The Driftwood Spars, Trevaunance Cove, St. Agnes

An attractive pub situated just up from the small beach in St. Agnes. It was the local CAMRA’s Pub of the Year in 2009, so I had high expectations. As you walk in to the pub, there’s an unusual curved bar in front of you with about a dozen hand pumps on it. A welcome site for the weary traveller! There’s a well worn red carpet, and some attractive exposed stone walls and a limited number of tables with a mixture of bench seating and chairs, plus a wood burner at one end which must be very welcome in the winter. The pub apparently derives it’s name from the Spars (which are old timbers used to make ships) that drifted up on to the beach. As such, it’s got a suitably nautical theme with lots of photo’s of old ships, a couple of ship’s wheels and lots of ship’s instruments dotted around the place. Add in a couple of fishing nets hanging from the ceiling, and you certainly wont forget you’re just a few yards from the beach. Besides the main bar, there’s an upper bar that lacks atmosphere but provides a pool table, and a top bar next to the restaurant with an impressive vaulted ceiling but which rarely seems to be open. There was a short “pub grub” menu with just four main course options, plus a few snacks. Food was ok, but a little expensive at around the £9/£10 mark. The "catch of the day" was a little light on the fish and a little heavy on the batter. Similarly a basil pesto tagliatelle was great one night, but rather poor the next with almost no pesto dressing on it and no discernible shavings of parmesan. Presumably a different chef leads to somewhat inconsistent food. There is a separate restaurant upstairs with a more extensive choice and more expensive prices. Barman was friendly, as were the many locals. Beers on this occasion were Dartmoor Best, St. Austell’s Trelwaneys, Doom Bar, Tribute, Bays Gold plus their own (from the micro brewery next door) Lou’s Brew and Hill Blues. Ciders were Thatcher’s Gold, Thatcher’s Pear, Cornish Rattler and Addlestones. So a great pub, and a great choice of beer, but don’t make a detour for the food.

I have to rate as good for the beer, but need to mention the rip off for the car park. Going down today in the car for a half after doing a walk, we were charged £4.50 (an all day charge)and got a ticket saying we had to spend £10 in the pub in one transaction to get the £4.50 back. OK if you are having a meal but we ended up having to buy 3.5 pints just to get our £4.50 back, or our 3 halves would have cost a total of £9.

A bit of a walk down a lane towards the beach from the bus route (85, 403) but a good brewpub of their own Driftwood beers. Usually serving their own plus a few other locAle beers. There are a few rooms on various levels, and they serve food. Bit pricey I thought, but looked good. Have live music on occasionally too.

Official site of the Driftwood Spars, contains menu and real ale details - www.driftwoodspars.com

Official site of the Driftwood Spars, contains menu and real ale details - www.driftwoodspars.com

You can't get much closer to the sea, its just down the road. A great pub with very atmospheric bar, good ales and food at reasonable prices

Sells real ale, 6 taps. Nice pub, full of sailing memorabilla. Has a family area. The garden is across the road, luckily it's not too busy, well it wasn't when I was there. Sells food all day.