The Oak / Y Dderwen, Penrhyndeudraeth

Facebook page of The Oak / Y Dderwen - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Oak / Y Dderwen - www.facebook.com

Singular village pub with a regular bus service (T22). Quite neat inside, with a main bar and a tidy snug behind. Relatively modern decor but not too blandly overbearing, there’s a bit of homeliness to it. Two pumps with Marstons Pedigree available and a good pint it was too (NBSS 3), served-up by a polite barman. Genuinely surprised by this one and it’s worth a look if you’re on the T22, it stops just over the way regularly.

Penrhyndeudraeth is a small, almost one street village in Snowdonia which boasts a local Spar, a chip shop, a Chinese takeaway, an Indian restaurant and two pubs. And as it is the closest area of populous to the nearby Portmeirion village where we were staying, I was hoping for good things on the pub front. Unfortunately neither pub in the village is that attractive to the visitor or has redeeming features to circumvent the need to drive to Porthmadog for a beer and evening food. The Royal Oak is a two roomed corner Marstons house which has a carpeted front lounge with a decent period fireplace, around which there was a collection of upholstered seating and wooden tables and chairs. The room also supports a flat screen tele in one corner a dart board and a pool table off to the side. Although I’m not sure how much use the dart board gets as you would need to rearrange the furniture to get to it. Then to the rear there is a smaller snug room, also with fire place with pew style seating and some wooden tables with stools stools. Usual range of draft options and a single Marstons Pedigree Ale option which was OK, but not enough to make me return during our stay in the vicinity. Unfortunately, in common with the other pub in the village, the Griffin Inn, there is a ‘tenancy to let ‘sign on the outside of the pub and it appears Marstons has been trying to sell the freehold for a while and as such this place has suffered from several transient landlords, including one from Newcastle who got into a bit of bother for banning the locals from ordering drinks in Welsh, which probably isn’t the smartest thing to do in this nationalistic region of North Wales. Although I personally didn’t find favour with the Royal Oak, I hope the local community of Penrhyndeudraeth manage to hold onto their two pubs..

This pub has recently had a much needed makeover and the new owners are very welcoming. I heartily recommend a visit!

Absolute dump.Avoid at all costs