FINDING a pub lunch that ticks all the boxes isn’t easy — especially when your dining companions include small children and people with disabilities.

Before you even get as far as the food and the ambience, there are the very basics to consider, such as getting into the pub at all.

The Freke Arms, set in open countryside just outside Highworth, is all natural stone and painted yellow render and emerges invitingly from the grey mist on a cold winter’s day.

As my companions are two disabled badge holders and two hungry children, I am relieved when the car park has three designated disabled spaces — and all are empty. Our journey is further eased by the wide disabled access which gently slopes up to the door and is then flat all the way to the bar and the loos.

Everyone safely inside, the barmaid greets us like old friends and chats happily to the children, who are bordering on being wild with hunger, as she shows us to a bright and comfortable window seat.

We order drinks while we peruse the menu — a latte for me (they serve Lavazza coffee, a personal favourite), a pint of Carling and an orange juice for the grown-ups and fruit shoot-style drinks and water for the kids.

There are nine options on the children’s menu and I am pleased to see it is a pick ‘n’ mix style format to appease any temper tantrums.

After telling my four-year-old she couldn’t have an egg, chicken nugget and fish finger, she settled on ham, egg, chips and peas. My older daughter opts for deep fried chicken in batter with chips and corn on the cob. The children’s menu is a very reasonable £4.95 with the option to add a pudding for £3.95.

For the grown-ups, the Freke Arms’ two-course lunchtime set menu offers a list of four starters, five main courses and five puddings, all for just £7.95, available Monday to Saturday.

The rest of the menu features pub classics such as basket meals, ploughman’s lunch, jacket potatoes, filled baguettes, burgers, pies and lasagne as well as three veggie options. There’s also an extensive range of side dishes and a blackboard of daily specials.

Our teenage waiter appears with my latte, which is excellent — and I am monumentally picky when it comes to coffee. I announce this to my mother who gulps down her orange juice and orders a decaf version. She reports back – equally excellent.

Having placed our orders we sit back and relax for the 20 minutes or so until the dishes — all cooked to order — arrive.

My companions both have the lamb shanks which appear in a sea of rich gravy and fall from the bone, tender from slow cooking, accompanied by mashed potato and peas.

I go for the vegetable bake with Camembert and red onion compote and am surprised once it turns up to discover it doesn’t actually contain any vegetables. It turns out to be a single Camembert, open baked in a case of hot water crust pastry, served with new potatoes and salad. The molten cheese is delicious, the pastry is crisp and the potatoes are cooked perfectly, with butter on the side. The salad is dressed with a delicious sauce and the meal, though a little stodgy, is quite pleasant.

Meanwhile, the children’s meals are cut up and demolished with delight– the chips in particular, which melt in the mouth with a crisp outside and fluffy inside, go down a storm.

The word “freke” is the old English word for a brave man, warrior or hero, and believe me, you need to have a heroic appetite to do justice to the portion sizes. I have to leave half of my meal in order to have room for pudding.

The children order banana custard and chocolate fudge cake with ice cream – again, both demolished, no cajoling necessary.

We adults went for a jam sponge with custard, a malted chocolate truffle bar with ice cream and a banoffee pie, all home made to a high standard and all delicious. The pub also has two gluten free puddings and an allergen aware policy to ensure that any health needs are catered for.

The pub website describes the Freke Arms as a gastro pub. For me, this brings to mind the pine tables and white table linen of a chain pub – and the Freke Arms is far cosier and more inviting than that. The pub has been reconfigured over many years of converting and extending and is satisfyingly higgledy piggledy, arranged over three open plan levels, with a feeling of space yet enough nooks and crannies for privacy.

I give the Freke Arms a very creditable 9.5/10. The accommodation, the décor, the welcome and the food were all excellent. Had my vegetable bake contained vegetables, I’d have given it full marks!

The Freke Arms

Swanborough

Highworth

SN6 7RN

frekearms.co.uk

Parking: Private car park - about 40 spaces - three disabled

Disabled access: Yes. Excellent. 

Adver ratings: 9.5/10

Food: 9.5/10

Choice: 10/10

Decor: 9/10

Customer service: 10/10

Main course prices: £9.95 to £19.95

TripAdvisor rating: 4/5