Lakeside, Heathfield

Lakeside is a café with a bar in a converted wooden hut on Horam Manor Farm where there’s also a fishery, riding stables and some small businesses in other repurposed old farm buildings. Picnic tables and some children’s climbing apparatus sit on the grass out front between the hut and a fishing lake. There’s limited parking, this area is popular with dog walkers so there’s always more cars than people using the facilities. Inside there’s a food service counter on the left-hand wall and tables run along the front windows. Up a step there’s another row of tables across the rear where a bar counter sits midway along the rear wall. The Heineken, Peroni and Inch’s Cider were all ‘hibernating until Spring’, which left Birra Moretti, Amstel, Long Man Brewery’s Crafty Blonde and Guinness as the keg options. To the left of the bar counter is an ice cream display case and to the right is a DJ booth that was supplying some low background music. Advertised opening is from 09:00 until 17:00 so the karaoke microphones and disco lights must be for functions, or maybe the opening hours are extended during Summer months. The staff are very friendly and my kids like eating here so I’ve been for breakfast twice over the last month. This isn’t somewhere I’d go for a beer at the moment, but maybe I’ll try it on a sunny Saturday afternoon when the temperature gets firmly back into the twenties.

Café, bistro and bar in a converted farm building set above a fishing lake in the former Merrydown cider works at Horam Manor. Light, modern furniture inside, but in good weather the south-facing beer garden is a fine spot to while away some time in what is currently the closest thing to a pub in this village (unless / until the May Garland ever reopens). No cask ale unfortunately, but at least the reasonably local Crafty Blonde from Long Man (£5.70) was available from an otherwise standard keg beer selection.

Facebook page of Lakeside - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Lakeside - www.facebook.com

Official site of Lakeside - www.lakesidehoram.com

Official site of Lakeside - www.lakesidehoram.com