St James Wine Vaults, Bath Central, Bath

This is not, as you might infer from it’s name, some sort of trendy wine bar, or even in fact vaulted. Instead it’s very much a traditional pub, so where it’s name comes from I’m not entirely sure. There is I believe a cellar bar used for live music which may be vaulted, but we didn’t investigate this. It consists of just one room, although this is divided in to two with more of a lounge feel to the left. This has carpet on the floor, which seems to be coming increasingly rare these days, and traditional red velvet bench seating along the walls with tables and red velvet stools elsewhere, low ones at the tables and high ones at the bar. The lower part of the walls has wood cladding on and above that is maroon paintwork. There were a couple of LCD TV’s on the wall, but the volume was off. A selection of miniature string instruments were hung around the walls such as violins, guitars and banjos. Seemingly unrelated, a large space hopper was on a shelf above the door. The landlady seemed friendly, and the was a good mix of locals in on a recent early evening visit. Beers on tap were a slightly uninspiring Doom Bar, London Pride and Butcombe, whilst ciders were Thatcher’s Gold and Aspall’s Suffolk. In a slight nod to it’s name perhaps, a chalkboard listed half a dozen or so wines that were available by the glass.

Official site of the St James Wine Vaults, contains event details - www.stjameswinevaults.co.uk

Official site of the St James Wine Vaults, contains event details - www.stjameswinevaults.co.uk