The Manor Bar, Oxford

After a 4 mile hike from Alcester, the Three Horseshoes was a rather welcome sight. A typical country dining pub that has undergone an extensive refit and now has a fairly spacious and rambling feel to it. Whilst the pub is very pleasant, it lacks anything that makes it stand out from other pubs of this ilk. A mix of floor coverings: bare wood, carpeted areas and a few flag stones, plain walls and beamed ceilings give the pub a bit of its traditional feel but whilst it is all very pleasant, it is all quite bland and tame and comes over as a country pub by design rather than anything that has evolved over the years. The piped music is safe, the staff pleasant, the ambience civilized and you get the impression that anything above a whisper would be classed as inappropriate behaviour. The openness of the pub is only interrupted the occasional pillar and an open wood fireplace is the only real internal feature of note. No TV's or games machines that I could see – not always a bad thing and probably right for this pub. One of the biggest grumbles is that for a large pub, only the small area immediately in front of the bar appears to be designated for drinkers, the rest appearing to be reserved for diners and it is clear as to what customer base they are aiming for. On the plus side, there was a decent range of beers: 4 Real Ales – Adnams, Purity Gold, Landlord and Marstons Pedigree. The pub was empty when we visited one lunch time and I was surprised to see another couple arrive looking to get a meal only to be told that they could not accommodate them as they were expecting a large party to arrive. I can't help feel that finding a table for 2 was not totally beyond their capabilities. By the time we left, the pub was still empty. Moral of the story: book in advance when you intend to get a meal at a spacious empty pub. If the interior is a bit too sterile for your tastes, try the decent beer gardens at each end of the pub. Failing that you can sit by the stream that runs through the car park. If still not happy, go to the Fish down the road – it's far more interesting.