The Saracens Head Inn, Ross-On-Wye

If location, location, location is everything they say it is then this 17th Century pub and hotel has a pretty good head start on most. Situated on the sheltered banks of the River Wye as it passes through a scenic gorge the pub is a big draw for the numerous hikers and canoeists that flock to the area. The pub appears to be a series of several buildings now grouped under one banner. The bar section is in the left hand building with a restaurant and the hotel occupying the rest. The bar is quite shallow but long with a flagstoned floor and simple newish pine furnishings including some high backed settles that break up the openness of the seating. Various Wye Valley maps, guides and leaflets are available. It’s not the biggest place in the world and during the peak summer months I would expect the place to be very busy which may be an issue regarding service but this wasn’t a problem at my time of calling. Outside is a pleasant covered patio which would take a reasonable amount of customer overspill and from here you can watch the free to use hand pulled ferry that takes visitors to the other side of the river. Given that the pub is reliant on a fairly transient footflow it would be easy to assume that it just needs to cover the basics to get by but to its credit and my surprise, it offerred 6 ales which was amongst the best selections I found in my long weekender trip around the district. 3 were fairly commonplace to the area, Doom Bar and a Wye Valley pairing of Butty Bach and HPA with the other 3 comprising of Otley O1, Kingstone 1503 Tudor Ale and Bespoke Saved By The Bell. I didn’t note the food details but there were several people eating and it all looked decent enough. The village is well worth a visit and there are several walks of varying degrees of difficulty in the surrounding area with the added bonus of what is a very worthy pub to start / finish.