Red Lion, Banbury

The Red Lion is an early opener. In fact it opens at 9am for breakfast and it was our intention to have a quick meal and a drink to set up a day's crawling in the Banbury area. However, our arrival at 11:05 was 5 minutes after they stopped serving breakfast. We were invited to wait for lunch to start at midday, but didn't have the time. So instead, we went hungry. The interior is split into a couple of different sections, but all customers appeared to be either single people reading newspapers or working from the pub or couples who had finished their breakfasts and were nursing cups of coffee or tea. There is a large garden area across the car park from the pub. It looks like this used to be a Marston's pub, but has since changed hands. The ale choice was limited to Courage Directors & Young's Ordinary. Unless I could come here at the strictly defined meal times, I see little reason to pay a return visit. A little more flexibility wouldn't have gone amiss. Poor service.

Official site of Red Lion - www.the-red-lion-at-bloxham.co.uk

Official site of Red Lion - www.the-red-lion-at-bloxham.co.uk

The Red Lion is a smart looking white painted pub that is on the main road through Bloxham. Once inside the pub had two seperate rooms,we had a drink in the room to the right,this was a large squarish shaped room that was carpeted,the ceiling was beamed and the seating was normal tables and chairs. The pub is a Fullers tied house and there were two real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Gales Seafarers which is not brewed in Hampshire but Chiswick in West London,this was a pretty bland drink,the other beer was London Pride. The room to the left was out of bounds as another group of drinkers found out after getting told off for trying to use it. The front door to the pub was locked,but the back door was open very strange!. We thought this pub was very bland inside and a bit of a let down,on the up side there is a very large garden to the rear which looked well looked after.