The Wheatsheaf Farnham

The Wheatsheaf sits on West Street, close to the edge of Farnham's market square, and it is what it says it is: a town pub. Not a dining pub with a pub attached, not a bar trading on a concept. A pub, in the middle of a town, doing the job pubs have always done.

The price band is £, and that matters more than it might sound. In a town where a fair number of places have drifted upward, where a round can quietly become an event, a pub that stays at the lower end of the scale is doing something useful. It means you can go without deciding in advance that tonight is a big night. You can call in for one. You can meet someone for an hour. The economics of the place allow for the sort of casual, unplanned visit that a more expensive room quietly discourages.

It is categorised as a bar rather than a restaurant, and readers should take that at face value. Drink is the centre of it. The ale range is described as good, and that is the draw worth knowing about. What food there is, and when it is served, is not something we can tell you from the facts we have, so ring ahead if you are counting on eating, rather than turning up hungry and hoping.

Quiz nights are the other thing the place is known for. Quiz nights reward a particular kind of group: four or five people, no rush, a table held for a couple of hours. If that is your evening, it is worth checking the day and time before you set out, because pub quizzes move and we are not going to guess at a schedule.

Who is it for? A weeknight after work. A Saturday afternoon when you have finished in town and do not want to go home yet. The kind of pre-arranged meet-up where the venue is not the point. It is described as drawing a mix of ages, which is a genuinely uncommon thing and usually a sign that a pub has not been redesigned to chase one particular crowd.

What it is less suited to is the occasion evening. If you are marking something, a birthday that matters, an anniversary, a table of eight who have travelled, Farnham has places better set up for that, and this is not trying to be one of them.

Before booking, two practical notes. West Street is central, which is good for walking to and from and less good for parking, so plan accordingly. And a busy town pub on a Friday is a busy town pub; if you want to sit down with a group, go early or ask first.

The honest position: The Wheatsheaf is a reliable, inexpensive, central pub in a town that has plenty of smarter options and rather fewer straightforward ones. That is not a small thing. It is a pub people use, rather than one they save up for.