www.pryordurkin.com

The Old Ferry Boat Inn.

We visited what is described as the oldest haunted pub in England for Sunday Lunch with the family. Unfortunately like all good family pubs, it has now been sold out to the Green King brewery. We arrived at around 12.30 to meet up in the bar which is a warm and cosy place but predominantly designed for eating not drinking. Looking forward to our meal we were then shown through to our table which unfortunately was situated ‘out the back’. The room was large, spacious but did not have the same warm, cosy feel to it as had been experienced in the bar.

Settling down the kids and having looked at the menus, we placed our orders for a selection of typical Sunday lunch dishes, kids dishes and steak dishes.

The starters arrived and having placed the ‘paper napkins’ (I hate these things – they should be banned), we tucked in. My soup was barely luke warm and a real disappointment.

After a long wait the mains arrived and my poor stomach turned. I could see as the waitress carried my lot across the room, it was the ‘mass catering’ variety of Sunday Lunch. Watery veg, awful gravy, frozen roast potatoes and soggy Yorkshire pudding. It was horrible. Fortunately those amongst our group who had ordered steak or pie fared much better, with a reasonable meal. However Paul and I with our Sunday Lunch affair were of the same opinion, that it was the worst meal we had eaten in years.

I took a visit to the toilet!.

The toilet was a grubby little affair but you could say, typical of Greene King Establishments.

Hoping that even this place could not screw up deserts I ordered a fresh fruit crumble with custard. When it arrived, it was welded to my plate (as a result of microwave cooking no doubt) and apart from the sugar which kept my energy levels up, had little else to offer in terms of taste, experience or enjoyment.

No wonder this place is haunted; it is not by a ghost, but by the feelings of guilt the management must have for serving such awful food.

Score. No Stars. Avoid.