The Blue Bell, Stamford

After a pretty dire experience in the Green Dragon which was a local CAMRA favourite, we headed off to the Blue Bell which also ticked their boxes, with trepidation / hope. Upon entering we were struck by how dark it was even on a scorching summers day. Fairly characterful feel however. Six ales on; I tried the Bass (warm and dowdy) and a pretty pedestrian Oakham – so two beers too many quite clearly. Mute landlord behind the bar somehow managed to go through the whole transaction by uttering only the total price to be paid. We sat at the bar for a couple of minutes but decided the atmosphere was way too odd so made our way to the garden in order to find a suitable rest home for the liquid in our glasses and plot our next pub route. Inevitably, one of my companions somehow managed to tread in some sort of animal faeces that was just under the chair he sat in, which kind of summed the whole experience up. Awful visit to a place that could and should be fairly good. It was mentioned in another pub later, after we recounted our tale, that the place might have just got a new landlord – which may help explain…? 4.5