London & Paris Hotel, Folkestone

Over the past couple of years i have stayed in Folkestone on 5 occasions and not once have i ventured into this one.The reason being that from early morning till late at night the outside seating area is full of boisterous and unruly characters (some drinking, some not) which are attracted to board outside stating beers,lagers and Guinness all £2.50p a pint from 10am till 6pm. If the ploy of the landlord is to keep the riff-raff all in one place on the benches then the tactic does not seem to be working.

Gillespie’s interior is made up by a seating area at the front and a bar on the rear wall where the usual suspects are sold alongside Belhaven Best draught. It was busy late on Monday afternoon last week which was due more to the low prices than the ambience. I found the décor to be fairly bland and the only thing of note I recorded was the figurehead behind the bar. There are four plasma screens dotted around the pub which were all off except for the smallest on the rear wall which was showing muted rolling Sky News. I didn’t spot any signs for live sport, but I would be very surprised if this pub doesn’t show football when the season is running. The music off the jukebox was a little loud for the time of day, but then some of the locals looked as though they had been in for a fair few hours. There was a bit of a whiff of fish emanating from around the bar so maybe this is the pub of choice of the local fisherman. Outside the front of the pub are eight picnic tables which weren’t being used even though it was a sunny afternoon. I wasn’t that taken by this place and do not plan to return anytime soon.