The Woolpack Inn
Stroud, Gloucestershire
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When he wasn’t at home penning poems or working on Cider with Rosie, author Laurie Lee was often to be found supping a pint or two in his beloved Woolpack – a sturdy stone-built hostelry overlooking the verdant expanses of the Slad valley. These days, Gloucestershire ales such as Uley Pig’s Ear are regularly on tap, while the interior comprises three higgledy-piggledy rooms stuffed with rustic trappings: high-backed settles, weathered floorboards, an old upright piano and Laurie Lee memorabilia affixed to the rough-plastered walls. That said, everyone makes a beeline for the vine-covered terrace on balmy Cotswold days. Good beer and ancient virtues aside, the pub also serves up generous platefuls of well-crafted food. The day’s menu features a fistful of hardy true-Brit stalwarts such as Dexter beef and Guinness pie with January king cabbage, but most culinary inspiration comes from the Mediterranean. A combo of burratina, raw courgette and lemon might precede braised chicken leg with fennel and soft polenta or pork chop with cannellini beans and cavolo nero, while dessert could be vanilla panna cotta with rhubarb or blood orange and almond tart. To drink, local cider tips its hat to Mr Lee, and there’s a short list of gluggable wines from £28.
