The Kingham Plough
A gastropub at the heart of storybook Kingham, good enough to draw people from miles around.
A gastropub at the heart of storybook Kingham, good enough to draw people from miles around.
Kingham is one of those villages that has quietly become a destination, and The Kingham Plough sits right at the centre of it, facing the green in a handsome seventeenth-century stone building. It started life as a spit-and-sawdust local, but for years now it has been one of the most respected dining pubs in this corner of the Cotswolds, a fixture on the Top 50 Gastropubs list. What we like is that none of that has cost it its character. The log fires, the low beams, the mismatched antique tables and the quirky prints on the walls all feel lived-in rather than styled, and you can still perch at the bar with a pint if that is all you are after.
The cooking is contemporary British, built around local and seasonal ingredients from suppliers the kitchen clearly trusts. Menus change often enough that we never bother trying to guess what will be on when we book, and that is part of the pleasure. There is a proper à la carte in the restaurant, but also a bar menu of lighter bites and small plates that runs through the day, so it works whether you want a long, unhurried dinner or just a good lunch after a walk. The wine list is thoughtful without showing off, and the service strikes that hard-to-manage balance of looking after you without ever hovering.
It is a genuinely flexible place, which is why it comes up so often when we are deciding where to eat. A few of the ways we end up here:
The Plough is about fifteen to twenty minutes from the cottage, out towards Kingham village. It is an easy landmark to find: it faces directly onto the green in the middle of the village, and Kingham railway station is only a mile or so away, which makes it a useful spot to meet anyone arriving by train from London. Daylesford Organic Farm is just down the lane, so it is easy to string the two together into a single outing: a morning at the farm shop, then lunch or an early dinner here. If you want to make more of an evening of it, book a table for after dark and let someone else worry about the cooking.
It is worth knowing that the Plough has rooms too, six individually furnished bedrooms plus a small barn cottage, so if friends are joining and the cottage is full it is a handy overflow just up the road. For us, though, the appeal is simply that it is close, consistently excellent, and the kind of place you settle into without meaning to. Weekend evenings fill up, so book ahead for Friday or Saturday dinner; a quiet midweek lunch you can often walk into.
“Where we go when we want dinner to feel like an event. The food is consistently excellent, the room is lovely, and it's close enough that you're back at the cottage before the fire goes out.”
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All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.