Ian Nairn looks at the changing face of Britain

Most drinkers are unanimous in their preference for Victorian city pubs or rural inns instead of the chrome and plate-glass of the modern pub. Ian Nairn shows that it is possible to build a good modern pub or successfully modernise an older one.
Unfortunately these good modern pubs, or ones that have been imaginatively modernised usually on the landlord's own initiative are few and far between. Most of them are in the London area, but Ian Nairn has discovered three more on the south coast: two in Portsmouth and one in Brighton which advertises itself as Britain's first family pub. But he is the first to admit that a pub is something much more than its architecture and design, and seizes the chance to attack irritants, like the trend towards larger and larger breweries selling keg and similar beers, 'tied houses' - and not least, the British licensing laws.
From the North
See page 36