WHAT started out as a swift pint at the New Queen quickly escalated into an afternoon in the pub’s beer garden.

The warm and sunny weather might have goaded my girlfriend and I into whiling away most of the day there, but this cracking little pub also played its part.

They say that the devil is in the detail and the New Queen knows it. As you enter the pub there’s a table with free newspapers, a bowl of fruit and a sign that reads “help yourself to one of your five a day”.

Free Granny Smiths and a copy of The Independent are hardly synonymous with traditional boozers, but things have moved on from spit and sawdust – men are doing pilates nowadays and it’s touches like these that show the New Queen is moving with the times.

However, that’s not to say the Hall and Woodhouse pub has lost touch with its roots.

Its selection of beers, including numerous local brews from Badger, should cater for the most hardened drinkers, while the pub itself is comfortable for drinking in, whether you like propping up the bar or slouching in a leather sofa.

However, today was too sunny to be inside so we sat in the beer garden, sipping beer next to a stream.

As our stomachs began to rumble we inspected the menu and decided to order some pub grub – a beef burger with local blue cheese, apple chutney and chips, and a chicken burger with chips.

The service was friendly and the food didn’t taste like your average pub grub – although burgers are hardly an à la carte choice, they were absolutely sublime.

The tart blue cheese, the sweet apple chutney and the juicy burger made this one of the best I have tasted, while reports from the other side of the picnic bench were also heaped with praise.

Our delicious feast was swilled down with coffee and a few bottles of the gorgeous Blandford Fly, and the bill (including drinks) came to a very reasonable £28.78.

This superb little pub seems to have got everything absolutely spot on. If only it was at the end of my road.