Live Sports — Pubs in Abingdon

Disabled Access

Sports TV

Football club bar. Real ale occasionally available.

Tipsy Mercer

22 High Street, Abingdon OX14 5AX

Function Room

Live Music

The Tipsy Mercer is a family run, fully independent, freehouse bar located in the heart of Abingdon, offering beer from keg, cocktails, and fine wines. Still being set up. Food (cheese and meats) and real ale coming soon apparently.

Grapes

28 High Street, Abingdon OX14 5AX

Traditional Pub Games

Now a free house after an uncertain future under Greene King's tenure. Run as a true local with a number of TV's showing sports channels and 2 real ales although second beer not always on. There is patio beer garden to the rear with a 'horsebox' bar.

King's Head & Bell

10 East St Helen Street, Abingdon OX14 5EA

Beer Festivals

In existence before 1554 as the Bell and for some time a coaching inn in the 19th century it claimed to have stabling for nearly 100 horses and supplied the volunteer fire brigade. Although much renovated and restored - with alterations and refurbishment carried out in summer 2019 by new management - the building still has historic traces. A number of rooms include two meeting rooms upstairs and a large conservatory for diners. The old courtyard is still the nicest beer garden in the town centre.

Midget

Preston Road, Abingdon OX14 5NR

Parking

A Greene King, award-winning, single-storey, estate pub, to the south of the town centre, offering many drinks and meal deals and promotions throughout the week. The sports on tv is popular, and includes Sky 3D and HD. Opened in 1974 by Lord Stokes, then head of British Leyland Motor Corporation, for Morland who held a competition to name it. The MG works still thrived in the town and the winning name was 'The Magic Midget' after a number of record-breaking 750cc MG cars of the 1930s. In supercharged form as EX120 it became the first 750cc car to exceed 100 mph in February 1931. A major refurbishment in 2002 changed the pub to an open-plan layout and the name proved too racy for Greene King who shortened it to 'The Midget' after a 2 seater sports car produced by MG between 1961 and 1980.

Nag's Head on the Thames

The Bridge, Abingdon OX14 3HX

Real Cider Available

Beer Festivals

Set on an island in the Thames, this Grade II-listed pub is split over two levels with a large garden area next to the river and lovely views of the countryside and the town's historic buildings. Now owned by the Brakspear pubco, it offers a good choice of beers, often local. Live music plays at weekends and some weekdays. A three-time local CAMRA branch Town and Village Pub of the Year.

Old Anchor

1 St Helen's Wharf, Abingdon OX14 5EN

This fine old pub has an enviable riverside location without being quite on the river. The original Old Anchor was over the road on a site on the river that it shared with an almshouse. Three houses on the present site were remodelled to create the new inn with new almshouses next to it when St Helen's Wharf was redeveloped in 1884. There are several small rooms and a courtyard garden. Refurbished for reopening May 2021 and under new management again. No draught beer at the moment.

Punchbowl

6 Market Place, Abingdon OX14 3HG

Traditional Pub Games

Dog Friendly

Traditional town pub with two rooms - a fairly basic front bar accessed off the Market Place, and a superb panelled snug possibly C18, with wood panelling, low beams and fixed bench seating, accessed down a passageway off East St Helen Street and linked to the bar through a serving hatch. First recorded as an inn in 1775 and has had various names. On CAMRA's Regional Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors. Has increasingly rare etched glass windows with the insignia of Morlands 'United Breweries'.

White Horse

189 Ock Street, Abingdon OX14 5DW

CAMRA Discount

Originally owned by the Borough of Abingdon the White Horse dates back to 1845 when the tenant George Turb was a local merchant and beer retailer. Ten years later it was purchased by a local brewer named John Beesley before the Morland family ownership. In 1999 Greene King became the new owners and more recently extended this Grade II-listed building to provide dining facilities within this very traditional English pub. The pub has a beer garden in front and its own car park. Under new management from October 2017 but still has a good range of beers.

Black Swan

17 Bath Street, Abingdon OX14 3QH

Karaoke

Live Music

Street corner sports bar in the town centre now with no real ale. Earliest recorded date of 1854 and much modernised. Regularly under new management.

Blue Boar

1 Bath Street, Abingdon OX14 3QH

Pleasant old pub with low-beamed bar, a larger room to the rear with a conservatory and a courtyard garden. Earliest date recorded is 1809 but building much older than that.

Boundary House

69 Oxford Road, Abingdon OX14 2AA

CAMRA Discount

A large and popular pub on the main Oxford road nicely refurbished May 2016. Usual GK Meet & Eat fare but 5 real ales now. 6 Screens showing sport and another outside so hard to avoid. The building was formerly the home of Cecil Kimber, the founder of the MG Motor Company. MG cars were made in Abingdon from 1929 to 1980. The pub has a pleasant pub garden to the front, fenced off from the road, with a play area and some Astroturf instead of grass. Under new management from October 2018.

Brewery Tap

40-42 Ock Street, Abingdon OX14 5BZ

Real Cider Available

Accommodation

Morland created a tap for its brewery in 1993 from three Grade II-listed town houses. The brewery is no more but the pub, run by the same family since it opened, has thrived. It offers a diverse range of beers, all sourced locally, and hosts two or three beer festivals each year featuring ales from further afield. The pub has three rooms, two of them away from the bar, and a courtyard outside. Local CAMRA Town and Village Pub of the Year 2019 and 2020.

College Oak

Peachcroft Road, Abingdon OX14 2SB

Parking