The Grand Assembly (JD Wetherspoon), Marlow

Newish (2024) 'spoons, and despite some snooty locals thinking that this upmarket town didn't want or need such a place, it seems to be doing fine. Don't be misled by the relatively narrow frontage, as it extends back a long way and there is plenty of space in the bar and seating / dining areas at each end. All given a traditional look, with plenty of rowing memorabilia as you would expect. Good selection from the two banks of six handpumps, including the seasonal Exmas from Exmoor, Titanic Advent Ale and Holbeck's Santa Baby (£2.59) plus Jem's Stout from Great Newsome, a couple of ciders and the usual trio of Greene King IPA, Doom Bar and Abbot.

Official site of The Grand Assembly (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Official site of The Grand Assembly (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Attractive green tiled frontage leading to a surprisingly large interior with a division that feels like two buildings merged back-to-back. Classily done décor to a high standard with some tidy touches such as the decals at the front, swan tiling, chandelier lighting and the classic Spoons booths which have paddle dividers. This links to the Three Men in a Boat theme, with the 'first class nectar' quote writ large on a wooden board in gold leaf aside the bar. To the rear is a nice tiered patio garden with book spines painted onto the steps, I imagine they'll get grubby fairly quick though. A faintly incredible six guest ales, mainly festival leftovers so I suspect it’ll drop to three or four in time. My Titanic was perfunctory, probably fag end in fairness (NBSS 2), Red Racer (3) and Evan Evans (3.5) came out better. I suspect the lines in here are very long, so throughput on the ales may become an issue. I was mildly wondering whether Timbo had gone too supersized with this venture but as the clock ticked past five on a Monday afternoon the place slowly began to fill-up and was easily 70% by tables taken when I ambled out at 7pm. I thought this was a plush, palatial Spoons and would happily drop in again. 7.5

Here’s one former Bourne End employee who spent many days visiting Marlow who was a little surprised that a branch of Wetherspoons had opened in The town and was intrigued if to the list of names including The Vanilla Pod, the Ivy Marlow Garden, The Hand and Flowers and of course, the Riverside Restaurant at the Complete Angler, you could now add The Grand Assembly? So yesterday I got the chance to pay this latest addition to Mullet man’s chain of emporiums and can solidly confirm the answer is no, there is nothing here to distract Tom Kerridge from expanding further on scoffing his own grub. Interesting choice of name and it would have been fun to have been a fly on the wall at Wetherspoon’s HQ when they discussed 'The Brass Thimble' , then 'The Swan Hook' , before rejecting them for the name 'The Grand Assembly' . I’m slightly surprised ‘The Herring Bone corset’ wasn’t thrown in there as the Spoons marketing team grappled with trying to come up with a name to honour the buildings history before Mullet Man obviously threw his toys out the pram and demanded that they stopped trying to find something linked to a crap ladies clothing chain and nicked the name of Victorian masked balls that took place in the Market hall building that once stood somewhere opposite. To the uninitiated The Grand Assembly will evoke a vision of a former opulent building so let me dispel that straight away and confirm that this new ‘Spoons is inside the old M&Co Women’s clothing store, next door to the Everyman Cinema, about a 10 minute walk from the Train Station, and is much like, well every other department store Spoons conversion you have seen. Obviously this one is brand new and shiny, but it is still a long thin internal space with a small entrance at the front and a small entrance at the rear, both of which provide a minimal amount of natural light, especially on a dreary wet Monday afternoon, and the middle section where the bar is would be dark and depressing if it wasn’t for the impressive chandeliers and copious ball side lighting that illuminates this part of the pub. There are some nice nods to its Marlow and especially Thames location with some rowing themed artwork and an interesting ceiling collection of rowing seats, some of which have a connection to Steven Redgrave, who is after all a nearby Cookham Dean resident. Another nice feature is the real open fireplace which was blazing away on this damp dreary afternoon, and the double level outside courtyard area at the back which, on finer weather days than this one, will afford excellent views of the Marlow central car park. The usual two banks of six pumps on the bar with the Trilogy of Doom out in force on one, but fortunately some very good options on the others and alongside Titanic Plum Porter, Ringwood Brewery Forty Niner and Fullers London Pride, there was Naked Ladies, Harlequin and Autumn Red from Twickenham Fine Ales and Tring’s Liberator, Colley’s Dog and the Death or Glory Barley wine mentioned below, and all those outside the trilogy at £2.99 a pint, including the barley wine surprisingly. It may be new but it’s the usual laminated menu of dreams food menu and the usual ‘Spoons staffing issues with only two people behind the bar and one of those being constantly distracted by covering app orders, so it was the usual frustrating experience actually trying to be served if you actually wanted something that wasn’t on the app. So in summary the usual ‘Spoons experience, but is it likely to fly? Of course it will. As the previous reviewer mentioned Marlow isn’t as elitist as it would like to think it is and at 4.00pm on a wet and depressing Monday afternoon it was doing a roaring trade. The establishments I cited at the beginning of this review are in reality only for the elitist few, for the rest of us we now have The Grand Assembly. And if that wasn’t enough, a little birdie tells me Beaconsfield is next.