Dick Whittington's, Gloucester

Built in the late 15th Century for Richard Whittington, nephew of the famous thrice mayor of London from whom the pub takes its name, this is a former merchant's house which was converted into pub usage as recently as the 1980's. It's a nice historic building, although there has been much alteration over the years, which has resulted in a two room interior, broken midway through by the servery and a section of wall with a fireplace set into it. The front half of the pub has a good amount of seating arranged either side of the entrance. A display of clocks creates a focal point on the right hand wall, whilst an upright piano stands to the left. The area has a slightly modernised feel to it, despite the presence of dark wooden beams with old jugs and bottles hanging from them as you approach the servery, which runs down the right hand side. Passing through a narrow section, you reach a rear dining type room with a nice mix of standard and comfy seating. Décor is restricted to a few interesting bits of breweriana. We settled down here for a bite to eat and I found it a nice quiet spot to enjoy some good food and a couple of pints. To the rear there is access to a garden and stairs which lead to a downstairs bar (called the Black Cat Bar), which seemingly has a pool table, dart board and collection of board games, although I didn't get round to exploring properly. On the bar the hand pumps were dispensing Wells Bombardier, Bespoke Brewing Saved by the Bell and Over a Barrel, Wychwood Hobgoblin and Butcombe Bitter as well as Severn Cider. We gave the Saved by the Bell a try and thought it was a good session beer in reasonable nick, so much so that we went back for a second pint after our meal. The bar staff were friendly and the food was sensibly priced and pretty tasty. They were also happy to let us in with a dog in tow. I thought this was a pretty good city centre pub with friendly staff, an interesting building to explore and good food and drink, making it worthy of its current inclusion in the Good Beer Guide. There are a few solid pubs in the centre of Gloucester and this one is certainly worth adding to that list.

Well descibed by OB & Soupy, so I won't bother. The front area of the pub was very foody on our visit with all the tables sporting menu's, however there wasn't anyone eating. There's a brilliant light fitting that covers the whole ceiling in here, it's like a giant, 20 legged spider. There was an acoustic guitarist playing in the rear room, it sounded more like a practice session than one he was getting paid for, I wouldn't have paid him anyway. :-)) The disappointment for me was that out of the 6 real ale handpump only Hobgoblin, Bombardier & Butcombe Bitter were available. All of the others had North Cotswold pump clips on them, but all were turned round. We were told that they'd had a busy weekend, but as this was a Wednesday I wasn't impressed. It's a decent pub, but could be rather better with more timely cellar management. THe Butcombe was a decent pint though.