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What a find. It always amazes me how quickly the urban sprawl of London and nearby Slough and even the M40 can disappear and the roads become single track.
The White Horse is a throw back to a simpler time. It's a pub - not a restaurant - or a gastro pub - but a good old-fashioned pub. A true watering hole where the antelope and the lion can drink side by side.
Inside there are two small bars. The lounge is cosy and warm with a simple beer menu on the wall. Six real ales are on sale all served straight from barrels kept behind the small bar.
Walkers begin and end a tour of the area here with good reason. The food is simple - a platter of sandwiches, home made soup or a slice of pie.
At lunchtime the chatter is about children at universities, how to use emails and texting on mobiles - and a general chorus that you never should "shorten words and always use the apostrophe."
This is place to talk with the person you've come into the pub with - there is little vacuous talk on phones just conversations - you talk with the one you're are with. The customers are knowledge about their beers, indeed they want to talk about beer. For the beauty of a place like this, with its ever-changing list of real beers, kept in the best possible conditions is that the beer matters and the tastes and aromas are worthy of good conversation.
The beer is served in traditional dimple glasses with a handle. How sad that these are regarded as old-fashioned. For the dimple glass is the perfect container for serving a proper British beer, as the thickness of the glass acts as an insulator and helps keep the beer cool at perfect cellar temperature. Outside there is a small garden, which throngs in summer especially when a beer festival is on.
White Horse,
Village Lane,
Hedgerley,
Bucks,
SL2 3UY
Tel: 01753 643225
Tourist information: www.visitbuckinghamshire.org
"Some fabulous walks and a nearby RSPB reserve. The old village is small and picturesque and contains one of the best Gothic churches in the Home Counties."
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Regional Winners 2006
Overall Winners 2005
Regional Winners 2005
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