The Three Fishes (Lloyds No. 1), Worthing

With the Timothy Shelley over the road having closed, this is now Worthing's only Wetherspoons venue, occupying the former showroom of the Worthing Corporation Electricity Board, whose three fishes emblem can still be seen on the front of the building. This is technically a Lloyds Bar, but visiting on a Sunday afternoon there was nothing much to alert you to the fact. It's a fairly compact pub by Wetherspoons' usual expansive standards, with a simple rectangular ground floor room operating as the main bar. The servery runs along the right hand wall and there is a mix of standard tables and chairs and high tables and stools in the front section under the large front windows. The room has been carpeted throughout with lots of nice labelled black and white photos depicting local scenes around the walls, alongside a few elaborately framed plain mirrors. A staircase opposite the bar leads up to a first floor seating area with plenty more tables although I only gave the area a cursory glance. Beyond the stairs there is a sizeable space under some fancy modern light shades with half panelled walls and a DJ booth to the rear left - perhaps the only obvious indication of the pub's Lloyds Bar status. TV screens were showing Wetherspoons promotional material rather than the usual rolling news channels and there was no music playing, which is in contrast to when I once popped my head in here back in the days when the Timothy Shelley was still open. A door to the rear leads out to a decent sized patio garden which was fairly unremarkable beyond the fact that Wetherspoons beer gardens are a reasonably rare feature. An initial glance at the hand pumps was rather discouraging thanks to three 'Spoons regulars (doubled up) dominating the handles, but closer inspection revealed four guest ales, from which I sampled the Banks and Taylor Dragon Slayer. I'm afraid to say that this was easily the worst pint I had on my seven pub crawl around Worthing, but having stopped off for a bite to eat too, I was relieved to find the grub was up to the usual reliable, unfussy standard. I'm not really sure how Wetherspoons decide which pubs to keep and which to discard, but I find it difficult to understand why in this instance they chopped the far better Timothy Shelley and kept this rather sub-par place. There is very little here that you won't have seen done better elsewhere and with a question mark over their beer quality, those looking for a decent pint of ale would do well to stick to micropubs and established ale houses, of which Worthing has plenty of each.

Unremarkable Lloyds No 1, with quite a dark, rectangular bar extending back some way. Also has an extra seating area upstairs and a patio area to the rear. Not a bad selection from the two banks of five handpumps, with several local ales including the Langham Best Bitter (£2.35).

This is the more modern (March 2010) of the two Worthing Spoons and with its chandeliers and less formulaic decor seems a bit more refined than across the road. On my pre-noon Saturday visit it was mostly older folk eating in here. There is an upstairs area that I didn't bother to investigate. Although it is a Lloyds No. 1 and the JDW web site advertises evening music it's hard to envisage this place becoming a night club late on a Friday or Saturday night. I suppose there must be SOME people in Worthing under the age of thirty. The bar had two banks of five pumps but sadly the GK Ruddles & Abbot and Doom Bore were all doubled up. This just left Caledonian Harpoon The Long Thaw, Goldmark Liquid Gold, Oakham JHB and a beer called Admiral Herkules. I went for the Goldmark Liquid Gold which it turned out was the end of the cask and cloudy so switched to the Admiral Herkules (£2.20) which I later discovered was a Banks's beer. It was also a low ABV golden ale in very good nick. If you like staring at chandeliers then this is the Spoons to go for but personally I would rather slum it with the daytime brigade over the road and have a much better choice of beers.

This Wetherspoon's is almost opposite the other outlet and I would say a better option. A good selection of real ales and friendly staff.

As noted below, both the Spoons in Worthing are unusually located opposite each other. This is the Lloyds No.1 variant with the usual Lloyds-esque stylings over two floors (the large Worthing pier frieze is quite eye-catching) with quiet music on my Saturday afternoon visit. The building has some exterior Deco (I think) stylings which are quite nice. Usual Spoons light issues, quite clear and bright at the front but darkens as you go in though it does brighten up a little as you reach the doors to the rear patio. Toilets were leaking quite badly so Tim will have to shell out for the carpets to get a good steam clean next week. Four guests over the ten pumps and the standard of ale coming out was high – the Arundel Gold I thought was pretty good but was bowled over by the American collaboration beer my companion had, would have stayed for a pint more had we not had a coach to get back to. Service was also pretty good. In a town where a number of the GBG pubs didn’t live up to billing last Saturday this one was a beer treat, Spoons or no.