The Tradesmans Arms, Farnborough

Basically a two room pub opened out with a central bar, there is a pool table, dart board, jukebox and three tv's. There is a mixture of seating throughout on bare wood flooring,with various old pictures and photos dotted around the pub. The pub does what it says on the can,clientele-wise as on my 5.30 pm visit they all seemed to be exclusively tradesmen in for an after work drink.There was a large array of usual keg options available,but there were two handpumps both working, one being the commonplace Courage Best, the other Batemans Hooker,which despite its Rugby theme was actually a decent pint.It is definitely a locals pub and maybe a little rough around the edges but I quite liked it here .

An unusual mish-mash of a pub. Two rooms - front area has been done out but fairly well with a booth area and darts alley whilst the rear is a lot duller and more opened out, housing some TV’s showing golf on my visit. Other room hosts a pool table. Pretty naff piped chat music (Radio 1, a bit at odds with the customer demographic). Meat raffle advertised. Basic rear patio though improvements looked to be underway. Real ales advertised outside, inside there’s one handpump, a surprisingly leftfield (and impressively palatable) choice of Old Peculiar. A big lager style font advertising Caledonian Flying Scotsman I presumed dispensed something real. A bit of effort is being made here and given that it had a bit of a ‘reputation’ a few years back the current incarnation is welcome.

The Tradesmans Arms has two bars with the left hand side being carpeted with sofas and more conventional seating throughout. There is a dartboard towards the rear and plasma screens that were showing England playing in the Cricket World Cup when I visited on Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. The right hand bar has been stripped out and houses another plasma screen and a pool table that takes centre stage. Only one ale in the form of Directors was available, but there is a standard draught selection alongside Amstel. Hot bar food was available which included pies and sausage rolls, but I didn’t see anyone eating. There are signs up stating that no under 21s are permitted after 19:00 on Fridays and Saturdays so maybe it gets a little lively in here at the weekend. This pub won the Farnborough News pub of the year in 2010, but to be honest I don’t think that there is much competition and I wouldn’t plan a crawl around Farnborough again as I found this one a little disappointing.

Now an excellent pub, it is light and full of energy and atmosphere. Greatly priced beer and plenty of live Sport on the box.