Black Bull

Once I’d got over my incorrect assumption that Gateacre is cripplingly rough (I don’t know where I gleaned that from) I made my way to the village. The Black Bull was the first stop.
From the outside, this pub certainly looks the part. A huge mock-​Tudor hall of black and white timbers overlooking a cobbled forecourt, the building feels like the dominant presence of the village. It’s not hard to imagine a coach and horses parked outside.
Owing to the fact it’s a member of the Embers Inn chain, the inside turned out to be a let-​down. Portions of the interior connect with the right feeling of rural pubness but for the most part you feel like you could be sat anywhere. The furniture is slightly too new, the food and drink selection is slightly too identical to every other Embers Inn and the staff are slightly too young. This is a shame because if they’d just left the pub to get a good kicking from history, it’d be a very interesting place.