The Cherwell, Banbury

Large, rectangular 'spoons (formerly a Lloyds No 1 Bar?) shop conversion with no real features of interest within or without. Initially appeared to offer a reasonable range of real ales from two banks of five handpumps, but the local Hooky and Old Hooky were off (with very small 'Coming Soon' labels) as was the Lapland Red Ale (but this annoyingly had no label to tell you this, and the solitary visible 'team member' had to turn to an apparently off-duty manager to confirm what to do, and this turned out to be switching a 'Coming Soon' label from the Old Hooky pump!). Having discounted the Ruddles and Doom Bar, and with the duplicated Abbot clips, the choice turned out to be Moorhouse's Pride of Pendle, Arkell's Kingsdown (£2.25) and whatever the 'guest cider' (with a hand-written clip) turned out to be. Poor.

Single space standard 'spoons with long counter on the back wall, 5+5 hand pulls most doubled up with Ruddles Best, Greene King Abbot, a perry, two USA brewers special collaboration beers and local Hook Norton Lion. Dreadful staff apart from the duty manager who should be in a better pub than this. An ok spoons, cleaner and clearer than some, decent beer quality if not choice. Vases of fresh lillies in places, very nice but smelly!