was polite, but I won’t be rushing back.

The County Ground is a large victorian pub next to Swindon towns football ground and also named after it. Once inside there was one very large room that i noticed and this is an Arkells tied house,there were two real ales on the bar i had a drink of Arkells 3B and this was a decent drink the other beer was Arkells 2B. The pub was fairly quiet on my visit as Swindon were away from home. Pub visited 29/9/2001

Official page of the County Ground Hotel in Swindon at the Arkell's site - www.arkells.com

Official page of the County Ground Hotel in Swindon at the Arkell's site - www.arkells.com