The Kings Arms, Cheltenham

A traditional coaching inn that has now become a slightly down-market modern pub. Plaster has been hacked off the interior stonework, and a variety of distressed kitchen or dining tables is joined by a miscellany of wooden chairs on the apparently modern floorboards. The small bar in the corner features two hand pumps serving Greene King beers. The Old Speckled Hen was not on, so I had the infamous IPA, which was OK if a little undistinguished (a distinguishing feature of this beer, paradoxically). This was priced at £3.20 a pint, a compromise between the slightly more expensive Eagle & Child round the corner and the much cheaper Talbot across the square. A livelier crowd than some of the other pubs in Stow on my Sunday night visit, their conversation competed with the loud music. When they all went outside for a fag the barman changed the soundtrack; presumably he doesn't like David Bowie either.