Rock, Edenbridge

Facebook page of Rock - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Rock - www.facebook.com

Official site of Rock - www.therockchiddingstone.com

Official site of Rock - www.therockchiddingstone.com

This is a lovely multiple room rural pub set in a quiet little village. The pub has a nice traditional interior with a brick floor, partly plastered walls with some exposed brick sections and tonnes of dark wood beams and pillars. The servery stands in the rear right corner and has a brick counter front and jarring modern bar back, although this has been largely offset by an interesting collection of items suspended from the ceiling over the serving area, including a nice hunting bugle with a row of cut-out horses and dogs across the top, a rifle, some red teapots, old beer pump handles, ma pair of cowboy boots and an awful, uber-kitsch rotating chandelier. The space opposite and to the left offers some decent seating, with settles and low stools to one side and high tables and stools on the other. The room is decorated with more bits of quirky décor including boots, lamps, brooms and the like hung from the ceiling and old paintings, horse brasses, clocks and a dartboard on the walls. A family was playing a game of ‘Ring the Bull’ which is over on the left-hand wall and looked like great fun. To the right, a door leads through to a flagstone floored side room which has similar white walls and dark beams and plenty of basic tables and chairs and more oddities hung from the ceiling including a French horn and a large picnic hamper. A few picnic benches out the front looked like a nice spot to bag on a bright day, giving the pub a bit of an idyllic look on approach, whilst there’s a big garden out the back, furnished with sofas, patio seating, log burners and other such comforts, although weirdly it was out of bounds as it playing host to some polecats that someone had brought to the pub! A trip to the gents yielded one final oddity – a load of rubber ducks in the urinal trough! They had three cask ales on the bar when I arrived – Long Man Rising Giant, Dark Star Hophead and Larkins Traditional. A friendly barmaid served up a fine pint of the latter that went down nicely as I tried to take in all the sights and sounds of the pub. A second barmaid, possibly the landlady, appeared later and immediately started engaging with all her customers and dishing out some good-natured banter. I thought this was a fantastic pub – a real hidden gem if ever there was one. It’s the sort of pub that demands repeat visits, as there seems to be so much going on and so many things to discover, but the good beer, traditional interior and warm welcome mean that a one-off visit is sure to be just as rewarding.

Very traditional country pub, with two cosy rooms around the central bar that are unfortunately wholly unsuited to the post-coronavirus restrictions. However, the car park has been taken over by various wooden benches and tables, and even so, the place was fully booked on a Saturday afternoon so I was lucky to find a spot for a quick drink. Talking of which, Hophead and the very local Larkin's Traditional (£3.40) were available from two of the three handpumps.

A cracking little tile hung pub in a remote hamlet in West Kent.A solid looking door leads into a little lobby area opposite the bar. To the left an inglenook fireplace with an imposingly moulded bressumer and impressive sandstone uprights. A low ceiling and historically worn red brick floor. To the right a smaller room with tables and chairs. We sat at a large table in the window, next to a Christmas Tree, interestingly decorated, inter alia, with a decoy pigeon. We arrived early on a wet January Saturday lunchtime, first in , and were greeted by the landlord , who demonstrated the apparatus used for playing Ring the Bull. The Rock is one of a very few pubs to maintain this game: our son told me that The Tan Hill Inn above Swaledale is another, but I can’t remember seeing it-I was too irritated by Steve Wright in the Afternoon to take much notice. Mercifully none of that nonsense here. The Rock has a great reputation in Kent for stocking Larkins beers, and at one time was owned by that brewery, based just up the lane.On the bar were Larkins Traditional, Porter and Goacher’s House Ale. Both the Goacher’s and the Porter were in great condition. I didn’t try the Trad, but I noticed that the locals were drinking half and half (sure we used to call it ‘twos’) of Trad and Porter. We enjoyed our meals-not overly pricey for the area-a nice drop of pork and bubble and squeak and hearty looking burgers.There’s a beer garden out the back, though neither weather nor season were conducive to exploration. Despite its comparative isolation, the pub filled up with bedraggled walkers and shooters: a grand atmosphere developed. A fine pub.