please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Rather crass to eat your own sandwiches when visiting a pub - particularly one selling/serving food!
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Went here because we saw that it had won a national award. It is like stepping back into the 16th Century. No bar, just a tap room, which sold about half a dozen fine ales. I had the Wolfes, which was very nice. We had a contretemps with one of the staff because we were eating our sandwiches outside, fair enough I suppose, but we would have stayed longer had she turned a blind eye.
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Called in for lunch yesterday. Continues to rank as my most favourite pub. Food well up to standard, Adnams fine, character timeless, staff very friendly and as mentioned in previous review, interior (and exterior!) beautifully preserved without in any way being tarted up or faked.
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Cannot find fault with this pub and can only echo previous comments. Also worth noting the certificate on the wall from the National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors, certifying that it "has been included on CAMRA's national Inventory in recognition of the outstanding historic importance of its little-altered interior". Never knew such an inventory existed. Would be interested in knowing what other pubs are on it
Staff & other drinkers were friendly, couldn't have been more welcoming and couldn't do enough to help us with our 8 month old child. A good pie too
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Really enjoyed a cold December Saturday night here. Really friendly staff found four of us (+ dog) a table for eating even though they were full and we had not booked. Fantastic pies, and the beer was tip-top - I was even offered a glass to taste whatever I wished in the tap room
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What a great experience the low house is, been a pub/inn for nearly 500 years and you can see why. Beer is straight form the tap room with barrells all around there is no bar so like it should be. Food OK but please go when they have the beer festival in August 30 plus beers cant wait.
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A Suffolk gem and one of my favourites. Love the different rooms with settles and scrubbed tables. The tap room is brilliant. Always good for music, song and morris dancing. Keep up the good work Bob. It's great living in the past.
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A truly wonderful example of what an English pub can be. Unique in some ways but this just works. In the winter you can sit in a large settle by the fire, whilst in the summer the vast beer garden gives you plenty of sun and shade, and play space for children.
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Late write up from 29/09/08 visit (looking back through diary).
Looking across the stream from the Church yard this 15th century pub looks the part with it's steep thatched roof. Open the door and to say you step back in time would be an understatement, you look over the top of high backed settles surrounding the fire. Follow the path around the settle over well worn brick and flag floors to find two small rooms off to the right, plain but still original, looking straight on passed an antique varnished hobit-like set of drawers and cupboards and a meatsafe you see the rows of barrels from which the beer is served, no bar in this pub.
Around the settles to the left, through a small cronky doorway, leads you to the dining area which although more modern with a different atmosphere is furnished with sturdy farmhouse tables, high backed pews and photos of the pub and village over a Victorian fireplace and a cronky bell that rings a brass bell in the first room. With a range of Adnams ales and excellent tasty food, this is an historic gem for those searchers of such.
Unfortunately though we had just missed a beer festival in the garden the week before.
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This pub has more character than virtually any other I've been to recently. It's a old pub with seperate drinking areas and a cellar room that doubles as the bar at the back of the pub. It also has a large beer garden out the back. Generally 6-8 ales on from the Adnams range all gravity feed in the cellar room.
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Fantastic pub. The unspoilt and wonderfully atmospheric interior was complemented on our visit by a very friendly welcome and some really good food. Even more importantly the beers- served from the tap room, as there is no bar- were of top quality. Absolutely not to be missed if you are in this part of the world.
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Still, a very good pub. Unique interior. Not as good as it was.
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Very attractive old thatched country pub. There is no bar and all the beer is served from a tap room. All the beer is served straight from the casks with cooling. If there is a queue in this area it must be difficult to work out who is next. Customers can queue inside the pub as well as outside through a top and bottom opening door. Adnams Bitter & Explorer, Wherry and 'Bob's Special' available on Saturday. I managed to find out that Landlord 'Bob's Special' was Cliff Quay Bitter on Saturday at a very reasonable �2.40, I think.
The rear outside area has an undercover tabled area in the courtyard. Behind that there is an enclosed private garden with limited seating that looks pretty. To the side of that is a large area that I understand was originally the village bowls area. This area was certainly being used by many of the customers in the sunshine, old and young.
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A brief update to a time-warp - no Tim Taylor's now - I think Adnams stopped it throughout their estate as it was denting their own sales too much. Curry night at The Low on Tuesdays, other nationalities once a month - eg French two nights, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, always sold out.
The other pub has reopened - beer good, can go for one before 6pm when Low House opens, but clientele generally of the baseball cap and lager persuasion.
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Belated review from a visit in Sep 08.
Great pub, agree with comment below regarding atmosphere, beer quality and good basic food. Service was lovely and you cannot say that much in this age of no service!
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Cracking old pub with serious character. Beer served from the barrel in the cellar. The full range of Adnams (except Tally Ho) with Timmy Taylor Landlord as a guest on my visit.
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On a one-day trip to Southwold, it was impossible to resist the lure of a detour on the way home to the best village pub in Britain, bar none. Our first visit for over four years and nothing had changed, apart from the people now running the place, although I'm glad to say they were as welcoming as any previous regime. Wonderfully kept beer dispensed in true old-fashioned style, cosily warm & friendly atmosphere and a feeling of being totally away from it all make this the most rewarding of pub-going experiences possible.
