Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: West Sussex

  • Horsham – Anchor Tap

    Horsham – Anchor Tap

    The Anchor Tap was the first pub we visited during our weekend of bar billiards in Surrey and I was pleased to discover that it is in the Good Beer Guide, so that’s another ticked off. And that’s an impressive selection of beers there, cask and keg. I think that’s a well curated beer list, numerous different beer styles and clearly laid out. As another plus, the venue is Untappd verified so I could see the beer list online.

    Excuse the blurry Oscar, Pete and Nathan in the background. This is the Stoopid White Chocolate Raspberry Cherry from Vault City and I remember the delights of when the brewery released the standard version of this beer. It pours like a smoothie and is a light, gentle, fruity and creamy.

    It was a busy pub and it takes its name as it was the former tap room of the Anchor Hotel. The building itself is late Victorian and CAMRA note:

    “Having been closed for 30 years, this pub was reopened in February 2016 by Dark Star Brewery, but with the sale of that brewer to Fuller’s in March 2018, the pub became free-of-tie. It continues to be popular with customers both local and from afar. Refurbished in an early-20th century style.”

    Although it was busy, the service was prompt and friendly, with the venue taking cards and cash. The prices are towards the higher end of the scale, but the beer quality and range is high.

    The Whole Cake from Vault City, which had flavours of raspberries and mango whilst being creamy and fruity.

    My next beer was the 7 Years Sour from Vault City (there’s a theme here for the eagle eyed reader) but Nathan doesn’t like the photo of him behind the beer and so I won’t use it here. Another beautiful beer with lots of mango and passion fruit, lots of depth and really quite decadent. But, all is not lost, the beer is visible in this photo.

    It’s not a huge venue, this is the front room and there’s a small back room, with the nearby toilet space also being quite limited in size. This is where the pub that the local branch of CAMRA was formed in a few decades ago.

    It was a really lovely venue and quite rightly in the Good Beer Guide, a perfect on-trend venue with cask and keg options. It’s well reviewed online and it had an informal and welcoming atmosphere, but given its relative small space it gets busy quickly.

  • Shoreham-by-Sea – YHA Truleigh Hill (Walk to Bus)

    Just photos of my walk to get the bus to get into Brighton and Hove. I admit that the scenery in the morning is quite nice, although I’ve got to traipse back to the campsite later again which I’m already pre-annoyed about.

    If I’m being honest, I don’t feel that I offer the same inspirational commentary on walking as Dave Morgan provides. But I do more food and drink photos, so half a dozen of one, half a dozen of the other…..

  • Shoreham-by-Sea – YHA Truleigh Hill

    Shoreham-by-Sea – YHA Truleigh Hill

    Back in February, when the world was a different place (and hotels were shut), I decided it might be interesting to go camping on my own and see if I liked it. I don’t entirely dislike it with groups of friends, but I thought it might be nice to get away from it all and be at one with nature. YHA had a deal where the campsite was just £7 per night, so a four night stay cost just £28. Given the accommodation prices in Brighton and Hove (any half decent hotel is £75+ per night), that’s considerably cheaper.

    I booked YHA Truleigh Hill, which is, as far as I’m concerned, in the middle of nowhere, although it is on the South Downs Way. It’s a 70 minute walk each way to Shoreham, although then it’s well connected with buses to the Brighton and Hove area.

    The YHA itself is a bit worn out internally, but they had been about to launch a refurbishment in 2020 before Covid hit. The renovations are on hold and might not take place for some time given the financial hit that YHA have had. One of the biggest problems is the lack of electrical points, which they had hoped to fix, but they can’t do this without an expensive electrical systems upgrade which was part of the planned renovations. The friendly staff member did though point out the four-way plug in the cafe where I could charge my devices, so that’s sorted that.

    The staff here are all perfectly friendly, although one is slightly exuberant, although I don’t suppose that’s really a complaint. There are more rules here that I’ve experienced at other YHAs, although that’s perhaps because others are a bit more lax sometimes in how they operate. There’s nothing off-putting though and the staff are doing their best to keep everything clean and organised.

    I picked this spot, which overlooks the sea (well it would have done if I had pointed the door that way).

    There’s a lower area to the camping area as well where visitors can pitch their tents, although given all the benches around there (and probably flies), I can’t imagine many do.

    My tent, which is slightly wonky but I’m not really into camping and tents. I messaged my friend Liam distressed at the complexity of putting the tent up, although the good news is that it’s still there (well, hopefully, I’m no longer near it) and I put the damn thing up unaided.

    The view from the tent. I sent this to some people who thought it must be marvellous to watch the sun go down. I’m not convinced, I spent five minutes extracting a moth the size of a seagull out of my tent.

    Anyway, I noted earlier on that it might be “nice to get away from it all”. I’ve realised that I actually really like “it all”, which is civilisation, Prets, good beer guide pubs, craft beer and public transport. I’ve come to realise how much of a city person I am and how I’m not going to set off on some solo expedition with a tent in the future. This camping thing is an interesting experiment, but I can’t see me repeating it, unless it’s with a group of friends, in a pub beer garden or in the middle of a city. The experiment isn’t yet over, but I can’t imagine my views of this whole thing will change.