The Ship Inn - County Durham

We stayed 2 nights at The Ship Inn, as it was our friends ' local. They 'd told us what to expect, and we weren 't disappointed! The range of real ale was exceptionally good, with a choice of mainly Yorkshire brewers, and appeared to be kept well. For dinner, the 'early bird ' menu was fantastic value for £13.95 (for 2 courses , especially for those who like beef, chicken or fish. The presentation of the starters and mains was beautiful. The only vegetarian dish was a starter, goats cheese with cranberry, red currant, dressed salad, an extra mini breaded camembert, and brie nugget. A meal in itself, so the range of sweets did well as a second course. One of our party is coeliac, and Sheila, the owner and chef, was very helpful. In the mornings, those who chose the full English breakfast were in for a treat. Again, Sheila was very kind and prepared a superb bowl of freshly picked berries and stilton for the vegetarian (the breakfast menu in the guest books is evidently out of date , and nothing was too much trouble. The bed was firm, and very comfortable, the shower was really powerful (a nice surprise! with a large cubicle. We had 2 rooms for our party (2 couples , and both were identical, clean and well appointed. We were very lucky with the weather, the views from the lovely garden towards the sea were really beautiful, it 's a lovely position. There are buses from outside the pub, and local taxis are available it 's a good place to explore the local sea coast, as well as the city of Durham. Peter, the owner, was very keen to share his local knowledge and put us right on a good route for our journey home.

After taking a last minute break to Sunderland to see the tall ships we could'nt find anywhere to stay the night with our motorhome, hunted round on the interweb and found The Ship Inn, Rang the pub and they were quite happy for us to park up in the car park for the night, nice big car park so we did not interfer with other customers parking, then the real bonus, went in for a drink and a meal, what a find, very very friendly, extremely nice beer and stunning food, Many thanks for your hospitality...

I stopped by recently while out for a drive. The staff was friendly. We both ordered sandwiches and didn't have to wait long for them to arrive. The food was tasty. I would definitely stop by again if I am in the area.

The food was ok and lots of it.My wife had the pork with Yorkshire pudding ,six vegetables .I had baked cod with a stir fry veg.selection .nicely cooked but not a lot of taste.The pork was a thick slice and had very little taste. Our starters were good ,prawn cocktail and black pudding and haggis . We were puzzled by the wine pricing.A 250 mil glass of wine costs £6 50 but the full bottle only £12 95 ,i.e.£19 50 a bottle if you had three glasses ! When I mentioned this to the owner he said that they give more than 250mils ! Couldn’t get my point across . The owner doesn’t like constructive criticism and looking at other reviews that seems to be borne out by other reviewers. The service was excellent and the serving staff very polite and friendly. ,

I have just had the most wonderful smoked haddock dinner ever at the ship inn Shena the chef is outstanding locally produced food products, she has the ability to turn basic ingredients into a heavenly dish of the highest quality and standards my family had lamb chicken curry steak pie, and of course the haddock Thank you for this very fine cusine