The Bull, Tickford End, Newport Pagnell

A traditional looking boozer located a few minutes walk away from the town centre and past the site of the old Aston Martin factory, this seems to be a popular local’s pub and was fairly busy on a recent mid-week evening visit. However, they also offer quite cheap B&B and I think a number of the punters may have been staying there, including one guy I got chatting to who had apparently split up from his wife and been there for six months! It’s a two room pub with the lounge to the left. This is quite attractive and has an old country inn feel to it with a wood strip floor and a low beamed ceiling with a few of the obligatory horse brasses dotted around. The walls have dark wood panelling on the lower part with rough white plasterwork above and black timber detailing, as well as some exposed brick work. A large brick fire-place is to one side and it looks as though a log fire is lit on occasions. The bar counter was fronted with old beer barrels and there were hops hung all around the ceiling. A small alcove up a couple of steps at the rear housed a plasma and this was showing a football match although the volume was off so it was not too intrusive. The public bar to the right has a tiled floor along with both a pool table and a darts board. A menu board outside the pub listed a number of “pub grub” dishes for £6.50 and I enquired before ordering my pint if they were doing food. I was assured that they were so duly ordered a drink and then asked for the menu. I was then told that there was no menu, the choices were Chicken & Chips or Sausage & Chips. To be honest I was quite annoyed about this, it’s certainly not what I had in mind. And what if I had been vegetarian? I don’t know why I couldn’t have been told when I asked if they were doing food that the choice was so limited. Perhaps it was because the barmaid seemed very distracted, I didn’t even get the change from my food order. To be fair, the (three) sausages, pile of chips and peas were a generous portion and at £2.99 it would be churlish to complain even if the gravy was conspicuous by it’s absence. Beers on tap were Everard’s Tiger, Bengal Lancer and Spitfire. A fourth pump for Abbott Ale appeared to have run out. Ciders were Strongbow and Scrumpy Jack. In many ways this seems quite a decent pub and if you’re just popping in for a pint then I’d probably recommend it, but for me the misleading lack of food left something of a sour taste.