The Hampshire Hog is a pub and hotel owned by Fuller's situated just off the A3 near the village of…read moreClanfield, between Petersfield and Horndean. Situated just inside the southern boundary of the South Downs National Park, it is a great location for visiting the nearby Butser Hill viewpoint, the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, Buster Ancient Farm, East Sussex and Portsmouth. Although on a map it is located really close to the A3, the road is in a cutting at this point and there is very little noise.
We stayed recently for 3 nights B&B, in a superior room: that gives you more space, a small seating area, and a large bathroom with two washbasins and a twin shower (i.e. on large cubicle two showers, each with rainforest shower heads). Standard rooms have baths and/or showers.
The room itself was exactly as described, and was very comfortable and clean - nice bed linen and tastefully decorated. The mattress was a tad firm for my liking, but you'll like it if you're used to an orthopaedic mattress. I liked the fact they had a blackout blind as well as curtains.
Rooms come with tower fans, iron and ironing board and a fitted hair dryer, safe, and of course TV. The bathroom was huge, the shower was great, with good water pressure and plenty of hot water quickly.
The only quibbles we had were that the towel rail radiator and safe were not working on arrival. We reported these and the safe was fixed that day and the towel rail the following day. Wifi speed was good (between 3 and 20 Mbps) but the signal strength dropped sometimes, but it was consistently good in the bar area.
We also ate at the pub every evening, as we wanted to be able to have a drink and there is no other hostelry within walking distance. They serve a decent range of beers, lagers and real ales, and have a collection of specialty gins. The menu is quite extensive, with lots of named producers, although the choice for vegetarians and vegans is a bit more limited (one veggie main and one 'plant-based' - excellent olives as a pre-meal nibble though).
The evening meals were good pub grub standard, although if you want a Sunday roast you need to get there at lunchtime (they'd run out of roast potatoes by the evening) with generous portions (we could only manage two courses). There was a similarly decent choice of puddings. Worth booking as they are very popular. Chilled decanters of tap water are provided free. Our meals of two courses and a drink came to around £45-£50 for two.
Breakfast provides similar choice, with full English, vegan English, Eggs Benedict, scrambled eggs with salmon or poached with avocado, porridge with yoghurt, maple syrup and berries, fruit plates, and toast with a choice of jams/marmalade. Portions were pretty generous - if you added the fruit plate and toast, you'd have a good start to the day.
The only real quibble was food service: although always friendly, it varied from excellent to slow - we waited 30 minutes one morning for breakfast to arrive, despite having a timed slot.
The biggest plus of the stay overall was the staff, who were lovely and very helpful, answering queries happily and making check-in and check-out very straightforward. Provision for covid-19 was excellent. Overall, it seemed like a very dependable option, and was good value for money.
Practicalities: there's a car park behind the hotel wing for guests in addition to main car park at the front of the hotel. Access off the A3 is very easy, though the turn-offs are short with tight bends. There's a room for guests with disabilities on the ground floor and level access there and through to the pub.
