The Old Cross, Chichester

This looks like a fantastic old pub from the outside, and is conveniently situated right on the High Street. Inside it's a bit disappointing though. It's obviously part of a large chain with various corporate menu's and notices around the place and with it's wooden panelling and leather sofa's has the feel in some places of a hotel lounge bar rather than a pub. Although it is presumably a genuinely old building it must have at some time in the past lost all it's original internal features, and there's been a pathetic attempt to recreate them. The fake wooden beams are bad enough, but have a look at the black wooden lintel above the alcove on the left of the pub. Here you'll find stuck on plastic mouldings that are supposed to resemble the carvings that you would get on an old fire place or the like. But they just look as though someone's thrown Yorkshire puddings at it. The fact that the middle one has fallen off and just left an imprint where it used to be is even worse. It's almost worth a trip in to the pub just so you can have a laugh. Clearly the locals are wise to the fake nature of this pub, and on a recent Monday night visit we were the only people in there until a couple of others wandered in to enquire whether they were actually open or not. The barmaid was fairly disinterested (understandable, perhaps) and bizarrely served a port in a straight glass like you would get a lemonade in. What's that about? Beers on offer were Spitfire, Adnams Broadside and Greene King IPA. The only cider was Strongbow unfortunately. Rather annoyingly, I filled out a "customer satisfaction survey" to tell them what I though, and stupidly made the mistake of leaving my e-mail address. I now get loads of e-mails from them with all their news and offers. Errr, I don't think I'm interested thanks - you were rubbish and I live 150 miles away!