Punch Bowl Inn, Richmond

A long thin pub mainly a restaurant but will cater for casual drinkers. Pleasant modern decor with lots to look at, including some mirrors made from church windows. There are three main rooms, a bar with dining tables, a smaller square room with dining tables with a small oil lamp on each making a change from tea lights and effing candles. At the end is a larger dining room. Four pulls serving decent but not outstanding Black Sheep, Theakstons, Bombardier and Rudgate. Nice views across Swaledale from the front drinking patio. Wittenden and Ale & Hearty have described the atmosphere correctly, like the CB it's mainly a restaurant and to prove it we got a service check from every member of staff when we ate there recently.

This large 17th Century stone pub stands slightly elevated to one side of the main road to/from Reeth and is owned by the same people that run Charles Bathurst in nearby Arkengarthdale. Whilst the emphasis is mainly on dining and accommodation, I didn’t find it to be place that feels awkward with drinkers/diners seemingly mingling with ease throughout the pub and there seemed to be plenty of space to disperse people throughout the pub without getting being intrusive on each other although, to be fair, it wasn’t particularly busy on my visit. The pub was refurbished in 2006 after a lengthy closure and period of uncertainty as to its future although the modern surroundings may be a little off putting to pub traditionalists. Whislt not a fan of such drastic transformations, I feel that it has been done quite tastefully and they have retained a certain amount of character. Some of the furnishings were made in the workshop of Robert “Mouseman of Kilburn” Thompson and if you look hard enough you will find some well hidden carved mice, mainly in the bar stools and mirror frames. The interior is divided into 3 sections with the main bar to the right hand side of the pub. The lighting was a bit on the bright side and the furnishings contained a fair number of sofa s and the like. A small central section contains local pictures of the surrounding area and a series of theatre posters whilst the larger main dining takes up the furthest end. The 4 ales available were standard for the area (Black Sheep Best, Black Sheep Rigwelter, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Theakston Best) and the place could certainly benefit from a guest beer or two. There was a decent mix of 60’s 70’s and 80’s music piped at a tolerable volume and free WiFi service is available, useful to know as we found that there were few places in the area that were laptop friendly. Service was friendly and efficient and the locals quite chatty. It certainly isn’t a pub with the rustic Dales charm and internally it probably wouldn’t look too far out of place in a town centre but it filled a convenient hole in my schedule and I can think of no specifc reason not to pop in if passing.

The Punch Bowl is a rugged, traditional stone building, over three floors. Dating from the 17th Century, it’s imposingly mounted on a bank, a short way back from the B6270. One half houses the highly regarded restaurant and the other half the bar. The pub website describes the Inn as ‘contemporary and traditional’, however the balance definitely lies with the former. The bar is a long narrow room, with bare floorboards and walls that are half-panelled and half-plain. There are wall mounted sconce lights and racks of halogen spots. Plain wooden tables and chairs predominate, although there are several tub chairs at the far end, below the menu adorned mirror, next to the fire. Unfortunately, it all felt rather sterile and cold, more inner-city wine bar than Dales pub. I’m afraid the coldness wasn’t just confined to the decor. On our visit there were four real ales: Theakson’s Best, Black Sheep Best, Landlord and Riggwelter. Although fresh tasting the serving temperature was way too cold, spoiling what was probably a decent pint. Furthermore, the young (Dutch?) barman was far from welcoming. We called late Sunday afternoon and giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may have been frazzled from lunch service, but his supercilious manner certainly won him no friends. After two drinks we cut short our visit and left, feeling more than a little bemused. As an unapologetic traditional pub hound, the whole feel of the place was just ‘wrong’, for me. Whist accepting that times have changed and acknowledging the importance of food these days to a pub’s survival, I can’t believe such an unsympathetic refurb was necessary. Whilst visiting the gents I noticed the Molton Brown hand-wash next to the basin. No doubt the management perceived it as ‘a nice little touch’ but to me it encapsulated the misplaced ethos of the Punch Bowl. Such details as a warm welcome and beer at a decent temperature are far more important.

Official site of the Punch Bowl Inn - www.pbinn.co.uk

Official site of the Punch Bowl Inn - www.pbinn.co.uk