The Greyhound Inn, Longford, Coventry

The Greyhound is a lovely Grade II listed building in a picturesque location on the Coventry canal, near Hawksbury Junction. The pub is rightly popular with the boating community, but on my visit it was full of football supporters who can enjoy a 20-25 minute walk along the canal to get from the pub to Coventry City’s Ricoh Arena. It’s also very easy to reach by car from Junction 3 of the M6, should you fancy breaking your journey, although you would never guess this from the peaceful setting. The pub has a nice rural, traditional feel to it and retains some interesting features such as the brick fireplace that serves two parts of the pub. The interior wraps itself around three sides of the servery, with the fourth side in the adjacent dining room. The front of the pub has tile flooring, half paneled walls and a fair amount of exposed brickwork, with some high backed settles along the front wall punctuated only by a small bookcase. As the room curves around the servery towards the rear of the building, you pass a small, cosy booth on the right hand side. The rear of the room is in a similar style to the front, with long banquettes and a few small tables. The décor incorporates a lot of brewerania including a number of old enamel brewery advertisements. There is also an inevitable boating theme, with a life ring, oar and steering arm all visible from where I was sat. They were also selling hand painted canal stools bearing an image of the pub. In the rear section there was a TV screen showing the Grand Prix to a couple of customers and the radio was playing throughout my stay at a reasonable level. I didn’t explore the dining room, although it’s suffice to say that it was packed by lunchtime and I noticed a few people were taking advantage of the bright weather to sit on one of the many benches outside the front of the pub. Food is served all day, including hearty breakfasts from 10am on Saturdays and Sundays. I tried one of their baguettes with side salad and some crisps, which cost £5.50 and must be the largest, most well filled baguette I’ve ever encountered. Beer wise, there were four ales available – Bass, Marston’s Pedigree, Theakston Mild and Burton Bridge Damson Porter (£3.10). I managed to sink several pints of the latter which turned out to be a very drinkable and moreish. The barman who served me was very friendly and remembered what I was drinking, despite the pub being very busy. I knew almost the moment that I walked into this pub that I was going to enjoy my visit and nothing in the intervening hours that I spent here changed that feeling. This is a lovely, welcoming pub of the kind you always hope you will stumble across and it is well worth making the effort to get here.

13th September 2012, This is a great pub to head to via the canal. It is very welcoming and what a proper pub should be. They had Pedigree and Bass (which my Dad seems to think is rare thing, well for us southerners!) Mellow Yellow, a very bitter beer, Rugby Victorious,a great thirst quencher, Theakston Mild and a chocolate stout that sadly ran out on our visit. It was very busy for a Thursday afternoon, we enjoyed a great lunch of Spag bol jacket potatoe, a really good steak baguette and a local ham sandwich, which was very thick handcut slice. All for either side of £5. The plougmans on offer sounded huge for £6, you would get cheese, ham, pork pie, pickled egg and crusty local bread! Shame we had to head back to the canal boat, could have stayed there all afternoon.

The Greyhound is a well situated pub on the Coventry Canal overlooking Hawkesbury Junction with plenty of benches outside to sit and watch the boats go by. It's also, and deservedly, a long time GBG listed pub and has achieved a number of local CAMRA awards. Externally the pub fits in with the historic canalside location in traditional black and white paint scheme. Inside, there's a seperate restaurant area to the left with all the tables laid out for dining while the bar area wraps around a central bar with lots of higgledy piggledy tables and a real fire which serves both the left and right of the bar area. The whole feels cosily cluttered and will appeal to those interested in historic pub interiors. The restaurant menu is extensive and ranges from 3 course meals to light snacks. Our main courses were substantial and decent quality and the restaurant was reasonably busy even on a cold Tuesday evening. The bar was also busy and we struggled to find a seat. Beers offered were the regular Bass and Pedigree along with Theakstons Mild, Church End Low Rider and Byatt's Regal Gold. The latter two are local and it's worth being observant as the Regal Blonde handpump was hidden in the restaurant with the only indication it was available in the bar being a pump clip on one of the bar beams. Both the Bass and the Regal Blonde were in very good nick. A friendly, traditional and picturesque pub serving good ale and decent food. I'd recommend it.

Excellent old canalside pub on the outskirts of Coventry, everything you would expect, tiled floor, bare brick walls, occasional beams, horse brasses, real fire. Not over comfortable, but there are cushioned benches and the whole experience makes it comfortable enough and warm. Friendly service, the choice and quality of the real ales is superb.

Very friendly and historic canalside pub with a good selection of real ale including Highgate Dark Mild,London Pride ,Ped and on my visit a golden ale from Sadlers which went down a treat.Attractive interior with a lounge now given over to diners and a bar which wraps around a central serving area.Good views over Hawkesbury Junction where boats make the tricky turn from the Coventry Canal to the stop lock at the start of the Oxford Canal.Much chortling if a boater cocks it up.Food looked good with a large variety but didnt try it due to concentration on a liquid lunch.