Let us deal with the caveat first, because it matters more than the list. We do not publish dog policies for other people’s businesses. Whether a pub takes dogs in the bar but not the dining room, or in the garden only, or on a Tuesday but not a Saturday lunchtime, is a decision the landlord makes and changes, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes on the spot. Ring ahead. A two-minute call is worth more than a paragraph written by someone who does not work there.
With that said, here is where we send guests, in the order we tend to send them.
The George at Frant is the first answer, and usually the last. It is the village pub, up the lane on the ridge by the green and the church, and it is a ten-minute walk from the gate. The walk is a country lane with no pavement for part of the way, which means daylight going up and a torch coming back. Ring the pub or ask in the village for current hours; they are not ours to publish.
The Abergavenny Arms, on the Frant road, is the one for a table booked properly in advance, or for the evening when The George is full and you have four people and a plan.
In Tunbridge Wells, ten minutes north, Thackeray’s occupies a tile-hung seventeenth-century house on London Road and is the town’s long-standing occasion restaurant — book well ahead for a Saturday.
That is not a dog outing, and we would not suggest otherwise. If the dog has come with you, the honest structure of a weekend is a walk and a pub lunch on one day, and a dinner in the house on the other. Which brings us to the fourth option, and the one guests underuse.
Eat in. The Oast has an AGA and a butler’s fridge in the kitchen, with the American-style fridge in the boot room, and Fuller’s farm shop at Bunny Lane is a few minutes from the top of our lane — a butchery counter and locally sourced provisions, the makings of dinner rather than a weekly shop. Check their hours on the site before driving over. The Frant Post Office and village shop covers the forgotten pint of milk. A breakfast hamper or Sussex sparkling wine on arrival can be requested with a booking made direct with us.
That is the whole list, and it is deliberately short. There are more pubs within twenty minutes than we could vouch for, and vouching is the only thing that makes a recommendation worth reading.
Ring ahead. A two-minute call is worth more than a paragraph written by someone who does not work there.