George's Meeting House (JD Wetherspoon), Exeter

Nice old chapel conversion with some original features, open plan seating with smaller ground floor area and balconies. Nice real ale

This is quite an unusual branch of Wetherspoons, located in a rather large, open plan building that was formerly used as a Unitarian Church. The spacious rectangular main room has bare boards throughout, half panelled walls with neutral shaded uppers and the servery down the left-hand wall. The bar has a rather plain counter but the bar back is dominated by an original stained glass window in the centre, with other such windows visible to the front and right of the room. Two rows of high tables and stools run through the centre of the room, with two rows of tables and chairs down the right side, the furthest right of which have been formed into booths by the temporary covid screens. To the rear of the room is the original pulpit on a raised platform with many original decorative features still in situ. At the rear, there is door through to a part quarry stone floor, part carpeted back room, with some comfier seating options in a somewhat blander space with a lit fireplace on the rear wall. Looking up, there are balcony seating areas above the left and right-hand sides of the main room, offering plenty of overspill seating and some nice views down into the main bar area. There’s also a patio garden area to the side of the pub, although the attractive interior makes the modest garden feel like a poor-man’s relation in comparison. On the bar were the three regular ‘Spoons cask ales along with three guest beers, from which I opted for a pint of Teignworthy Portside, which was a decent enough drop, if not the most memorable beer from my time in Devon. The staff seemed busy and industrious and the barman that served me was very friendly. There was a somewhat stilted atmosphere on my Monday lunchtime visit, but I walked past the place on Saturday evening and it looked like utter mayhem. Whilst not quite hitting the heights of Exeter’s top Wetherspoons, the Imperial, this place is still a good example of the chain converting an interesting building into a pleasant public space. The ale range was decent enough, the staff seemed very good and when caught at the right time, you can imagine a nice atmosphere being generated.

Large Spoons in a former church, sympathetically converted including the upper balcony level but it did seem a bit empty and echoey especially as not busy. A reasonable selection of local ales joined the regulars in the shape of Bays Topsail, Salcombe Gold and Exmoor Wild Beast.

I thought this was an excellent conversion of an old church retaining the high ceilinged hall with the bar on the left. There is a gallery seating area but it looked very narrow from down below. There is a small room at the rear which was the busiest area plus a nice looking patio outside to the right. It was nowhere near as busy as the Chevalier up the road but it is away from the shops. The bar has ten hand pumps which had just one duplicate and no available soon or spurious ciders. Beers available were the JDW Trio Of Doom with Doom Bore doubled, Exmoor Stag & Exiles Wicked Wolf, Teignworthy Climate Change, Exe Valley Winter Glow, Otter Head and Bays Devon Dumpling. I tried the Climate Change (£2.29), the Winter Glow (£2.29) and Otter Head (£2.95) all of which were excellent. I thought this was a very good JDW and well worthy of its place in the 2018 GBG.

Official site of George's Meeting House (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Official site of George's Meeting House (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com