September 2023. Tonbridge (not Royal).
Three (3) posts from the self-proclaimed Garden of England on a Tuesday night when Tonbridge suddenly made sense.
Mrs RM and I have felt exhausted on our return from attending to parents, and that’s as much to do with being confined indoors and missing out on our 20,000 steps as the mental stress.
It’s amazing how much better you feel after a few pubs in an unheralded town with a castle.
Five minutes on the bus from Southborough and you’re outside the Foresters, one of the best of Sheps fairly drab pub stock.
This was actually my last Kent chapter tick as recently as 2019, when the quirky interior
made more impression than the cask.
It dropped out of the Guide after that, replaced by the excellent Nelson Arms, and the beer range hasn’t changed in four years in the Foresters.
Actually, they hadn’t got the Spitfire, as the cask range gets culled throughout the Sheps estate.
But never mind all that. The pub buzzes with youthful energy, the barman asks if I want the handled jugs or straight glasses. I forget that “straight” doesn’t mean “sleeve”.
The Whitstable is a 3, Mrs RM’s Finger (“Wasn’t there any craft ?”) a tad better, the pizza a 4.5.
Beavertown flows, BB Kings sings, a group of lads discuss their bets on Arsenal v Milan, a woman extravagantly jumps over a dog bowl at the bar, we momentarily forget our concerns.
There’s a lovely 6pm hum about the place, and not even the non-removal of some filth on DVD can dissuade me from my view that this is a MUST on any Tonbridge crawl.
That said, local legend Paul Bailey apart, when did you last read about a pub crawl in Tonbridge ?.
retiredmartin 
A truly unusual looking pub for Shepherd Neame. I sense a remodel coming.
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It’s been like that for a while, I think, and you’re right it’s very unusual for Sheps.
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Definitely unusual for Sheps, Dave and Martin, but to be fair to the brewery, they allowed the landlord a free hand in the decor, and the revamp of the pub, and it has proved very successful. Excellent pizza too, as the photo shows.
It’s a pub I don’t visit that often, but every time I have called in, I’ve always been impressed. Our previous residence was just 5 minutes’ walk from the Forester’s – it had two bars back then, but that was 30 years ago.
Thanks for the ping-back to my North Tonbridge crawl (all two pub’s worth!). Sorry I was unable to join you and Mrs RM last Tuesday. Eileen is keeping a very tight rein on me, until after the cruise, which kind of makes sense, I suppose, but they come off when we return!
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