The Lord High Constable of England (JD Wetherspoon), Gloucester

An attractive looking Wetherspoons in the pleasant Gloucester Quays development, it’s presumably one of the original buildings that was located around the docks, and has been sympathetically restored whilst still retaining much of it’s original character. There are a few tables and chairs outside at the front overlooking the larger square, and further seating on a patio at the rear immediately alongside the canal where there are a couple of old barges moored up and an old crane that was presumably used to unload them at one time. Internally it’s a good size and split in to a few different areas. The main central area with the bar counter running along the right hand side has an attractive vaulted roof with plenty of substantial wooden rafters and thick ship’s ropes that have been made in to light fittings, as well as exposed brickwork at either end. The central part of the flooring was parquet wood, with a pale wooden laminate in front of the bar counter. Some old industrial equipment was a bit of a feature, it looked to be some sort of woodworking equipment perhaps used in the ship repair business. A more modern extension was to the left with pale grey plasterwork, carpeting and large windows that took up almost the whole side wall. A lounge at the rear is a little more contemporary in style with distressed woodwork on part of the walls and further nautical artefacts such as ship’s wheel on the walls. Further seating was available upstairs at both the front and rear of the pub. Beers on tap were Abbot Ale, Doom Bar, Jennings Cocker Hoop, Brains SA Gold, Ruddles Best and Wickwar Try Me. Ciders were well represented with Rosie’s Pig, Thatcher’s Gold, Strongbow, Strongbow Dark Fruit, Magners, Thatcher’s Haze, Aspall’s Suffolk and Gwynt Y Ddraig Black Dragon. All in all, I thought this was a decent enough pub, and they seemed pretty on the ball with service which is more than can be said for many of the company’s outlets.

We called in here at the start of our pub crawl by coach of pubs along the river Severn so that we could have a breakfast and it was a tidy JDW outlet, with a lot of tables with high seats - a bit difficult for the older generation. We did settle down with prompt breakfast and coffee before having a look at the beers on offer. As well as the usual offerings they had Moles Rucking Mole, Conwy Scrum Down and Battledown Amber which we chose and enjoyed.

I was tempted to repeat the What Pub treatment of this pub and just copy and paste in the blurb about it from the JDW web site but I won't. What is it about old docks with their stinking stagnant water that drives people to convert them to leisure areas? This is an original old docks building which looks a bit too grand externally to just have been a warehouse, although the building is said to have been the Llanthony Warehouse. It stands on the far side of a square with a large outside seating area at the front and a further garden area at the rear overlooking the putrid waterside. Inside it's a large open plan rectangular room but much more attractive than most High Street shop conversions. The floor is largely wooden and the furnishings are varied and better than most older outlets. The whole place seemed busy on my Saturday afternoon visit. The only annoyance I found was that there was a huge fire going at the front which was making the room far too warm. The bar has two sets of six hand pumps which had one unused, the JDW Trio Of Doom doubled up, Prescott Hill Climb and four festival ales. I went for the Banks's Ninkasi Special (£2.39 festival price) which was in decent nick. Apart from the average beer choice I thought this was a good Spoons.