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This pub must have been one that put "Good" into the phrase "Good Old Days". As soon as you enter, you are transported into a long bygone era, when life was much simpler and people more content. This is before you even order your beer. Divided into little rooms, having high-backed chairs and real fires are just the start. Photographs on the walls and old artefacts on shelves and windowsills add to the wonderful country pub atmosphere. There is no bar, and beer is served by gravity from barrels in a back room. A good selection of draught (I had a beautiful pint of Adnam's Old Ale) and bottled beers, charmingly served, at the right temperature, all add to the feel-good factor. The bus service to the nearest railhead, Halesworth, is not frequent, but the times allow you to have two and a half hours on a lunchtime visit.
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We visited this pub on Xmas eve 2007 after reading about in in the CAMRA national Inventory. I've visited pubs all over the UK and am choosy about these I like; the best ones have great real ale, food, service and atmosphere. The Low House has to be THE best- no contest. Not only is it an beautifully unspoilt piece of history with real fire and timber panelling intact, it serves the best pint of Adnams I've ever had, and the food (in my case the steal and ale pie) is beyond superb. As if that werent enough the charming waitress did all she could to make our visit memorable and without being intrusive or over solicitous.
I have previously tried to imagine what the perfect pub would be like (and even wrote about it). Well, this is it. I urge anyone who reads this to use it, and keep this institution, the epitomy of what an English pub should be, alive.
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Superb ale drinkers pub, with a large selection of Adnams� beers, served by polite staff from the cellar room at the rear.
The pubs, which is a very picturesque thatched number, is divided in to three drinking areas, a large settle in the front room, usually monopolised by the locals, a little snug off to the right and a further room as you approach the cellar. A fourth room serves mainly as a dining area.
Food is good and very reasonably priced, starting from filled baguettes and ploughmans for five to six pounds mark, up to �12ish for mains.
Nice, large beer garden is located to the rear, together with a number of benches to the front that provide an excellent, sunny location for a boozy, summer afternoon overlooking the small brook and the church beyond.
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A gem. Well worth visiting if in the area. A proper tap-room. Genuine old settles. Bags of atmosphere. Good beer too.
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The good old fashioned English pub should be like the Prancing Pony in Lord of the Rings or even the Hog's Head in Harry Potter; dusty, dingy, friendly, raucous and great beer on barrel. The Low House certainly has this, beautifully positioned in the deepest darkest depths of Suffolk, Laxfield to be exact (about 5 miles from Halesworth) it has a quality you don't often come across. Local and guest beers are dispensed from barrels into dusty tankards which you swill, spit, dribble then dance on the table til the King's gaurds drag your sorry backside back to the dungeon in which you came from - sorry, got a bit carried away there.
fuzzy - 28 Jun 2006 14:50 |
I can honestly say this is by far the best pub I have ever visited. Period. I regularly visit the Suffolk region to see relatives and so I always make sure I go for a pint of Broadside at the Low House.
The pub has recently been taken over by a landlord who came out of retirement. He didn't want to go back to work in the industry but when Adnams called and asked him to visit the Kings Head he took one look at it and fell in love. Which is what all visitors do when they discover this perfect pub for the first time!
The other reviews pretty much sum up everything great about this drinking hole - my fave feature are the barrels in the kitchen and the low ceilings and tiny open fires that get cranked up in the cold winter months.
Food great, beer garden beautiful, live music too. Just simply the greatest pub this fair country has to offer!
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I've been lucky enough to visit East Anglia several times in the past few years. My in-laws introduced me to The Low House and, as an Anglophile from Oregon, I am completely captivated for two reasons.
1. The entirely civilized custom of allowing dogs at dinner. I have uploaded a shot of my handsome in-laws with the wonderful Alice the Rhodesian Ridgeback. I am the larger lummox to the left. Any place that suffers dogs gladly receives top marks from me!
2. My wife will not tolerate bread-and-butter pudding at home because of some school dinner experience requiring her to sit for six hours staring at a portion because she would not eat it. Alas, not being present at this dinner, her ukase was not observed. I have up-loaded a picture of my portion, heartliy recommended to all who can squeeze the occasional pudding past watchful eyes and the doctor.
Adnams continues as my favorite English brew and the Low House is the place to have it!
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An excellent traditional English village pub used by locals. The ale is good - no pipes to need cleaning - and so is the food.
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A very old pub that still does not have a bar. Beer is delivered by gravity from ground floor cellar. Adnams and Fullers London Pride. Daily Special food of very good quality yet reasonable price. No credit / debit cards
Kenneth Brown - 9 Nov 2004 13:03 |
The Low House Is probably one of the rarest pubs in England. It has no bar just a tap room where Adams is poured straight from the Barrell. You normally see horse and carts out the front and it is like stepping back in time. It has good food and fantastic ale and open fires and local old boys play music all day on Tuesday. One of the finest.
James Giles - 6 Feb 2004 10:57 |
Wonderful time-warp of a pub. Can be difficult to find first time as it is tucked "behind" the other pub in the village (Royal Oak). Best approached through the church-yard. Once inside you will find no bar - just several simple but cosy rooms, a friendly landlord and landlady and a selection of beers - all served straight from the barrels in the back room. Large garden for summer days - make the effort you will not regret it!
Nigel Smith - 12 Sep 2003 18:21 |
