The Mary Shelley (JD Wetherspoon), Bournemouth

Visited 12/08/26 Cask here was the Kelham Island Pale Rider, Adnams Broadside, the Pilot Gig dark ale from Keltek, Jaipur, the Ruby Jane Ruby mild from Ilkley, GK IPA, Abbot, Doom Bar, Happy Daze cider from Gwynt Y Ddraig and the Dandy Dab cider from Purbeck. Keg offering of a nap hand of Thatchers ciders (Gold, Haze, blood orange, cloudy lemon, apple & black current), Stella, Budweiser, Bud Light, Corona, Guinness, Stowford Press, Carlsberg, dark fruits SB, Mad Squirrel Sumo APA, BrewDog Punk IPA, Seven Brothers Easy IPA, Murphy's Irish stout, Coors, Leffe Blonde, K1664, Carling, Worthington CF, Angelo Poretti. Long narrow JDW opposite St Peter's Church. Usual mix of bare boarded and patterned carpet. Glass fronted on the long side and the narrower entrance side. The bar counter is along the left-hand wall from mid to rear part and is on two levels with a small step between. Usual mix of seating arrangements, regular and tall tables, booth tables, ledges with tall stools etc. Quite a bit of the glass side facing the church was opened. A concentration of games machines at the far end of the bar counter and the venue was clearly popular with holidaymakers on my visit. Screens dotted around the place, as usual in silence and no music so only real sound was of kids screaming with their parents - par for the course for a daytime visit to a JDW. Had a real JDW moment with chap ahead of me ordering pizza and four large glasses of red wine. Thinking health conscious sharing a pizza amongst four with a glass of red wine each until I spotted him on his own tucking into the pizza and already well into the second of the four 250 ml glasses - pepperoni and a litre of wine anyone?

The Mary Shelley consists of an extended area on the ground floor of a corner building. The fact it is wide rather than long and has windows onto the street means at least in daylight it isn't gloomy. It is a Lloyds No 1 and the Lloyds Disaster Area is very obvious on the right of the building with several banks of lights but no Idiot Booth that I could see. The Gents here seemed wholly inadequate for a venue this size. It was fairly quiet on my Thursday afternoon visit. The bar has ten hand pumps which is better than usual for a Lloyds. They had one unused, one available soon, a cider, GK IPA & Abbot, Dorset Jurassic, Hawkshead Cumbrian 5 Hop and three festival ales. I went for the Adnam's Sloe Porter (£2.29) which was in good nick. It's better than most Lloyds outlets but pretty average as a JDW.

Previously Bar Med, now one of Central Bournemouth's three JDWs, this out-of-the-box pub opened in 2008. The interior is irregular, soberly decorated and rather dull; I was hoping for some sort of Gothic novel reference but was disappointed. There are the usual mute gaming machines, and the WiFi doesn't work. The staff ranged from the charming-but-useless to the rude-and-inefficient. Five ales on, I had Dales's New Dawn, which was a reasonable pint, kept at a decent temperature but probably at the end of its life. OK for the cheap beer and it's fine to hide in while the wife goes to Beale's but nothing much else to come here for.

The Mary Shelley page on the JD Wetherspoon website - www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk

The Mary Shelley page on the JD Wetherspoon website - www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk

Fair-sized Lloyds No. 1 Bar with modern furniture and decor around the various seating areas. Reasonable selection of beer, albeit let down by four of the ten handpumps being 'available soon', and nothing wrong with my pint of Ringwood Filly Drift (£2.49).