The Rose & Crown, March

The Rose and Crown is an unremarkable suburban boozer which feels somewhat time warped inside. It's a long (15 minutes or so) walk from the town centre and it isn't worth the trip. Beers on were St Austell Cornish Best, Fullers London Pride, York Guzzler and a cider with 3 handpumps unused. A dull and low strength selection which underwhelmed despite the Guzzler being in decent shape. The experience was saved somewhat by a friendly barmaid but it wasn't enough to go for a second pint and a return visit is unlikely.

Aqualung is very accurate in his review but the operation here has gone further downhill since then.There are two sections,the larger side bar has a series of dining type tables and a few seats near the bar plus some bar stools.There is a small front room with a pool table,flatscreen,fruit machines and it's own bar access.Hardy anybody was in the pub and we only travelled to this outpost of March on the back of it's GBG listing.When confronted with an ale choice of St Austell Cornish Best,York Guzzler and London Pride,the strongest option at 4.1%, we nearly turned turtle.However we stayed for the one,with all pints in great condition but tasting of very little due to the indifference of the brews.I would suspect ale choice here is from a pubco list,and if the team here feel three low strength and similar BBB is good enough for the GBG then the question must be asked whether the local CAMRA branch know anything about real ale.Maybe at busier times a wider selection is on,but I won't risk the long walk to find out in future.

This is an old pub on the South side of March Town. Inside it has two rooms and I went in the left one. This had a low ceiling with beams and was fairly quiet on my late Saturday afternoon visit. The whole place seemed tidy and well run. On the bar were seven hand pumps of which two had ciders. The five beers were Bass, Worthington Bitter, GK Abbot, St Austell Trelawney and Fat Cat Cougar. Apart from the Cougar I thought this was a poor beer selection for a GBG listed pub. The Cougar (£3.30) was in good condition and went down well. I suspect the beer selection may be down to it being owned by a pubco rather than being a genuine free house. It's worth a look but it's a long trek back to the station and the beer choice let it down for me.

We got to this 2013 Good Beer Guide pub as it opened at 12 so were the only ones in for a while. Very clean and tidy pub with comfortable seating. White walls and ceiling with black beams. TV screen wasn't on in the lounge, which had a real fire, and background music ok. Another room served by the same bar has a pool table. The beer garden had a marquee and there were adverts for an Easter beer festival. Beers were from Theakstons, St Austell, Cottage and Wolf. Interesting food menu on the boards. We chose the Theakston and Wolf beers which were fine.