Nelsons Arms, Winscombe

Official site of Nelsons Arms - www.nelsonarms.com

Official site of Nelsons Arms - www.nelsonarms.com

This is a strange pub. The first thing I noticed on walking in was a large food serving counter right in front of me. This was a bit off-putting as I was only popping in for a pint. The food theme seemed to continue throughout the pub – the room off to the right appeared to be full of tables laid up for a Christmas party, and all the tables in the other bar area were laid up for food to some degree or another with place mats on all of them. The only place we could seem to sit for a pint was the two bar stools, and even these were the wrong height being too low for the bar. As I said, a strange pub. Every available nook and cranny, and every beam of the ceiling was plastered with stuff, mostly Christmas decorations which I thought were up a bit early. There wasn't a square inch of space anywhere. Behind the bar (near the Buddha!) was a rack dispensing Stowell's Liebfraumilch (does anyone actually drink that any more?). The menu's on the wall sported an odd black, white and red colour scheme and offered such delights as Scampi & chips, Prawn Cocktail, Potato wedges, etc. Not entirely unsurprisingly there was only one other table occupied in the pub. The bar area was dominated by a large plasma, which was handy for the staff who could sit and watch X-factor as there wasn't anyone for them to serve. On the plus side the staff seemed friendly enough, and there was a good choice of ciders – Blackthorn, Thatcher's Gold and Thatcher's Traditional. Also Butcombe and 6X beers on tap.