The William Morris (JD Wetherspoon), Cowley, Oxford

Official site of The William Morris (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Official site of The William Morris (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Dull, 'L'-shaped 'spoons on the edge of the Templars Square shopping centre, with no real effort made with the furniture or decor to add any interest. Nothing much doing on the two banks of duplicated handpumps either, with just Swift One from Bowman (£1.99) and Burton Bridge's Stairway to Heaven in addition to the usual trio of Ruddles, Doom Bar and Abbot.

I was certainly glad to learn that this place wasn't named after the bloke who designed wallpaper but the other one who set up the local motor vehicle company. It looks like some sort of shop conversion with the bar on the left, a raised area at the front and extending back where there are a couple of sofas and a dog leg leading to the ground level toilets. Like many shop conversions it gets darker the further away you are from the front windows. Although the bar has two sets of five hand pumps I was told that the bottom five weren't in use after ordering the clipped Vale beer from them. This meant that the only beers available were the two GK beers, White Horse Village Idiot & Blowing Stone and North Cotswold Shagweaver. I looked to the fridges and saw a carboard box which was Wild Wood cider so had a pint of that (£3.05). The standard guest ale price here is £2.15. I found the situation with five unused hand pumps a bit bizarre but apart from that this one didn't seem too bad so I've only knocked a point off the score.

The William Morris is a large Wetherspoons pub on the periphery of a shopping centre. The usual drink and food promotions are available throughout the week. As my visit was on a Wednesday evening I went for a chicken dish which set me back £6.50 and came with a pint. I thought it very good value and not that bad to be honest. It was just a shame the fork I was given had remnants of the last diner’s meal on it. There are a couple of plasma screens that were both showing muted build up to the following days independence elections in Scotland. I noted the presence of a couple of gaming machines and unsurprisingly there was no background music. The bar is stocked with standard draught products and there are two banks of five hand pumps. These were drawing a mix of regulars and guests including White Horse Brewery’s Wayland Smithy and Village Idiot alongside Ruddles and Fullers’ London Pride. There were also a couple of real ciders available in the form of Westons’ Marcle Hill and Old Rosie. I suppose it is always handy to have a local Spoons because you know what you are going to get, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to revisit this pub or the surrounding area.