The Middle House, Mayfield

A genuine and very attractive Elizabethan building (understandably Grade I listed) in the centre of the historic High Street. The front entrance is mainly for the hotel part, with access to the L-shaped bar being from the side (and coincident with the car park access so care is needed). As traditional as you would expect inside, with Long Man Best Bitter (£5.00) and Tribute available from the various handpumps on each part of the counter.

Official site of The Middle House - www.mhmayfield.co.uk

Official site of The Middle House - www.mhmayfield.co.uk

An imposing Elizabethan half timbered house in an attractive, well healed Sussex village. I’m not very clear about the history of this pub, but it clearly was a building of some importance:there are carvings attributed to Grinling Gibbons, and a seriously large fireplace. The ground floor roughly divides into two areas-a bar to one’s left, and a formal restaurant to the right. We sat in the bar on a later February Wednesday lunchtime, busy with a largely mature clientel of business people, pensioners and ladies who lunch. An efficient , businesslike atmosphere, the fixtures and fittings well-loved rather than smart:odd, given the constituency of the local trade. I cannot comment on the restaurant area. The food offering makes use of local produce, and seemed fairly imaginative:the beer perhaps less so. Alongside the obligatory Harvey’s Sussex Best Bitter and Sharp’s Doombar was what I at first thought was St Austell’s Tribute. On closer examination I was delighted to find that it was in fact Proper Job,grapefruit and marmalade, a proper grown up beer. Outside at the back is a decent , family friendly garden, unoccupied save for the lonely smoker at this time of year.

The hanging sign outside the Middle House boasts that it is a sixteenth century Inn and it sits quite well in the ‘historic’ village of Mayfield. Located in the centre of the high street it was busy with tourists and a splattering of locals during my visit on Monday afternoon. The bar is L shaped with a plasma screen that was off around to the left and a log fire to the right. The bar has a standard draught selection alongside Asahi and Thatcher’s Gold cider. There are also three hand pumps that were drawing W J King’s King’s Old Ale, Harveys Best and Tribute. To the right of the bar area there is a lounge and restaurant area that I did not visit other than to use the toilet. I did have a look at the menu and the description of the mains sounded good, but they were anything but cheap. Children are welcome and I spied a couple of high chairs in the corner. At the rear of the pub there is a car park and a good sized grass covered beer garden with a children’s play area at the far end. This inn is nice enough, but I wouldn’t want to stay for an extended period as it is expensive and a little dull.