The Bell in Ticehurst

Lovely pub/ restaurant and rooms. (Rooms need stand alone air conditioning units for hot weather.) The food is very good and often locally sourced. Outdoor spaces are great. Some interesting art around the place. We strongly recommend.

Celebrated my mum in laws 80th birthday in 'The Stable' and was very happy with all aspects, from the point of making the initial booking, to being able to allow individual families pay their own part of the bill. With 18 family members needing to be served, the kitchen did an excellent job of sending hot meals to the table at a swift pace. Our main server, Jay, was brilliant and did an fantastic job also. Everyone was very positive about their food and portions were very generous. We were aware that our table was needed for another large booking and we were communicated with brilliantly and gently reminded of our agreement to vacate the table at the agreed time. Our celebration cake, supplied by ourselves, was presented at the table and cut by the kitchen and we were able to gather in the garden yo enjoy that at the end of the meal. So happy that we decided to chose The Bell for our celebration, it was perfect

We were all really excited to go here however, came out quite disappointed... Once we had somewhere to sit no one came to our table for over 30 minutes to take an order. We had to prompt at the bar and someone soon came out however, there was no apology. The man who dealt with us did deal with any questions or queries we had, but yet again it had to come from us unfortunately. When we were seated we soon discovered there was loud building works taking place, with dust coming over in our direction. It's great to see them making developments but there was no communication of this on their website. After being moved it was a lot more quieter. When the booking was made it was made aware that it was one of the party members birthday however, not a single bit of fuss was made. The food was lovely, although there were no red meats on the menu other than a burger. We would have loved to of had a steak or ribs option, especially with the smokehouse! However, the one disappointment was the cheeseboard for £12 there was more crackers than cheese. Although, it did have a good selection to choose from. The most shocking part was the cost of the prosecco! Being a birthday celebration, a bottle was ordered which came to £42 and a service charge on top! Having looked into how much this costs it's little over £10 retail so that mark up is awful! I understand the business has to make a profit but that's horrendous! This is a real shame as the venue is stunning and has potential to be an amazing place, it is just a real shame the customer service didn't match.