Harrow, Steep

A great unspoilt but hard-to-find pub just east of Bedales School and part of a tile-hung terrace. In the Dodd / McCutcheon family since 1932 with present owners sisters Claire & Nisa (granddaughters of Arthur & Annie May Dodd) having spent their entire lives here initially helping their grandmother in the kitchen. Their mother, Ellen McCutcheon, died in 2004 and her obituary appeared in the Daily Telegraph and also newspapers in Canada and New Zealand. The family bought the pub from Whitbread in 1991.

It has two splendid, little-altered rustic bars with venerable old fittings. The two bars (public left, smoking room right) measure only about 12 ft x 12 ft each. A brick path leads to the public bar door with its latch door. The public bar has a brick floor by the door, red & black quarry-tiled floor and full height tongue and grove panelling. There is a massive inglenook fireplace with log fire and old fireback. Seating consists of basic wall benches on two sides, short benches near the servery, also logs for seats.

Service is through a hatch with two doors held back permanently and behind there are no optics, no bottles of lager but one long wooden stillage (carefully renovated and raised three inches in 2008/9) full of casks of real ale. The bar back consists of shelves added to the panelling on the rear wall that replaced some older ones in the 1980s. The small atmospheric drinking space means that once the diners have moved on and the drinkers dominate you are soon brought into conversation with the locals. Ask to see 'The Book of Harrow Quotes and Wise Sayings'. On the tables in the public bar there are bowls of walnuts etc., also a nut cracker and you can help your self!

The equally small second room on the right still retains its original name plate 'Smoking Room' and alongside it a modern 'No Smoking' sign to comply with recent legislation! Through the latch door you will find a carpet and lino floored room with a collection of stuffed animals, an old Polyphon and a picture of the royal family dated 1880. It has an old tongue and groove dado which runs across the hatch, assorted seating includes a pew and two corner benches, and there is a Victorian tiled, cast iron and wood surround fireplace.

This is one of those rare pubs to still have an outside (and partly open-air) Gents', the ladies' are also outside and both are situated some 15 yards across the lane in front of the pub. Whitbread, supported by East Hampshire Council, devised a plan to integrate the two bars for the purpose of providing indoor lavatories, an arrangement which local health officials deemed unhygienic. Ellen McCutcheon was supported by the customers with hundreds writing letters making it the highest number of objections the local planning office had ever received!

There is lots of seating outside including some under a short veranda making the Harrow very popular in sunny weather. Major emphasis on local beers with at least two available. Home-cooked food cooked on a traditional Rayburn cooker with the hearty Harrow pea and ham soup a speciality. There is no electronic till, no TV, no piped music, no TV, and no pool table. Tens of thousands of pounds have been raised for local and national charities. Outside you will see plants for sale and inside ‘The Harrow Cook Book’, containing lots of recipes compiled by the locals is available for £10.