The Royal Oak, Milton Keynes

A traditional stone built pub with a few picnic benches in the garden at the front, it’s in a narrow dead-end road just of the main Woburn Sands High Street, so presumably gets little in the way of passing trade, but nonetheless there were a number of locals gathered round the bar and watching the football on a recent early evening visit. The pub is split in to two rooms, the larger one to the left and a small snug area to the right. The snug is perhaps the cosier of the two with plenty of black beams on the ceiling and bench seating with red velvet cushions around the perimeter, green carpet on the floor and plenty of old black and white photographs of the locale on the wall. There was also a darts board and a number of large trophies on a shelf as well as few old duelling pistols on the wall. The larger room runs along the front of the pub but is not very deep and was similar to the snug in terms of décor. A brick fire-place was at the far end with the plasma mounted above it. The bar counter was unusual in that instead of being a free standing counter it was actually a window in to a larger room. Food is not offered, although the barman helpfully suggested that I was welcome to go and get a Chinese and bring it back to the pub to eat. Beers on tap were a slightly disappointing Abbot Ale and Greene King IPA, and even worse than this, the only cider was Strongbow. Whilst this pub does little to encourage anyone to make a special visit, it seems like a solid enough boozer for the local populace.