![]() ![]() If there’s a hostelry that flirts with the platonic ideal of what a modern public house should be, it’s likely The Marksman on London’s Hackney Road. “People always ask me if we have loads of ghosts here,” says the Inn’s charming longtime owner, John Vereker, “and I always tell them the same thing: if there are, we never hear from them because they are all too busy having a good time." High Road, Horndon-On-The-Hill, Essex SS17 8LD. ![]() And for visitors that want to go beyond the gastro-pub, next door (and at weekends only) there is the Bell’s stylish sister establishment, The Ostlers, a cocktail bar and restaurant. If you prefer a more traditional pub experience, the wooden-beamed bar is reserved for purists who just want a pint, whereas the popular dining room is for guests who don’t consider eating to be cheating. Which is a little surprising because for 600 years the timber-framed building has been a social centre for local life and increasingly attracted new visitors thanks to its old-fashioned appeal, an outstanding daily changing menu ( GQ heartily recommends the roasted lamb chump and triple-cooked chips) and a collection of large, characterful rooms ranging from the antique to the luxuriously modern. Today, a blue plaque commemorating the grisly event hangs on the wall outside the inn, but it seems that Thomas Higbed’s spirit has not haunted the scene of his martyrdom. ![]() However, rather than seek out a flagon of ale, a hot pie and then chat up a serving wench (perhaps the only way wasn’t Essex back then), the sheriff headed for the coaching house courtyard and burned a local landowner at the stake for the crime of heresy. In 1555, more than a century after The Bell Inn had first opened in the pretty country village of Horndon-On-The-Hill, the sheriff of Essex popped round with a few of his cronies. This is definitely a pub, but this is definitely not pub food. Or there’s the pork tenderloin, a perfect cylinder joined by juicy pork belly, fondant potato and an artful heap of vegetables – carrots, broccoli, baby leeks – plucked straight from the pub’s kitchen garden. A generous portion of guinea fowl sits on a bed of puy lentils, pancetta and wild mushrooms, whose sauce soaks into a crisp rosti. ![]()
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