The Sloop Inn, Bantham, Devon

A visit to The Sloop Inn in Bantham, Devon, was part of a hen weekend for Kitty planned perfectly by her bridesmaid, a Bantham local, and possibly the nicest girl you could meet.

This feels like a particularly outdated review because since we went there, Kitty has got married, come back from honeymoon, and had three kittens (last part may not be true). Anyway, it was back in June.

There's really just 5 things you need to know about The Sloop Inn, in no particular order:

1. It's a proper, settle-in-for-the-afternoon, wash your worries away with beer and banter pub
2. It's a long way from Clapham so you'd need to be in the area to contemplate going
3. From what I could tell (although bear in mind I was in a party of 20 hens) they're not in need of a marketing push (custom seemed pretty healthy)
4. Which kinda gets me off the hook because my custom extended to ordering 20 Sambuca shots and leaving very soon after - I'm afraid I couldn't even tell you what ale was on
5. However I'm hoping my otherwise comprehensive and informed critique of other pubs puts me in enough credit to say with credible confidence "this is a great pub. If you're within 15 miles of it and don't pay a visit you need your head testing. Or your Sat Nav."

I've just remembered another pub that we walked to earlier that day - and when I say walked, I don't mean we tottered across the road in our kitten heels (though in fairness that's how we arrived at the Sloop) - no, we trekked the coastline for 2 hours in each direction. Longer coming back, because a few of us decided to try the last stretch cross country, only to find a sequence of fields that interconnect on Rubik cube levels of complexity. Devon farmers really don't make trespass easy.

Anyway, that other pub, which we eventually arrived at, weary but happy, like cussing Enid Blyton characters, was The Hope and Anchor, in Hope Cove.

Again, this isn't really a pub I can do justice given the circumstances of our visit (we were too busy wondering how much of a tit we could make of Kitty later that evening -turns out, a lot of a tit, bless her incredibly up-for-it socks), but I'm more than happy to give it the Milly seal of approval, for what it's worth.

It was busy, so the food was slow, but then anyone who goes to the Devon coast in summer expecting a personalised, speedy service should be put in stocks and thoroughly laughed at. The food when it came was average, which for a very busy tourist pub is a bonus, the beer was fine (ok, I had Magners, so shoot me), and generally it fitted the bill for a pub at the end of a bracing walk. A drink, a fisherman's pie or similar, and you're ready to walk back again.

The Sloop Inn though, now that's a pub you wouldn't want to walk away from.