The Cock Inn, Milton Keynes

A prominent looking pub in the middle of the village’s High Street, this appears to have entrances from both the road at the front and the one behind. Both bars have traditional frosted glass in the windows, the one of the left with the legend “Bar” and the one on the right marked as the “Smoking Room”. Once inside, I found the left hand bar was a L-shaped room with a wood panelled bar just inside the door. There was a gaggle of locals clustering all along the bar even though the rest of the pub was empty, and they were far too interested in chatting to each other to make any room for me to get to the bar. Once there, I was comprehensively ignored by the barmaid, even though she was wiping down the bar counter right in front of me. It took one of the locals to point out that I was waiting to be served. That said, I think it was just a case of her being remarkably unobservant rather than anything else, and she seemed friendly enough subsequently, although she also managed to serve me the wrong beer even though she had just checked the pump clips. The bar is mostly carpeted with some wood strip flooring at the rear. Decor wise there are illuminated twigs on vases in the windows, a few candles and various bits of pine tree stuck to the walls. It’s tidy enough, but perhaps lacking much in the way of atmosphere, although there were a couple of brick fireplaces, one with a real fire blazing away. The smaller bar to the right is a more basic affair with a pool table, darts board and a rather loud juke box. A board outside advertised forthcoming music and karaoke nights. Beers on tap were Julian Church’s More Tea Vicar, Twitchell’s Golden Ale and Greene King IPA. The solitary cider was Strongbow, unfortunately. No food is served. Locals seemed friendly enough, if rather noisy, and everyone else in the pub seemed to know each other.