King William IV, Cambridge

Blue Scrumpy left this review about King William IV

Nicely furnished pub with an L-shaped room containing a couple of coal fires and bare boards. There is a carpeted area to the rear left. It was only when I enquired to where the gents toilets where that I realised that a narrow door at the right-hand end led to another smaller room which appeared to be more of a public bar. There are a couple of picnic tables to the side of the pub and a car park to the rear contained an old American truck in the far corner.

Both gents and ladies toilets can be found off the right-hand room. The lounge contains another ladies room. Children are allowed in and there are some games in the entranceway that can be played.

There are 5 handpulls at the bar but just Doom Bar & Tribute were on. One handpull had a clip turned round, which looked like Wherry.

Chilled dance music was playing during my visit. Although, this didn't distract from the conversation. This pub has some fairly limited opening hours and the young barman/owner was complaining that there was hardly anybody in and that he might shut up before the pub's published Saturday closing time of 8:30pm. This was Valentine's Day and he discussed with the other 2 customers how people didn't want special events on Valentine's Day (perhaps they do and that was why the pub was so quiet?). Discussion turned to holidays and the barman/owner was saying he had been to Cornwall the previous year but grumbled that it was a 6-7 hour drive away. I chuckled at the irony of this. Did he realise that both of his cask ales had (supposedly) travelled that far?

This was my first visit to Histon since 2011. I only visited the Red Lion back then. From what I read, it is still the only pub in the village worth visiting.

On 22^nd February 2026 - rating: 5
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