The Queen’s Head

The Queen’s Head, Newton, Cambridgeshire CB22 7PG

An outwardly unassuming brick-built pub in a village a few miles south-west of Cambridge, that is one of the dwindling number to have featured in every edition of the Good Beer Guide. It also appears as a regional entry on CAMRA’s National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors.

There is a cosy lounge on the left, a main bar area with settles and a quarry-tiled floor, and a further room to the right featuring table skittles. The general atmosphere is comfortable and lived-in. Beers are stillaged on gravity behind the bar, with cooling jackets. Although a free house, Adnams’ beers feature heavily. On my visit there were Southwold Bitter, Ghost Ship and Broadside, together with Taylors’ Landlord as a guest. Southwold Bitter was a very reasonable £3.10.

There’s a simple food menu including soup, sandwiches and meat and cheese platters, but it’s no destination dining pub. It has a somewhat genteel feel to it, but is genuinely welcoming to all. It’s odd how the South of England manages to draw middle-class customers to non-dining village and rural pubs in a way that is hard to imagine in Cheshire – see also the Crown at Churchill in Somerset.

2 comments:

  1. That's a spot-on observation. Interesting reminder that the beer here is cheap for Cambs, rather obscured by pricey but good soup I normally have. Your Genteel is a better word than the posh word I've used in the past.

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  2. Posh is people in mustard-coloured trousers loudly sounding off about polo and shooting.

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