We were staying in Chesham over the August bank holiday weekend and noticed The Swan were hosting the Ley Hill Music and Beer Festival and thought that it might be nice to attend the event. However, our day went from bad to worse. We got a taxi to the pub from our hotel which was 2.5 miles away and they charged us a staggering £10.20 - rip off price we thought! The pub itself is charming and full of character and is in a lovely little setting, but when we arrived at about 1pm just as the event had started, you could see the landlady was already stressed out!! She was in a bit of a panic and was shouting at some of her staff, which made us feel a bit on edge. I had read the reviews about the food being really good, however, we never got to try it as when we tried to order, she had closed the kitchen - we were very disappointed especially as we had only gone inside the pub about 15 mins beforehand to pick up the menu and no one had advised us to order our food then as the kitchen was about to be closed! We made do with a cheese burger from the barbeque which was very tasty. We then decided to leave and rang the cab company to take us back to our hotel (same taxi company, Goddards) but he wanted to charge us £15 and said that "they had a special rate with the hotel" - yeah the rip off rate!!! We refused to pay it and decided to go to The Crown next door who arranged a taxi for us at a lower rate.
Therefore I conclude, picturesque pub, great local festival but shame about the landlady and that we never got to taste the food and beware fo the local cab companies!!! read more