The Farmers Arms
| Contact | Bryan & Sally Farmer |
|---|---|
| Address | Mathry Haverfordwest Pembrokeshire SA62 5HB |
| Phone | 01348 831284 |
| Website | http://www.farmersarmsmathry.co.uk/ |
The Farmers Arms is a handsome, creeper-clad period building in the centre of Mathry. Inside, it has masses of charm, with beams and a welcoming fire in the winter, while to the rear is a garden room with masses of flowers and a virtual vineyard of black grapes. The pub has gained an excellent reputation for its warm hospitality and the quality of its real home-cooked food that is served every lunchtime and evening for most of the year.
"We're the only pub in the village and very much a centre for the local community, and often have quizzes, bingo, live music and other events here. The pub itself has been here for goodness knows how long. It was certainly in the 1896 census, but it goes back a lot further than that. Mathry is supposed to be one of the oldest villages in Pembrokeshire and the present church is the fifth one on the site, so it would have been on the pilgrim's route to St David's. In fact they say that pilgrims used to brew beer on the site.
Now we have a good range of local Welsh and guest ales always on tap and we've built a good reputation, over the six years or so we've been here, for doing really good pub food. We still run a farm as well, which is what we were doing before we bought the pub. It's ridiculous isn't it? Here we are, with the name Farmer, both farmers and running the Farmer's Arms! Mind you we have a lot of help from our daughter - and we need it, especially in the summer season when we could be doing 120 meals a day.
We do everything from sandwiches and jacket potatoes to stuffed peppers, home-baked honeyed ham, steaks, fish dishes, curries and vegetarian main courses. We're very keen to use locally sourced products whenever we can. And we've been awarded the Pembrokeshire Produce Mark for the use of locally sourced products. Being this close to the sea, we do lots of fish when we can of course. Our home made crab cakes, which use local Abercastle crab, are a real speciality and very popular, so we would advise you to book for a meal.
Having the garden room helps though. We have wedding parties, christening and other functions there and it gives us extra capacity in the peak months. It's gorgeous in the summer with all the flowers, and pounds and pounds of grapes on the vines. We want to insulate the roof better though so we can use it all year round. That would make a real difference. We're also looking to go on a green electricity tariff. Other than that we recycle as much as possible and use low energy bulbs and the like. And one thing we believe is very important is to reuse, rather than recycle, whenever you can. For example, we stopped using one supplier of mixers, tonic water etc, because they stopped taking the bottles back. Now we use another manufacturer who takes them back and reuses them. That's so much more sensible."
