The Old Manse Hotel, Cheltenham

Official site of The Old Manse Hotel - www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk

Official site of The Old Manse Hotel - www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk

This is a large pub and hotel in an extremely picturesque location in the heart of Bourton-on-the-Water, overlooking the River Windrush which wends its way past a small outdoor seating area to the front of the pub. The main bar is to the right on entering, with the servery running down the left hand side of the room and a decent amount of seating arranged opposite and to the front and rear. There is an impressive inglenook fireplace in the front right corner of the room and the walls are decorated with all sorts of old photos of the village which let you see what the place looked like before mass tourism. The bar back is lined with windows which look through to a passageway that seemingly leads towards the pub’s accommodation. To the left on entry is quite a pleasant room with comfortable furniture that was very busy on our Sunday afternoon visit. As you might expect of a summer weekend, the place was doing a brisk trade, although most customers were either in the garden or drinking on the pavement outside. We stopped off here to grab some Sunday lunch, but I found the food to be average at best and some of our party didn’t finish their meals. There were a couple of guest ales available alongside the Greene King regulars and the one I plumped for turned out to be a decent pint of bitter. This is quite a nice pub that is let down by the usual complaints generated by pubs in tourist locations, namely slow service, lapsed standards and a transient customer base. I doubt many residents use the pubs in this part of the village and whilst this was handy for somewhere to grab a quick meal, I can’t see me using it again either.

The Old Manse Hotel is located at the end of a row of pubs and restaurants that line the river Windrush. There is some picnic seating out the front that was very popular during Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. There are a couple of A-boards by the entrance that advertised food which costs around £10 for a main and is served all day. The left hand side of the building is the hotel and the thin bar is located to the right. A standard draught selection is available and one of the three hand pumps was unused leaving an uninspiring cask option of Greene King’s IPA and Abbot Ale. I didn’t venture into the pub until just after 22:00 and like most of the pubs in Bourton-on-the-Water it was dead at this time. There was some low background music playing and I didn’t note any televisions, although there are a couple of gaming machines. I found the service to be very friendly, but I thought that the layout was uncomfortable and there was little atmosphere. Like the other pubs in the village this place is primarily geared towards the daytime tourist trade and as such it isn’t on my radar for a revisit.