NEVER judge a book by its cover all the ugly girls say. The One Crown with its faded sign tucked away in Lower High Street, Watford is the watering hole equivalent of the adage.

It is with trepidation and a deep breath you enter the darkened door, but although what awaits you may not be the sickly sweet welcome offered by chain pubs further up the road it is was still pleasant enough.

The barmaid was, however, so intent on getting back to her conversation with the regulars at the side of the bar she failed to say please when asking for me to part with the £3.80 for a pint and fizzy fruit drink, or thank you once said monies were handed over.

Still the pub itself was a nice change from the establishments in the High Street attempting to imitate trendy London pubs.

The bar is the focal point. The way it is constructed in a U-shape allows an attack to get served during busy periods from either flank or down the middle.

Such tactics were not required for my visit. Instead I left the preoccupied barmaid and went past the well cleaned toilets out the back to the patio.

It may not live up to the OED definition of "a court open to the sky in a Spanish house," but it was clean and tidy.

The well-tended bushes and shrubs were nothing short of an oasis compared to alternatives of the other High Street pubs offering nothing more than a couple of chairs onto a busy road.

The tranquillity is broken, however, by the tinny music filtering outside, accompanied by the odd train rumbling past, and the low hum of an air conditioning unit.

Still the beer was cold and not too expensive, and that's the main thing in my book.

AH

July 18, 2002 15:00