Monkey House, Defford (Cider House)

Unique - that's the Cider House, one of the country's most unspoilt pubs and part of a C17 thatched, half-timbered listed building. It has been in landlady Gill Collins family for 150 years. The main bar is actually outside - its the front garden! There is seating outside including tables and chairs on the path leading to the hatch; under the eaves of the cottage; and all over the sizeable garden. And if the weather isn't too good you can enjoy a drink in the former bakehouse at the side which has a latch door, screeded floor, pew and other seats, a wood burning stove in a brick fireplace with the bread oven alongside.

The drink is cider for this is one of only four remaining cider-only houses in the country (no beer is served). Service is not over one of those new-fangled bar counters but through a hatch in a stable door on the left of the cottage. The casks of cider are stillaged behind in a ground-floor 'cellar'. many locals drink out of their own pottery mugs. It has possibly the most unspoilt outside gents' toilets in the country - four concrete block walls and no roof so tall gents can see into the fields and have a 360 degrees view of the surrounding countryside. The outside ladies' does have a roof! This wonderful establishment also goes by the nickname 'The Monkey'. Many years ago a well-mellowed customer returned home covered in cuts and scratches which he attributed to being set upon by a tribe of monkeys (rather than a self-induced collapse into a bramble patch).

The regular cider is a 6% dry blend made especially for the Cider House by Westons of Much Marcle at a remarkably good price of £2.40 (2011), also Medium at 5% and a 4.1% Perry (from a polypin). There is no beer or lager, they have wine, but the perry is better value, and soft drinks. "This is a true Cider House" says landlady Gill Collins.