The Rose, Dartford

Side-street pub located close to the town centre and station but hidden away to the east of the inner ring road and some large buildings along the River Darent. Basic L-shaped bar, extending back down a few steps to another small seating area then the pool room with a pair of tables. Surprisingly attractive beer garden at the back. No real ale of course, but at least the keg Courage Best (£4.00) was available an alternative to the inevitable John Smith's.

The Rose is a stand alone pub that is fairly close to Dartford train station but away from the shopping area. Once inside there is an L shaped room which has normal tables and chairs to the front and a darts board to the rear left,the rear area is down one step. There were two real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Courage Best which was a decent drink to end my Dartford pub crawl on,the other real ale was Doom Bar. I thought this was a decent enough pub to have a drink in. Pub visited 22/10/2016

This pub was famously run until a year or so ago by World Darts Champion Andy Fordham who is most certainly a better darts player than publican. Since he left, the management have re-introduced a couple of Real Ales (Courage Best + a guest – Old Hooky on my last visit) which is at least one step in the right direction. The interior is still as bland as it ever was with much of the rear section taken up by 2 pool tables, a couple of dart boards (naturally) and a table football game. The large trophy cabinet is still bulging which suggests they either still take things pretty seriously on the games front or the big feller left them behind!. The best feature remains the beer garden in which I could happily whittle away a pleasant hour or so now that the beers are back in town. Whilst I have never encountered any problems here other a drunken wedding party who were more embarrassing than intimidating, some of the customer base can be a bit on the raucous side and the proximity of the Youth Hostel means young groups can sometimes be noisy and intrusive. Worth visiting for a quick guest pint on a sunny day in the garden but that’s about it.