The Crown Inn, Chipping Norton

Official site of The Crown Inn - www.crowninnenstone.co.uk

Official site of The Crown Inn - www.crowninnenstone.co.uk

A lovely old building in the mellow local stone, the interior has been sympathetically modernised while retaining quite a large resemblance to what the original building might have been like. The bar is in the front room, accessed off a foyer that has toilets to the left and a doorway to the dining room behind. There's a large fireplace which had a small log fire going when I was here recently, and the room, probably fashioned out of two smaller rooms, is fairly long, with bare stone walls and flagstones on the floor. On the bar itself is a bank of four hand pumps which had Hook Norton Hooky, Fullers London Pride and Cottage Black Lightning. I had a taste of the porter, but wasn't impressed enough to have a pint, so stuck to the Hooky, a very pleasant session bitter. There was a good mix of drinkers and diners during my early evening visit - drinks were around £3.10 to £3.60 a pint, food in the £9 to £15 bracket. As well as the slightly raised back room there's a conservatory extension at the back, with service from the adjacent kitchen. This is a friendly sort of place, obviously well used by the people of the village - I can't imagine there's a lot of passing trade given its obscure location.