ReviewI’ve tried to review this pub on several occasions, but it always seemed to have rather restricted opening hours and I never managed to find it open, even at 4:00pm on a Saturday or 6:30pm on a Thursday. Somewhat unsurprisingly therefore it closed, and has now reinvented itself. Whilst there is definitely more of an emphasis on good food, I would hesitate to call it a gastro-pub as they are still encouraging drinkers and indeed, by the time we left at 10:30pm on a Saturday evening the bar was packed full of locals enjoying a pint.
The pub is split in to three rooms, with the main bar area being in the middle. This has parquet wood flooring and cream paintwork, although much of the pain elsewhere is black. Seating here is limited, although there were a few stools and a couple of tables. The main dining area is to the right, and the paintwork here is predominantly black and there was an old Colman’s mustard sign on the wall. The small room to the left doubles up as a dining area, but could equally well be used just for drinking. This had a black slate tiled floor and a double sided brick fireplace with a copper chimney hood. There were a few nature drawings on the walls, as well as on old and very battered Fry’s chocolate sign. Unusually one wall was covered in a montage of pages torn from a Mrs. Beaton’s cookbook.
There is a decent selection of food and this is of good quality. Prices were perhaps slightly above your normal pub grub, but were certainly not out the way with most of the mains being around the £10 mark, and this was more than justified by the dishes that were served up and we thoroughly enjoyed our smoked haddock and salmon fish cakes. There were also a couple of cakes on the bar as seems to be the trend in many places these days. Staff were helpful and efficient.
Beers on tap were Butcombe, Doom Bar, Gem and Tribute. The solitary cider was Ashton Press, but then there’s not really any need for anything else if you’ve got this on. All in all, well worth a visit.
