The Moon Under Water (JD Wetherspoon), Cheltenham

Oh Gawd. Fancy drinking in a dark high ceilinged aircraft hangar with both sets of doors taken off, then come here. Can’t say if this place is better in the dark as one visit was enough for me and I didn’t cross its doors again. The front is all glass that opens up onto a small seating area onto the street and then the back is a nice decked area which overlooks the River Chelt and Sandford Park. It’s just the massive open space in the middle that was the problem, in that on a bright sunny day you get to the bar and it’s like being in a darkened tunnel with light streaming in from both ends. Perhaps I over egg this but I guess you get the point I really didn’t like this one. And when I got back to look at the Wetherspoons web site to see that this former Lloyds No1 near the east end of the pedestrianised High Steet is a converted former car showroom, I understood why. Message to Timothy Randall Martin. Converting former Picture and Opera houses with oodles of historical character into pubs is a fantastic thing to do. Even converting former Banks into pubs (oh, like the other Wetherspoons outlet on the other end of the High Street) is appreciated. But converting Car showrooms into pubs ?. Don’t be so f*****g stupid! For the record there were two sets of 6 ale pumps along the bar and along with the Abbot, Ruddles and Purity UBU and Mad Goose house ales as in the other spoons, apparently they also have 5 changing guest ales from a wide range of local micro breweries. But frankly, who cares?, I don’t because I’m never coming back here.