FORTY GREEN.

This ancient place is great to look round, with enormous appeal, both in the layout of the building itself and in the fascinating collection of antiques which fill it. The rambling rooms have huge black ship's timbers, finely carved old oak panelling, roaring winter fires with handsomely decorated iron firebacks, and there’s a massive settle apparently built to fit the curved transom of an Elizabethan ship; you can also see rifles, powder-flasks and bugles, ancient pewter and pottery tankards, lots of brass and copper, needlework samplers, and stained glass. Outside, there are seats in a neatly hedged front rose garden, or in the shade of a tree. As well as a guest such as Wychwood Hobgoblin, they serve kept Brakspears Bitter, Fullers London Pride, Greene King Old Speckled Hen, and Marstons Pedigree on handpump, and country wines and mead; the main dining bar and one other area are no smoking. They do interesting lunchtime sandwiches (£5.75), as well as home-made soup (£3.95), garlic and sherry stuffed mushrooms with brie (£4.50), chestnut, mushroom, celeraic and squash roulade (£7.95), pork fillet with peppercorn, cream and brandy sauce with grain mustard mash or crisp battered haddock with minted pea puree (£8.25), and slow-cooked lamb marinated in mint and honey (£9.90), with home-made puddings such as gooseberry fool (£3.95). Until after the Battle of Worcester in 1651 (when Charles II hid in the high rafters of what is now its food bar), the pub used to be called the Ship. Children are allowed in the eating area of the bar.