The Barge Inn, Honeystreet, Pewsey

A great location alongside the Kennet and Avon canal, this is a substantial and traditional looking pub with a good sized beer garden and a more modern, timber clad extension to one side. It featured on the television a couple of years back when it had closed and was bought by the local villagers as a co-operative venture. Service at the bar was abysmal unfortunately, slow, ineffectual and lots of faffing around without seeming to achieve much, and with absolutely no concept of keeping tabs on who was due to be served next. One heavily tattooed barmaid was wandering up and down, blatantly ignoring me, so much so that I thought she must be just tidying up rather than serving......until she went and served someone else who had just arrived. To be fair, perhaps they’re volunteers rather than paid professionals as it’s a community pub, and there was a sign up saying that they were looking for bar staff. The pub consists of a large U-shaped room around the central bar counter with sanded wooden boards on the floor and grey paintwork. A snug area with a couple of old sofas is in one corner and at the rear is a pool table with an unusual signs of the zodiac mural on the ceiling. Various knick-knacks were dotted around, many having a musical theme such as guitars, a recorder and even a plastic trumpet, as well as an old type-writer. A vaulted room off to the left was in the modern extension, and this had numerous large black-and-white posters of bands on the walls, among them Queen, Blondie and a very young looking John Lydon. The menu offered a decent enough selection of pub grub dishes as well as a selection of sandwiches and Panini’s, with most of the main courses around the £8/£9 mark. Our bacon & cheddar and bacon, brie and cranberry Panini’s were both decent enough and a generous portion with chips and a somewhat feeble side salad. Beers on tap were all from Honeystreet Ales and consisted of Croppie, 1810 and Alien Abduction green beer (and it was very green). Likewise, with the exception of Stowford Press ciders were all from Honeystreet Ciders and on this occasion were Away with the Fairies, Area 51 and Particle Accelerator. Overall, in spite of the poor service, I quite liked this pub and would happily return if in the area.