Three Kings, Worcester

Located slightly off the beaten track down a dead end road, but nonetheless well worth making the effort to track down, first impressions are that it’s perhaps a little dilapidated, but then again it’s a little difficult to tell with the high hedges and a large marquee taking up much of the front garden, it’s difficult to really see what it looks like. Persevere though, and you will find something of a treasure trove within, or at least, something with bags of character. The larger room to the left has a small hatchway through to the bar counter, with no pumps on the bar, these were mounted on a side wall behind the bar, and as such the current selection was chalked up on a board. The room is certainly very cluttered, and if you’ve got any sort of OCD about cleanliness, this may not be the place for you. Décor wise it’s quite traditional, with nicotine colour wallpaper on the ceiling, paintwork on the walls that was only marginally lighter, large pews for seating and an old stone fireplace off to one side. On the walls were numerous horse brasses, antlers, old pictures, flags and so on, as well as a pot kettle and old lamps on a shelf. There is a further room to the right, although as far as I could work out, no way to access this from within the pub, you have to go out and back in. This was a little more spacious, but much the same in terms of character with a red brick floor in places as well as a very old, threadbare carpet, and a very large fireplace off to one side. This room did actually have a bar counter within it, including a couple of pumps, although as far as I could see these weren’t actually in use. Indeed, all available space on the counter was piled high with empty glasses, filled rolls, bottles and magazines. A part panelled partition segregated the space somewhat, and there were some very ancient looking beams and posts. Piles of books seemed to be everywhere, and the fireplaces were liberally adorned pots, pans, horse brasses, stuffed birds, bullet casings and numerous notices and old newspaper clippings. Beers on tap were Butcombe, North Cotswold Jumping Jack, Thirsty Moose Northern Twenty Two and Dark Revolution Velveteen, the latter of which went down well. All in all, a cracking little pub and well worth tracking down.