Victoria Hotel, Dorchester

A Victorian red brick hotel near the town centre, presumably once mainly serving the nearby railway station, but now a down-market back street local. The is a grass area at the front with table and chairs, but it falls short of being a nice garden and feels more like a sad attempt at a park in a housing estate. Inside, there is a small public bar with a pool table, dart board and large TV screen, which was showing live football. The occupants of this bar were mainly young male morons with the speaking skills of a laryngitic warthog, who were failing to play a decent game of pool and trying to drown out the awful noise coming from the juke box. An array of sports trophies, a couple of cricket bats above the bar and some football shirts crucified to the ceiling hinted at something better, but it wasn’t clear whether this was times past or a different crowd. The saloon bar is slightly larger, and that was full of feral families. There is also a skittle alley at the rear, but this wasn’t open when we visited. The solitary barmaid was overworked and appeared under-appreciated. It’s still a Marston’s pub, so at least the beer was decent – six pumps across the two bars, but only two ales on, Razorback and Ringwood Best, both in good condition. There was also factory cider from Inch and Thatcher’s, plus two premium lagers, Carlsberg and Guinness. There are more appealing pubs nearby.

a two bar pub with good quality letting rooms and a large confrence room. the bars are one sports bar with sky sports pool table dart boards and a adjoining skittle alley. plus a lounge bar laid out with comfortable seating and quite music, real ales, good menu,close to town center and train stations