Royal Oak, Lyndhurst

At the end of a long winding no through road in the north west corner of the New Forest, is The Royal Oak, a small thatched, picture postcard, half timbered 16th century pub. It’s situated close to the edge of a village green where New Forest ponies graze contentedly. The pub forms part of a large farm under the same ownership as the pub. You can park in the woods over the other side of the green, from where many excellent walks can be started. It’s a pub that’s been on my radar for yonks and I was delighted to be able to finally get the chance to go there last Sunday. The pub consists of three adjoining rooms with simple décor – newish looking wooden floors, tables, chairs and padded benches, low beamed ceilings and white washed walls. The room at the front has the bar counter and is decorated with local rural and village scenes. By the entrance, a small notice board contains a photo-fit picture of a sinister looking character, resembling a watched Crimewatch suspect, and tells us to look out for him as he’s a suspected horse rustler. An old photo of the pub tells us that it was a former Whitbread pub. This room retains half height wood panelling. A small open doorway ( mind your head!) leads through to two smaller rooms with similar décor. The first of these has a large log fire. The end room was being occupied by a number of regulars (presumably) playing dominoes. A small hatch serves this room from the bar. There’s also an outside serving hatch at the front of the pub. Needless to say, there’s no TV’s or fruit machines. There’s a large undulating grassy garden at the rear and side of the pub and several seats at the front of the pub at the edge of the road. There’s outside toilets, but in a separate modern block. The pub is justifiably popular and well known and, on my Sunday lunchtime visit, most notably, a small queue had started to form outside the front door a few minutes before noon. Whilst the bar counter is relatively large in relation to the pub’s size and the efficient staff meant that the queue quickly dissipated once the pub had opened, the pub failed woefully to meet the John Bonser three minute service standard for the initial pint. A good variety of ploughmans lunches, pork pies, cheeses etc are served and these are clearly a major draw, with most customers ordering food. The pub proudly announces that fresh local ingredients are used and that no chips or sandwiches are served. Portions are generous and my vegetarian pie with salad and all the trimmings arrived promptly and was very enjoyable - £ 7.50p. Note that they don’t take credit or debit cards. By around 12.45pm, virtually all the tables both inside and out were occupied by a variety of walkers, cyclists and appreciative visitors. The CAMRA Good Beer Guide tells us that “dogs abound” and, unfortunately, that’s no understatement. From my table in the garden, I counted 28 at one time, not including those tables out of sight or any dogs inside the pub. Those customers who didn’t have dogs in tow were generally cyclists and, having neither a dog nor a cycle, I probably looked a bit conspicuous. Beers are served direct from the barrel from casks low down behind the bar. With no blackboard listing beers on, it’s a case of leaning over the bar to see what’s on – not entirely satisfactory and, despite their being 8-9 barrels on, indicative of a pub where real ale is not the first priority. Ringwood beers were on, plus several guests. The branded Royal Oak ale is brewed by Bowmans. The Ringwood Best – at a surprisingly cheapish £ 2.80p – was excellent. The pub is a CAMRA Good Beer Guide Regular and appears in most other pub / beer related guides – eg Alisdair Sawdey’s guide. It’s one of those pubs that everyone seems to have heard of. The young staff are keen and enthusiastic and, pleasingly, all seemed to be local rather than foreign. Perhaps not surprisingly, this is much more a destination pub rather than a community orientated local, but you should try and get here sometime when you can. Highly recommended ( despite the dogs!)

A great pub, with a great selection of real ales, and good food to boot, the land lord & lady are welcoming and warm. They used to do a fantastic beer festival every year, but I think this may not be on this year.

One of the most famous of New Forest pubs it is located near the end of a long no through road, built in cottage style it is a long, low, thatched building probably of considerable age (17th Century?). Inside there is a small front bar with counter and behind that the stillage for cask ales, a T bar on the counter caters in a limited way for more modern tastes. There is no blackboard or handpumps so you need to lean over the counter to see what ales are on, usually from small breweries and Ringwood. Beyond are a further two small, low ceilinged, cosy rooms with tables and chairs mainly for diners, although this is no gastro pub the food is recommended. Sympathetically modernised retaining baseboards and bench seating, the décor is simple, with tongue and groove and white walls adorned with prints with Forest and rural themes, the other furniture is modern kitchen style with wheelback chairs. The only other decoration is the framed awards from various organisations. It's a small pub but it has a large garden. Long gone are the days when the pigs would wander into the bar from the pig sty across the yard, the sty is now home to the toilets. Roger Protz not only lists it but raves about it in his Britain's 500 Best Pubs and who am I to argue with that?

A lovely 'picture-postcard' country pub, with low thatched roof and roaring fire in the heart of the New Forest. The interior boasts several drinking areas plus simple but excellent food that includes local cheese and home smoked sausage. The ploughmans looked fine indeed. A fair selection of good quality ales lie within, usually sourced from Hop Back, Bowmans and Ringwood, all of which appeared to be dispensed straight from the barrel. One downside was that a couple of the other punters were a bit offish and didn't seem to like having their evening disturbed by people they didn't recognise. Otherwise this is a great place, especially if you can bag a seat next to the fire on a cold winters evening.