Proper pie-eyed at best pub in Notts

EXCEPTIONAL FOOD AND WARM WELCOME AT OUR POLL WINNER

- By LYNETTE PINCHESS

ANYONE who has been to the pub crowned Nottinghamshire's best will tell you about the crackling ales, the exceptional food and the warm welcome.

The Plough Inn is an undisputed gem a quintessential English pub that doesn't try to be something it isn't.

Nestled in the heart of rural Notts, it's in Hickling in the Vale of Belvoir, at the end of a short detour off the A606. The traditional Plough Inn, in Main Street, is the village's last remaining pub.

Our readers nominated more than 110 pubs in the county for Notts Bites' Pub of the Year, from micro pubs and country inns to lively city-centre watering holes.

The four with the most nominations were shortlisted in the final in which readers voted for their favourite. The country pub was up against the Lord Roberts and Billy Bootleggers, both in the city centre, and the Four Bells in Woodborough.

The Plough proved a runaway winner, drawing four times as many votes as the runner-up, the Lord Roberts.

The numbers showed it must be doing something right in these tumultuous times for the industry where barely a day goes by without a pub closing down.

We visited on a Wednesday night, expecting it to be quiet, but it was buzzing with families, couples, friends, a dog or two, and cyclists.

Just across the road from the Grantham Canal, the pub attracts plenty of walkers and those taking a thirst-quenching pit stop from a bike ride. The pub looks full of character from the outside - local historians believe it to be centuries old, maybe going back to the 1770s.