The Queen's Head, Loughborough

Located in a pleasant little Leicestershire village, opposite the village maypole, this is a smart, heavily modernised gastro pub with separate bar and restaurant areas. Entering from the front porch, you turn right for the compact bar, which has a somewhat stripped back feel to it, thanks to bare floorboards, plain walls and a chunky bar counter down the left hand wall. The bar has a simple, mirrored bar back with blackboards on either side detailing various food and entertainment options. Tub chairs are strewn rather haphazardly around the front part of the room, where an attractive fireplace, dartboard and TV screen can be found – the latter showing a repeat of the previous day’s football fixture. High tables and stools run down the right side, opposite the bar, and there is a very nice and unusual oval-shaped table in the rear right corner. Local black and white photos liven up the otherwise bare wall space and there were pop and indie tunes playing fairly quietly in the background. The restaurant area occupies the much larger left hand section of the pub and runs a lot further back than the bar area does. It has its own servery, but there are no handpulls on this side. Comfy lounge seating is available opposite the bar, with standard tables and chairs filling up the various spaces through the rest of the room. Large patio windows look out to the village shop and pub car park. The pub also has a few rooms available on the first floor and we stopped off here for the night, finding a very nice, plush and well appointed room that served us well for our brief stop-over. There were three ales on the bar – Taylor Landlord, Batemans Rosey Nosey and Charnwood Salvation. The latter was a pleasant, sessionable local ale that went down nicely at the end of a long day. The bar staff, waitresses and manager were all very friendly and hospitable and we enjoyed both our time in the bar and our overall stay. I really liked this place as somewhere to stay and if I was planning on visiting the area again, I wouldn’t hesitate to book here again. When viewing it solely as a pub though, it falls down a little, as the stripped back, gastro-style design left me cold and I’m not sure I’d want to have a full session in here. Probably best used for dining or accommodation but there are better village pubs in the area if you just want a drink.

Official site of The Queen's Head - queensheadbelton.co.uk

Official site of The Queen's Head - queensheadbelton.co.uk

The Queens head was a Bass tied house when i first went in here in 1985. This is quite a large pub and i dont know what beers the pub sells now. Photo taken 3/12/08