The Castle, Bedford

This is quite a pleasant, modernised town centre pub with a nice two room layout and a mix of traditional and contemporary styles. You enter into the compact main bar with a flagstone floor and a squat L-shaped servery to the rear left. The bar has a modern wood panel counter front and mirrored bar back, running through to the left-hand side room. There’s a nice comfy banquette under the front window, with some good quality chairs in support, screened by a shelving unit which acts as a partition from the left-hand room. High tables and stools run down the right-hand wall in the space opposite the bar, eventually giving way to a carpeted rear area with some padded bench and chair seating options. There are lots of dark wood beams and pillars throughout, and the walls have been decorated with a lot of old paintings and black and white photos, which helps the room retain a traditional pub feel in contrast to the modern furniture, unused TV screen and dreadful bird-themed wallpaper to the rear that’s really best not to dwell on. The side room has a smaller, but similar layout, with an unusual wall covering to the left and the bar down the right-hand side, as well as plenty of additional seating. A passage to the rear leads out to a well appointed patio garden with plenty of typical garden furniture, whilst back inside, a pop soundtrack played in the background, easily lost under the chatter of a surprisingly busy mid-week crowd. Five ales were available on this occasion, albeit a fairly uninspiring mainstream selection of Wells Origin and Legacy, Courage Directors, Black Sheep Bitter and Youngs Ordinary. Against my better judgement, I went for the Origin (£2.10), which was well-kept but nothing to write home about. The bar staff seemed very friendly and welcoming to a new face and there was a remarkable churn of customers coming and going during the course of my relatively brief visit. This is another decent Bedford backstreet pub, with a nice modernised interior that will appeal to a wider range of customers, and a sizeable ale range, albeit a little too focussed on mainstream bitters that can be found in numerous other pubs around town. A decent enough place to add to a crawl, but not somewhere I’d fancy stopping in for a longer session.

open pub, stone floor, nice

A pleasant and fairly small pub just a short stroll from the High Street, but in an altogether more attractive part of town and away from some of the shabby looking establishments that appear to be on the main thoroughfares. Bar staff all seemed very friendly. Inside it’s consists of a single, U-shape room wrapped around a central, wood panelled bar counter with leaded windows at the front. Décor wise, it looks as though it may have perhaps been recently refurbished with cream and mocha colour schemes and a mixture of carpet and wood strip on the floor. Small sections of wallpaper add some relief, such as “bookcase” wallpaper on the rear wall. A plasma was stuck up on the wall at the back of the pub, but this was not in use on a recent visit. Outside is a good-sized decking area with some very chunky wooden furniture. Food wise, the menu consists of a good selection of dishes and is divided in to sections such as Jackets, Sandwiches & Baguettes, Grills and Mains. The latter contained a number of “pub grub” staples such as Ham Egg & Chips, Scampi & Chips, Chilli, Pie of the Day, etc., and these were mostly priced around £7.50. There was also a small specials board, although this offered predominantly steaks. My Chicken & Bacon Salad was a decent enough dish, and a very generous portion. There was a good range of beers on tap with Eagle IPA, Wadworth’s Ipanema, Directors and a trio from Young’s – Bitter, Special and London Gold. Ciders were Aspall’s Suffolk and Strongbow. All in all I thought this was a decent little pub and well worth wandering off the High Street to find.