The Plough, West Drayton

With a picket fence and potted plants the Plough looks like a country pub from the exterior, which is a surprise considering its location adjacent to the M4 and a Holiday Inn. I imagine much of the trade comes from the hotel. Picnic tables are found out the front and to the left is a large decked area that also houses some picnic tables. Out the back is a car park. The interior of the pub consists of an L shaped bar and a small dining area to the left. My nose suggested that the menu would consist mainly of Indian food, but the menu revealed that traditional pub fayre was available. As a price guide, the sausage and mash was £10.50. The bar is stocked with standard keg and the two hand pumps were drawing Fullers London Pride and Greene King IPA. The service was polite, but I do not plan to visit here again.

Just down the road from my pre holiday parking hotel and surely a better option for a pint and meal. I had the pint bit - a very average London Pride. Colourful locals put me off staying for food. When Nan starts with the C Bomb, its time to move on.

Close to the M4 motorway and Heathrow Airport on the edge of the village of Sipson is The Plough, an attractive looking pub that resembles somewhat the type of rural pub that you might expect to come across in the remote countryside of Hampshire or Sussex. Sipson will probably be familiar to many people as the village that was destined for obliteration to accommodate the proposed third runway for Heathrow. Thankfully the scrapping of the plans has meant that the threat has passed and The Plough will hopefully now remain in situ for many more years to come. A white picket fence lining the garden perimeter and a splendid array of colourful hanging baskets and flower tubs beckon us inside the low white washed building. Inside, we find an archetypal old style country pub – horse brasses, dark oak beams, carpeting and dark wooden table. There’s no TV’s or anything to disturb the traditional country pub atmosphere. It’s a smallish cosy interior serviced from an L shaped bar counter and with a dedicated restaurant area down one end. There’s a large seating area outside at the front of the pub. Sitting here, I half expected to hear the constant stream of planes passing by overhead, but, pleasingly, this proved not to be the case on my recent Sunday afternoon visit. A blackboard outside tells us that the pub is open from 12-23 and serving food from 12-22, the unusual use of the 24 hour clock probably reflecting the fact that the pub gets custom from foreign visitors using the Holiday Inn next door. The configuration of the pub sign and the lettering suggests that it was once a Watney’s pub, although the trademark roundel with the stag logo is not present. Disappointingly, I didn’t detect any community focus to the pub – for instance, I expected to see framed photos of jubilant residents toasting the village’s reprieve and relevant newspaper cuttings, but I didn’t see anything at all. Although the pub was quite busy, there was something of a transient destination pub feel to the place – people coming in for a pint and / or Sunday roast and then leaving. The pub is on the 222 Bus Route between Hounslow and Uxbridge ( there’s a frequent service, even on Sundays ) and, thoughtfully, London Transport have provided a stop virtually outside the pub’s front door in both directions. There’s 4 handpumps situated round the side of the bar, not immediately noticeable as you walk in. 2 real ales were on – London Pride and Bombardier – the former being on reasonable form at £ 3.25p. The other 2 pumps were unclipped and, not seeing any other pump clips anywhere, I concluded that there was no real emphasis or commitment on the real ale front. As a pub, I quite warmed to the place, probably largely because it was a pleasant surprise in not exactly being the type of pub that I expected to find so close to the concrete high rise jungle that is Heathrow and its surroundings. It’s not a must visit pub by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re on the way to/from Heathrow, you could do much worse than seek it out.