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Submitted on Friday, 16^th May 2025
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The Ship, Chelmsford

18 Broomfield Road
Chelmsford
CM1 1SW

Phone: 01245265961

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Served areas

Chelmsford Central

Reviews of The Ship (Average Rating: 7 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines

Strongers . left this review about The Ship

The Ship is an L-shaped Greene King pub with a large copper topped central L-shaped serving counter that supports standard and premium keg products alongside six hand pumps that were drawing GK’s Scrumdown, IPA and Abbot Ale as well as TT Landlord, St Austell’s Tribute and Crouch Vale Brewery’s Yakima Gold. There are a few tables at one end of the pub and tables and chairs run along the exterior walls opposite the counter. At the other end of the pub is a small raised dining area. There’s a ship theme running throughout the traditional wood panelled décor, such as ropes on the ceiling and a few ship’s wheels, including one mounted in a stained-glass inlayed box on the centre of the counter. Accommodation is found upstairs, the room was clean and comfortable, but it was very noisy in the morning with passing buses and lorries, maybe they should invest in some double glazing up there. Also, there’s a relatively cheap maximum three hour stay council car park at the rear of the pub that is very handy if stopping at the pub for food, but not so good if you’re staying the night, the pub’s advertising is very vague on the guest parking provisions. I thought the staff were all very friendly, this is certainly a top-tier GK pub that is worthy of a revisit, but I’ll not be using the accommodation again.

On 28^th February 2026 - rating: 7
[User has posted 6563 recommendations about 6525 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Blue Scrumpy left this review about The Ship

Greene King corner pub with a nautical theme. The carpeted interior is certainly quite cosy. It was already fairly busy on our Friday morning visit to the town. Some were clearly here for an early lunch.

Greene King IPA & Abbot are regular beers here. But they do now tend to offer something from Bishop Nick. On this occasion, it was a ruby beer called Respect. A further guest beer was St Austell Tribute.

On 13^th October 2020 - rating: 5
[User has posted 3415 recommendations about 3413 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Pub SignMan left this review about The Ship

Another back street pub in this part of town, this one is run by Greene King and presents itself as a smart pub with a slight emphasis on food. The pub has a U-shaped layout and is carpeted throughout, with the corner entrance taking you into a plushly appointed room with the L-shaped servery directly opposite, following the shape of the room. There is plenty of traditional dark wood panelling and a lot of very comfortable, well upholstered banquettes along the left hand wall, which has been split into a series of partly screened booths of sorts, each topped with pillars which have rope wound around them. This is part of a wider nautical theme which includes a set of sailor's lockers in a separate area beyond the bar to the rear left, battered old suitcases in a luggage rack, port holes and other such items. A centrally positioned fireplace serves both of the left hand rooms and as you move past the bar you find a number of smartly presented tables and chairs under the front windows, with additional comfy seating at the far end in the right section of the pub. Various black and white photos line the walls, there were several TV screens showing live football and pop music played quite loudly throughout my Saturday afternoon visit, possibly from the juke box I spotted to the front of the pub. There is a good value menu offering dishes throughout the day and I enjoyed a very hearty ham, egg and chips, served to me by a friendly barmaid.
For a Greene King pub, the ale range is pretty encouraging, with Greene King IPA, Abbot Ale and London Glory supplemented by Belhaven & Orkney Kittiwake, Bootleg Twisted Groove and Beartown Bearly Literate. I tried a pint of the Twisted Groove for £4.00 and thought it was a very well kept pint which slipped down nicely with my meal.
This is a pretty decent back street pub, of the sort you could quite happily bring your friends and family too without anyone feeling out of place. I found the beer and welcome to be very good and enjoyed the slightly quirky nautical stylings. Greene King certainly have some good pubs nowadays, offering more than just the same old beers and this is definitely one of their better ones - well worth keeping in mind when exploring the surrounding area.

On 27^th September 2017 - rating: 7
[User has posted 3387 recommendations about 3387 pubs]

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