The Eight Bells, Saffron Walden

A traditional looking stone built pub towards the outskirts of town, it consists of a couple of rooms at the front facing the road as well as an attractive old barn at the back which has been pressed in to use as a restaurant. Décor wise it’s fairly contemporary with rough wooden boards on the floor, pale brown painted wood panelling on the lower part of the walls and cream plasterwork elsewhere. There were a few wooden beams on the ceiling but these had all been painted brown rather than left in their natural state and a brick fireplace was off to one side and a bookcase in one corner. A smaller snug to the left had almost full height wood panelling on the walls, although this had still been painted a light brown colour. To the right, a lounge area had a number of black arm chairs and most punters were gathered in here watching the football on our visit. The TV though was perched on a table, so may be just a temporary fixture during the world cup than anything more permanent. The most impressive part of the pub by far was the barn conversion at the rear, which had retained it’s lovely timber vaulted roof and had a feature wall at one end made of log ends. Had we not already eaten in the Cross Keys, I would certainly have tried this. Beers on tap were Tribute, Doom Bar and Woodforde Wherry, whilst the solitary cider was Stowford Press. Overall I really liked this pub, and would certainly return to check out the food if I’m in the area again.

The restaurant area is somewhat characterless - difficult for what could be a lovely building, but they manage it. Bar area is OK but felt cramped. Food, frankly, was average and over-priced. Similarly beers were average. Probably won't be back in a hurry. Average.