The London Tavern, Ringwood

Village pub that appears to have a focus on dining. Our visit was on a fairly pleasant spring lunchtime, with all customers sat outside on a patio to the rear, which was mostly covered. I believe all of the other customers were eating, leaving us as the only drinkers. Service from the all female staff was friendly, with one young staff member learning the ropes. Regular beers on are Ringwood Best Bitter & Forty Niner, alongside Timothy Taylor Landlord. Guest beers were the rather uninspiring choice of Fuller's London Pride or Wychwood Hobgoblin Gold.

Situated in the Poulner area of Ringwood, north of the A31 the London Tavern is a well-run local community pub. A decent looking brick building the pub takes its name from the nickname (Johnny Londoner) of a certain John Roberts who opened a pub in his house in the 1860’s. There is an interesting back story to why the pub came into being in the first place and it’s worth a visit to the pub web site to read this. Internally it has a large bar room with an open fireplace, and a separate dining room on the other side of a central bar area. It is renowned for its local produce food but we didn’t eat here and better off looking at trip advisor for this. The bar supports five real ales, three from the Ringwood Brewery, one other from the Marston stable and a guest, which was TT Landlord for our visit, and although the Landlord was on the turn the Ringwood brews were in good nick. The pub landlord is formerly from Essex and runs regular weekly quiz nights, and karaoke evenings and there are regular weekly music events on a Saturday night and we timed our visit for one of these. A lively, but largely mature crowd were in for this, which suited us down to the ground. A bit out of Ringwood itself but is close to the Blashford Lakes nature reserve and can be highly recommended for a visit is you are in the area.