"Could be great but is stuck in 1980... I chose to ignore the many recent negative reviews on here which all comment on similar things surrounding poor service and rude management because I thought the pub looked lovely and I often think that people can be quite unfair in their comments... However the name Folly sums it up...in so many ways. If you like a cluttered dirty bar, basic pub food of the jacket spud or brown chewy steak and chips variety and a Landlord who stands drinking with the locals until he 's sufficiently drunk to imagine that being rude to the rest of the punters is a great idea, then this place will delight you. Any normal person living in the 21st century may wisely choose to avoid this cheap homage to the days of Basil Fawlty and a phobia of people from 20 miles down the road. At first glance this pub could be truly great. It sits on the canalside and has an attractive outdoor bar and entertainment area called The Potting Shed. It looked lovely but was closed on the warm Thursday evening in early September when we visited. There are outdoor builder 's toilets for use by customers for some reason which I couldn 't establish. We went into the main pub which has an old fashioned public bar and a restaurant , all of it very much of the not decorated or cleaned) in 40 years feel. Cosy but grimy. Menus were well thumbed and sticky. Four of us sat in the restaurant and ordered dinner. Two of our main courses were the most expensive items on the menu. A Rib Eye and a Fillet steak £27 and £30 respectively). The menu went to some lengths to explain that those in charge of preparing our dinner would not countenance cooking a steak beyond medium. Since we wanted rare and medium rare this was reassuring. Sadly what we got was, being generous, a medium Rib Eye and a well done and very dry/chewy Fillet. The reason was clear. The steaks were tiny and ludicrously thin so they cooked too quickly and the fillet was cut from the very end which has some connective tissue sinew) which would normally be trimmed out. Cooking it to dark brown didn 't help the dryness or chewiness either. Apparently they are sourced from My companion chose to eat his rib eye, I spoke to a lady at the bar and attempted to explain what was amiss with the fillet. She cut me off and demanded to know what I wanted her to do about it. I asked if I could please have a medium rare Fillet steak without the sinew. She didn 't say another word but asked the Landlord to come and see us. He had previously introduced himself after he had left his pint of lager on our table and had seemed very pleasant and affable, commenting that he preferred socialising rather than serving behind the bar. He seemed fine and went to the kitchen to sort it out, he returned and said another was on its way. After a very long time everyone else had finished eating and the plates had been cleared) a replacement arrived. No sinew but it was well done, brown and chewy again. I found the Landlord and apologised for making a fuss, I felt sorry for him as I realise it 's difficult when one customer gets repeated faults in their meal so I just quietly asked him to take a look. He did and in seeing the overcooked meat he threw the knife and fork down and said oh for f 's sake albeit whispering the swear part. I assumed he was annoyed with his chef, which would be understandable. He never returned, although I saw him staring at me several times from the other bar. Some time later a new meal arrived. It was OK, not great, still very thin and just about medium/well. I felt like they had done their best and it wasn 't going to get any better no matter how many times they tried. However, was it worth £30 for this one dish? Not at all. Nevertheless we stayed on and had some more drinks including 4 measures of their most expensive whisky. In other words we were quite happy and happily paid our bill. When leaving I went to thank Landlord and apologised again for the situation as I felt that he was a pleasant man, doing his best, who had been let down by his Chef. I could not have been more wrong. He was drinking heavily with 4 or 5 cronies in the 'Public ' bar and made it abundantly clear that he considered me to be the problem. Rude and unprofessional would be an understatement. I left it there, not wishing to have an argument with a man who was obviously quite drunk, but as I left one of the group drinking said loudly that 'll be on TripAdvisor tomorrow . I returned and gently pointed out that all I was looking for was my steak to be cooked the way I ordered it. The Landlord essentially told me where to go. All in all a terrible pity since it has a beautiful location and lots of potential but is badly let down by a dull, old fashioned menu and a terrible approach to customers the Landlord knows are on holiday and who he can get away with treating badly. Maybe this is a recent development after a hard summer since he seemed genuinely friendly to begin with but sadly if you 're not local and a drinking buddy of the Landlord then expect to take pot luck on your meal and maybe be told to leave if you don 't like what you get!"
