Bo-Peep, Orpington

Surprisingly, given how close to the south-east edge of the Greater London conurbation this is, it retains a real country dining pub feel in the various seating / restaurant areas. It also has a relaxed beer garden round the back. Three real ales on handpump: a house beer of unknown provenance, Doom Bar and an Orange Pale Ale from the local Craft Beer Man (£5.00).

It was reasonably quiet here on our mid/late-afternoon visit to the Chelsfield area. Whilst they weren't serving food at this time, there were still a few drinkers around and perhaps some leftover diners from lunchtime. We were encouraged to take a seat outside, where drinks were brought out. The solitary real ale was Westerham Spirit of Kent. If coming to Chelsfield and also visiting the Five Bells, I would recommend visiting the Five Bells first, as the local R7 bus does a circular routing only going from the Five Bells to the Bo Peep and not in the opposite direction. Otherwise, you can walk uphill from Knockholt station, as we did. Nice country pub, the sort you could not imagine existing in Greater London.

A rather odd name for a pub I would say, but despite that it's a fairly nice pub cum restaurant. Again oddly, the entrance is at the back near the garden and car park. You enter into a smallish room with just two or three tables and chairs, with the room dominated by a magnificent inglenook fireplace on the left. There are three rooms leading off from here, all of which seemed to be dining rooms as in two of them everyone was eating, and the third had tables laid for diners although it was unoccupied. One would hope that there would be more seating for those just wanting a drink other than the tables in the small bar area. I was very happy to sit in the bar area of course, but as far as I could see everybody else was eating. The rooms are all low-ceilinged and have the country pub trademark black batons on the ceilings. As it was a nice day when I visited the pub garden was very popular. In fact the place was doing a very good trade when I visited on Wednesday afternoon. A pub description on the wall claims it was built in 1548; it's old but I don't reckon that much of it is that old. As I didn't sit in one of the dining areas I didn't see a menu, but I did spot some food items advertised on a chalkboard - brie & beetroot tart is £10.95; fish pie with cheesy mash and peas is £9.95; and Thai cod & prawn fishcakes with salad are also £9.95. Not much like pub grub, but they do say that they specialise in fish. The ale selection was just about OK - the Bo Peep Ale (with sheep logo of course) is brewed by Adnam's, they had on Doom Bar of course, but I went for the local brewery Westerham's British Bulldog at £4 a pint. This is definitely a food led pub - at least it was on the weekday lunchtime that I visited, and I would be surprised if that wasn't also the case in the evenings. It's a decent pub of sorts, although it is more of a restaurant.

Official site of the Bo Peep with menus and event details - www.thebopeep.com

Official site of the Bo Peep with menus and event details - www.thebopeep.com